The great contender, by Stephanie Bunbury - The Age - 11th January 2009

Once considered down for the final count, Hollywood maverick Mickey Rourke is back in the ring and how, writes Stephanie Bunbury.

Couldabeen a contender. Nobody fits that phrase better than Mickey Rourke. Remember how he started out? Hailed as the new Marlon Brando in his breakthrough film Diner (1982), Rourke was then an actor of subtlety and can't-take-your-eyes-off-him presence who was also, just by the way, a smouldering sex god. It took just a few years, however, before he managed to squander those gifts through sheer craziness. Mid-'90s, Mickey Rourke was living on hand-outs from a mate, trying to be a pro boxer even though he was middle-aged. Every now and then he would do a day or two on films that hardly anyone saw or would want to see. Even his psychiatrist told him that out of all the hot talent in Hollywood of the time, only he could fall that far.

But now, quite miraculously, Mickey Rourke has been reborn as not simply a contender, but a hot tip for this year's best actor Oscar. In The Wrestler, the new film from Darren Aronofsky, Rourke plays washed-up Randy the Ram, a man who has lived only for the tinny glory of playing the good guy in the spit-and-sawdust theatrics of wrestling shows. Like Rourke himself, Randy is a clanking wreck after too many crashes on the ropes and cheap steroids; like Rourke, he chose hell-raising over child-raising and is paying for it in loneliness and a grey sense of general regret. Even as a member of the audience, it is painful seeing these parallels played out. Rourke, meanwhile, gives the performance of a lifetime. A Golden Globe nomination is already in the bag.

I met Mickey Rourke for the first time when Sin City premiered in Cannes in 2005. That was his real comeback; even though he was unrecognisable under a comic-book facial prosthetic. The part of Marvin, crazed avenger, was only one of the film's several leads, but everyone was talking about him. Mickey was talking about himself too; in fact, he would tell anyone anything. This was partly a habit born of therapy - at one stage in his chequered life, Rourke was going three times a week - but it was also born of gratitude. "You know," he told the Observer recently, "many years have gone by when no one wanted me to sit in a room and ask me questions ... so I'm thankful for it. It's been a long, long time."

Of course, he had quite a story to tell and, as a showman, he knew it. Young Mickey, he says, grew up tough in a dangerous, almost entirely black neighbourhood in Miami, shielding himself and his little brother, Joey, from an abusive stepfather. He started boxing in his teens, fighting the likes of Luis Rodriguez (who was soon to win the world middleweight title) until a bad concussion brought his time in gloves to an abrupt halt. So he worked his way into the Actors' Studio in New York - he liked the idea, he says, of becoming someone else - and became the Mickey Rourke we know from films such as Coppola's Rumble Fish, Alan Parker's Angel Heart and Barbet Schroeder's Barfly, in which he seemingly channelled the Beat writer Charles Bukowski.

But even after he became feted, famous and, briefly, fabulously rich, Rourke was still a fighter. "Working with Mickey Rourke is a nightmare," said Parker after they made Angel Heart. "He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he's going to do." There were fights in nightclubs and tantrums on sets; there was the gang of Cuban heavies who went everywhere with him; in 1994, he was charged with assaulting his then wife, Carre Otis. By that time, he was virtually unemployable. "Of course, the drinking and the drugs ... did it," he says. "But the real problem was that I was nuts and angry and ashamed, too, and that shame turned into anger." During his worst period, however, he believes boxing was his salvation. That was when he was training seriously. "It was like a cleansing period. It was the point where I was the most out of control and it was almost the saving grace, because I could go into something and be an animal, which is what I was." But nobody in the film business will ever share that view, because fighting men at least a decade younger than him left him with a face that needed several reconstructions. His nose was rebuilt with cartilage from his ear. Rourke had become a wreck.

Then, in 1996, he failed his memory test and had to stop boxing altogether. That really was the nadir of his life. "I was heartbroken." Otis, "the woman I loved so f---ing much and still love", divorced him in 1998. He had nothing and nobody. He thought about killing himself; only the dependence of his pack of chihuahuas, whose various descendants remain his only companions, kept him here. He likes small dogs, he says, because you can cuddle them and feel their hearts beating. Their tiny lives were his responsibility.

