The Last Champion

John Wright was once an Olympic wrestler. A doping scandal took his medal and his name from him, and his life came apart. When his mother dies he goes back to a hometown that has not forgiven him. Most of the town gives him the cold shoulder. When he is asked to coach the struggling high school wrestling team, two roads lie in front of him: to walk away, or to stay and try again. The film takes the question of forgiveness at the scale of a small town. Whether a return is possible at all matters as much here as the sport does. Cole Hauser takes the lead, with Peter Onorati and Sean H. Scully also in the cast. Glenn Withrow’s hundred and twenty two minute American film was completed in 2020.