Mauro Ranallo’s Battle with Bipolar Disorder to be Profiled in Showtime’s “Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller”

WWE commentator and modern combat commentary wizard Mauro Ranallo is not one to keep his mental illness secret. One look at his Twitter yields “Mental Health Advocate” in his bio and many tweets with hashtags like #StandTogether and #CureStigma. For Ranallo, who makes his living with a loud, boisterous voice, there’s no reason to suffer in silence.

“Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller,” named after Ranallo’s 90’s radio moniker, is an upcoming Showtime documentary about his struggle with bipolar disorder. You can watch the trailer below:

We as a society are taking tiny steps forward in compassionately fighting mental health stigma. However, some conditions are more heavily stigmatized than others. Bipolar is about on par with OCD as an illness used to describe a misrepresented version of a legitimate symptom. In the way that OCD is “acting like Monk from Monk,” being bipolar is just having mood swings.

This may be the widest audience a complete, honest struggle with bipolar disorder – the good, the bad, the ugly – has ever gotten.

“I wanna kick the living crap out of this.”

Ranallo’s 2017 departure from Smackdown was something of a sudden, harsh teaching moment for a lot of wrestling fans. His return to NXT, a triumph. But it was still marred by wild, often gross speculation, as the internet does. Despite Ranallo’s always-inspiring openness, due to the nature of information traveling it was still a skeleton of the story. However, if its trailer is any indication, “Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller” is going to show the muscle, blood, guts, heart, and – perhaps most importantly – the brain of combat sports commentary’s modern marvel and one of mental health’s loudest advocates.

The documentary premieres May 25 at 9PM ET/PT on SHOWTIME.

In the meantime, Mauro, never silent, keeps “fighting the good fight.”

-Bobby Murphy (@RobertJMurph)

Image courtesy of Showtime Sports on Youtube