And, as it turned out, he still had acting. After Otis left him, Rourke had a moment in front of the mirror when he saw what others saw - "You know, the armour; it scared the f--- out of me" - and resolved to change his life. It was a long road back, personally and professionally, but old stalwarts helped: Francis Ford Coppola gave him a part in The Rainmaker in 1997; Steve Buscemi had him for Animal Factory the next year and people began to notice that, yes, crazy Mickey Rourke was good again. Now it seems he is making up for lost time. Just this year, he has made The Informers, directed by Australian Gregor Jordan - in which he is reunited with 9 1/2 Weeks co-star Kim Basinger - and an Elmore Leonard adaptation, The Killshot, for John Madden. Another ensemble piece, 13, with Jason Statham, Sam Riley and Ray Winstone, all of whom he greatly admires, is now in post-production. And The Wrestler, of course, is doing its triumphant rounds. Mickey may have been crushed to a pulp back there, but he's back in the ring.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist, Rourke says soberly, to see why Darren Aronofsky wanted him to play Randy the Ram. He is no rocket scientist - he often observes how much smarter, "so Jewish and intelligent" Aronofsky is - but he knew that his own past was about to be exploited. "Working with a guy like Darren ..." he says, trailing off into a heavy sigh. "I knew he was going to want me to revisit some dark places I didn't want to revisit. Because I work a certain way, where I make it all very personal - I'll use things from my life, from my ex-wife to my childhood, so it's real - I thought, 'God, I don't know if I want to work that hard and give that much'." He also knew that Aronofsky would be able to push all his buttons, whether he wanted to work that hard or not. When most of the film's financiers refused to back The Wrestler, originally planned as a blockbuster, if Rourke played the lead, he says he was the only person who wasn't disappointed.

Aronofsky, however, was determined to have him. He wasn't worried that he would be difficult. "You know, he's done so many characters in so many films and somehow he's got through them. So I knew I could get through it with him. It was just a matter of what it would take." So he rewrote The Wrestler as a low-budget film; one remaining financier was prepared to put up $US6 million for a film with Rourke in it, so he cut his cloth accordingly.

Rourke, meanwhile, found that he really did want to do those hard yards. He had recognised that it was important to push himself artistically if he wasn't going to slip into straight-to-video misery again. Besides, he adds with that old edge of menace, he is relentlessly competitive. "I used to love playing football in high school; I don't want to lose a game by one touchdown or one point. And I don't want to lose when I'm acting. Darren's going to challenge me to bring it and to be the best actor I can be, and I'm going to give him every f---ing thing. I'm going to give him my f---ing blood. I got no problem with that at all. People go 'it isn't competitive'. But it is competitive."

Making the film was tough physically, of course; Rourke, now 56 (although he admits only to 52), trained with real wrestlers for three months, trying to learn what they might learn in five years about how to fall and get shaken around. Having been a boxer, he started out with no respect for the choreographed entertainment that is wrestling. He soon changed his opinion. "You still make sacrifices. You still get hurt. When a guy who weighs 230 pounds picks you up and throws you, f---! You feel it in every bone in your body. I'm not a kid any more. Here still hurts. And here. And here," he says, pointing to various bits of his frame.

The mood changed, however, once they started filming and he discovered that his hardest scenes were not the fights but those with Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Randy's estranged daughter, Stephanie. Rourke and Wood did not meet until they did their first scene together; Aronofsky kept them apart, wanting to keep their onscreen relationship "awkward and uncomfortable". For him, Rourke says, that first encounter immediately brought back his reunion with his own father in his mid-20s, wanting to know why he had abandoned his children. It was harrowing. "I didn't even know her name," he says. "We just did it. We introduced ourselves like a week or two later. I couldn't remember her name anyway." By the end of the shoot, he was completely wrung out. "I ended up not being able to get out of bed for four days, crying hysterically. I thought I was dying."

Fragility was always one of Rourke's many attractions; he may not have been boxing when he was at his acting peak, but he still seemed authentically, appealingly bruised. The Wrestler screened for the first time at the Venice Film Festival, accompanied by the usual intensive round of press promotion. Rourke disappeared just before our interview; someone, apparently, had upset him. Had he snapped? The publicist assured us he would return, but was visibly afraid he wouldn't. Twenty minutes went by.

He did come back, genial but clearly tired, the face around the dark glasses even more pouched, battered and puffy than it was when boxing and plastic surgery first put paid to his youthful beauty. He said, quite recently, that he felt more at peace than ever before. "But there's always going to be a war going on inside of me. That's just, I think, my make-up ... I've just got to keep a lid on it." And with the lid back on, the stories start, each one sounding like a script written for Sterling Hayden or Stallone or, indeed, Mickey Rourke himself.

