WWE Daily

Newsday.com got an interview with Robert Siegel, ccreenwriter for The Wrestler,. Here are a few highlights from the interview:

AC: Did you have any thought in this movie being some kind of public service for the pro wrestling industry in that you’re really kind of casting a light on something that most people don’t know about - what becomes of these down and out wrestlers – and getting some attention paid to it?

RS: I think that would be a great bonus for the movie. It wasn’t intended to be any kind of expose of the treatment of former wrestlers or anything. But having met these guys, they’re bodies are pretty beat up and most of them don’t have health insurance. The typical guy who was wrestling in the 80’s – even at the top level – unless you’re Hulk Hogan, most of those guys who wrestled at those cards at Madison Square Garden or Nassau Coliseum, where I would go, they’re in pretty bad shape today. Wrestling – the WWF (sic) doesn’t, generally speaking, take great care of its own. They kind of use you. And again, it wasn’t meant as an expose. That’s just what any wrestler would tell you. You have a certain shelf life and at a certain point it’s “Thank you very much for your years of going off the top rope for us, but now we have to move on.” And that’s the harsh reality of it. So meeting these guys, you can’t help but kind of feel sympathy for them. They love this sport. And in some cases, they love this sport more than the sport loves them back. So, it’s been a nice aspect of this movie – the fact that we’re showing these guys and their lives and hopefully giving people an appreciation for the sacrifices they’ve made – physically certainly – to entertain people and make people happy.

AC: Because of that point you made about WWE not taking care of these guys, I left the movie thinking, “Vince McMahon is going to hate this movie.” And I hear you’re doing a screening for him some time.

RS: Yeah, it sounds like they’ve warned him as the movie’s gotten bigger and more legit… As the movie gets bigger it somehow becomes more legitimate. I don’t know the psychology of it. I think originally, Darren was thinking – this was years ago – that he would make a movie set in the world of pro wrestling, meaning WWF, WWE-style pro wrestling. But I think it became very quickly apparent that the way he would want to tell that story, Vince McMahon would have no interest in supporting, and probably would try to stop. And then he thought about doing a kind of period piece sort of set in the 70’s, but it was very expensive. And so he met with a lot of guys who were wrestling in the 70’s and 80’s, and he became more interested in their lives today. And he was amazed to find out that many of these guys were still wrestling. And that became sort of more interesting to him, and also more realistic budget-wise.

AC: Was there a reluctance from any wrestlers to cooperate? I mean, once upon a time, a movie like this would have been incredibly taboo – I mean showing how you blade, and how you prepare a match and all that.

RS: No. I found that wrestlers are not like magicians where they’re super-protective of the tricks of their trade. They were willing to share and give away how it’s done, so to speak. They were happy to kind of pull back the curtains. They were all very cooperative. We worked closely with the Samoans, who run a wrestling academy down in Allentown. We went down there and met with a lot of those guys. Ring of Honor, CZW in Philadelphia. The only difference I would say in terms of cooperation were most of the places we went – We would film at live events and embed our fake match into the regular card. We shot at real wrestling events. Most of them were really excited and cooperative. But when we went down to Philly for the CZW guys, (the fans) just wanted their matches. They just wanted to see their blood and the hardcore stuff. I think they felt like the presence of Hollywood was watering down the action, and also interfering. They were like chanting, “F—- Hollywood!” and just booing. They were kind of a different breed.

RS: Yeah. In the course of writing this movie, so many wrestlers – every year, a few big names die tragically. Anything from Chris Benoit too…

AC: You mentioned Chris Candido before. Was he involved in the making of the movie at some point?

RS: Well, Candido I saw wrestle a lot. I have a bunch of pictures I took with him. We loved him. Bam Bam Bigelow I saw wrestle a few times. Those two in particular, I definitely remember seeing and speaking to during the shooting of the movie. I’ve lost track, but tin the last four or five years, definitely a lot of wrestlers have died. I’m probably forgetting some of them – some of the big ones. But it’s kind of what happens. To Read the Full interview, GO HERE>>>>>