According to a recent feature in the New York Times magazine, in which the writer doggedly chased up Rourke's stepfather and someone who knew him from his teen boxing years, it seems that many of these stories may not be exactly true. None of the amateur boxing officials and trainers he interviewed believed Rourke had been involved with the Golden Gloves competitions, as he claims. His stepfather, Eugene Addis, is now 81; he not only denies abusing his stepsons, which is hardly surprising, but says they didn't even live in the tough part of town where Rourke says he learned to defend himself. And while Mickey was "a helluva athlete", it was his stepfather who marched him down to the boxing gym because he thought he needed toughening up. "The trainer worked with him for six months and said, 'I can't get him into the ring to fight'." When there was a fight after school, he claims, the supposedly streetwise Mickey fetched the man he now called Daddy, too scared to have a go.

But none of this counts for much. A Mickey Rourke who wants to delude himself that he was hard is just as poignant, in his own way, as a Mickey who was hard because he was beaten. At the very least, he grew up with a stepfather who still believes that a bloody nose after school could have been the making of him. Perhaps that later stuff - "the anger and the armour and the toughness and all that macho shit and the craziness and the being unaccountable and not worried about consequences", as he puts it - compensated for his failure to measure up. Whatever, his behaviour was genuinely hair-raising. That we know for sure. Whether or not he fought in the Golden Gloves, he's a real contender now.

Perhaps, come March, someone holding a golden statuette on a Hollywood stage will say his name. I hope so. Because even if he is a fabulist and a fantasist, everyone loves a loser who bounces back to land that killer punch. Anyway, fable has a very honourable history. And as good a film as The Wrestler is, it is Mickey Rourke himself who is the stuff of myth. M

The Wrestler screens from Thursday. (Credit: The Age)

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Rourke rebounds with wrestler - 8th January 2009

Mickey Rourke thought his career was over.

The 56-year-old Nine 1/2 Weeks actor believed his acting career was finished, before landing the role of an ageing grappler in new movie The Wrestler.

Now he has been nominated for a Golden Globe and is one of the favourites for a Best Actor Oscar nod for his role as Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, and he can't believe the comeback he has made after 15 years in the wilderness.

The twice-divorced actor said: Randy has been in the twilight of his career for several years. He thinks he has one more game in him - one more shot. He wants to come back again.

I know what that feels like. Randy was somebody 20 years ago and so was Mickey Rourke. When you used to be a somebody and you aren't anybody anymore, you live in what my doctor calls a state of shame. Hollywood is a very unforgiving place, but I took a nosedive all by myself, no one pushed me.

Mickey - who was one of the biggest stars of the 80s before his wild partying and difficult behaviour made him a Hollywood outcast - accepts he only has himself to blame for his enormous fall from grace.

He added to Britain's The Sun newspaper: I was on the bench for 13 years.

Time goes by and you start to think, 'Man, is it really over like everyone says it is?' I would be buying cigarettes and some jerk would say to me, 'Hey, didn't you used to be in the movies?'

Before I got to the top of the mountain I jumped off headfirst. I had a lot of lessons to learn the hard way. I thought I would get back in after a year or two but the struggle to come back has been over 15 years.

BANG! Showbiz (Credit: Fairfax)

The comeback king, by Joe Queenan - The Sydney Morning Herald - 10th January 2009

A few weeks ago, I was cantering towards the marvellous Joan Miro exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York when I heard one of the snooty, condescending senior citizens at the information desk ask her companion: "Have you seen that new Mickey O'Rourke movie?" Her interlocutor, the classic Gotham culture-vulture who has read every uplifting book and watched every heartbreaking film without seeming to have benefited from the experiences, replied: "Not yet. But it's on my list for the holidays."

Here in a nutshell was everything that is wrong with the wave of Mickey Rourke hysteria that began sweeping the US after The Wrestler was released last month. One, it's Mickey Rourke, not Mickey O'Rourke, ladies. Two, smartly dressed culture-vultures don't belong at a wrestling movie; there's nothing in it for you; it isn't aimed at your demographic. And three, all of you Johnny-come-latelies now on the Mickey Rourke bandwagon - where have you been all these years? Where were you when he sucked?

How many of you saw Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man? Where were you when Mickey was scuffling for nickels and dimes in Masked And Anonymous? How many of you parvenus paid to see The Pledge, Domino, Desperate Hours, or Homeboy? I did.

I raise these questions as someone who has viewed Mickey Rourke as a fixture in his life for the past 27 years, ever since Diner was released. Spellbound, like so many other filmgoers, by Rourke's performance as the mischievous but charming Boogie, I watched in mounting dismay as his once-promising career stalled, then unravelled, then imploded.

His weird, self-destructive behaviour - he briefly retired to take up prize-fighting; he was arrested for assaulting his wife, Carre Otis; he became obsessed with dogs; he started terrifying directors by bringing his own bodyguards to film sets - inspired a 1992 Movieline article entitled "Mickey Rourke for a Day", in which I acted out scenes from the actor's life and films as varied as 9½ Weeks, Wild Orchid, Barfly and A Prayer For The Dying. The article was turned into a film by Gary Johnstone that can be seen on the internet at any hour of the day or night.

The premise of both the film and the article was that Rourke had miraculously abolished the distinction between his personal life and the repellent characters he played, engendering a "cosmic Mickey Rourkeanism". In the television film, I rolled around in the gutter, induced perfectly innocent women to swallow hot peppers, climbed into the ring and duked it out with a professional boxer, barged into editors' offices and threatened to punch out their lights and just generally behaved like a pig.

The film ended up being a paean of sorts to the actor, a backhanded homage, as I was forced to admit that what at first seemed like a walk in the park was anything but. Sure, a determined journalist could keep up the abhorrent Mickey Rourke act for 24 hours or so. But Rourke had to do it every single day of his life. My hat was off to him.

For the next 13 years, I monitored Rourke's strange, perplexing career. Most people I knew were unaware that he was still breathing, much less working. Not me.

Whenever a Mickey Rourke movie was released, I saw it, no matter how bad, no matter how obscure. It was a hobby of mine; one I enjoyed. It was like collecting Spandau Ballet bootlegs. Then, after Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler began drawing critical raves at film festivals in Europe and Canada last year, I started to feel a certain proprietary resentment towards all the swine jumping on the Mickey Rourke bandwagon.

Yes, Mickey was back. But the cognoscenti and hipsters huddling in the fashionably murky arthouse cinemas didn't even know where he was back from. They didn't know about films like Animal Factory, Thicker Than Blood, They Crawl or Shergar. They didn't know about Out In Fifty, Shades or the horrendous remake of Get Carter. And none of them knew that Mickey had once played St Francis of Assisi in a film entitled Francesco.

I did. I owned it.

The unvarnished truth is this: Mickey Rourke's overnight comeback is neither as surprising nor as precipitate as people would like to believe. Yes, he is the prodigal son returning from the fleshpots but while he was down there he was not merely cavorting. He was working, trying to get his career back on track. In 1997, Francis Ford Coppola (who helped launch Rourke's career with the 1983 film Rumble Fish) gave him a small part in The Rainmaker. It was the first movie of any consequence that Rourke had made since Angel Heart in 1987 and reminded at least some people that beneath all that sociopathic behaviour lurked genuine talent.

For the next 10 years, Rourke laboriously worked his way back into Hollywood's consciousness, if not the public's. He made a lot of bad movies but he also made a few good ones. Today, there is a suggestion afoot that director Darren Aronofsky tracked down the actor in a cave or a homeless shelter and personally lifted him out of the slime to cast him in The Wrestler. But this is not true.

Rourke has been working steadily, admittedly in obscurity, for years. He wasn't simply handed his chance for a comeback. In a roundabout way, he earned it. And when the opportunity arose, he seized it. He answered the bell.

What's more, The Wrestler would not be much of a film without Mickey Rourke. Written by Robert Siegel, formerly an editor at the satirical newspaper The Onion, The Wrestler is essentially Rocky in tights, a Cuisinart collection of hoary cliches that have been seen in films as varied as Requiem For A Heavyweight, The Wild Bunch, Fat City, Raging Bull and not one but six Sylvester Stallone films. The washed-up jock trying to win the affection of his child has been a Hollywood standby since King Vidor made The Champ in 1931. Nor is this the first time we have seen the stripper with the heart of gold (Marisa Tomei; if you're pushing 40 from the wrong side and trying to scare up an Academy Award nomination, this is where you go).

At various junctures, most particularly when a gimpy, bespectacled wrestler assaults Rourke's character with a staple gun, the film verges on farce.

What saves The Wrestler is that it is a film with a heart, and the heart is Mickey Rourke's. The Wrestler recounts the saga of Robin Ramzinski, a burned-out fiftysomething who was once one of the top draws in the professional wrestling circuit but is now a has-been living in a North Jersey trailer park. Busted up and broken down, "the Ram" is trying to pull his personal life back together as his career winds towards its end.

This in itself is a bitter-sweet set-up, since professional wrestling is viewed by the general public as a white-trash sham; in effect, the Ram is trying to recapture the glory of a profession that has no claim to true glory. But while it is true wrestling is staged and choreographed, the stunts themselves are dangerous and people get hurt in the ring, just like acrobats, lion tamers and circus clowns. The violence may be simulated but the pain of simulating violence is real.

Rourke, for the first time in decades, radiates the sweetness and innocence that he first displayed in Diner, the film that made him famous. Diner vaulted Kevin Bacon and Ellen Barkin to fame but it is also the film that gave us the appalling Daniel Stern and the oafish Steve Guttenberg. That hams like Stern and Guttenberg should have enjoyed far greater box-office success than the truly gifted Rourke is one of the bitter-sweet ironies of his comeback in The Wrestler.

The saga of Mickey Rourke is one of the saddest in the history of motion pictures. Some men have failure thrust upon them but Rourke went out and seized it by the throat. At a very early point in his career, Rourke made a fatal decision to turn down roles where he would play the man in the white hat and to instead appear in an interminable series of films lionising slimeballs.

The movie business is not hard to figure out. The public wants to see actors they admire playing characters they like. Henry Fonda played a villain exactly once in his career, as did Harrison Ford. Tom Cruise was a superb villain in Michael Mann's Collateral but he then went back to his day job, playing a slew of perfectly capital fellows.

For whatever the reason, Rourke either never figured out how the movie industry works or simply rejected its ground rules. Now, all these years later, the bulb has lit up. Where he goes from here is unclear; his face is a wreck; his leading-man days are over.

But in an era of creampuffs like Josh Hartnett and Orlando Bloom, it's great to have him back.

The Guardian

The Wrestler is out on Thursday. (Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald)

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The Wrestler (2008 film) - Wikipedia

The Wrestler is a film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke, Ernest Miller, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. Production began in January 2008. The film premiered at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, winning the Golden Lion Award. Fox Searchlight acquired rights to distribute the film in the U.S.; it was released in a limited capacity on December 17, 2008, and will be released nationwide on January 16, 2009.

Plot

Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a professional wrestler from the 1980s, twenty years past his prime, wrestling on the weekends in independent and semi-pro matches in the Elizabeth, New Jersey area, for extra money. After a show, a promoter proposes a 20th anniversary rematch with his most notable opponent, the Ayatollah, which sold out Madison Square Garden the first time around. Randy agrees, hoping this high-profile match could help him get back to the top.

Randy goes home and is locked out of his trailer for not paying the rent. He takes pain medication and falls asleep in the back of his Dodge van. The next day he goes to work, loading boxes at a supermarket. At night he visits a strip club where he has taken a liking to an older stripper named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). He continues the training rituals for his wrestling appearance, including steroid usage. The next show is a particularly brutal "hardcore" match, in which Randy and his opponent (real life wrestler Dylan Summers, a.k.a. Necro Butcher) use various weapons on each other including thumbtacks, staple guns, barbed wire and glass. Randy suffers numerous gashes, including a deep cut on his chest from the barbed wire. Post-match, Randy is treated by a doctor backstage, but has a heart attack soon after and collapses.

The heart attack necessitates a bypass operation and Randy is told by the doctor that his weak heart cannot support steroids or even wrestling anymore. Randy cancels all his upcoming matches. Faced with his mortality, he tells Cassidy about his heart attack and tries to woo her. She warms to him at first (explaining that she has a son and plans of a move to Trenton) but quickly diverts back to her rule of not dating customers, leaving Randy alone in a bar. Randy visits his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), but she curses him out for being a bad father. On his second visit to Stephanie's place, Randy brings a thoughtful gift and blunt words about how he messed up as a dad. They agree to meet for dinner.

After watching a wrestling match, Randy gets drunk and has sex with a woman, sleeping the entire next day from exhaustion - and, thereby, missing his dinner date with Stephanie. He goes to her house in the middle of the night, where she angrily tells him he has never been and never will be a father to her. Randy goes to work, where he deliberately cuts himself in the deli meat slicer, screams at his boss, and quits his job. He calls up the promoter to say the Ayatollah match is back on. Before the match, Cassidy unexpectedly arrives (having quit her job to be with him) and apologizes, urging him not to wrestle for the sake of his health. Randy explains that the real world doesn't care about him, and the only place he belongs is in the ring - the fans being his true family.

Randy gives an emotional speech to the crowd. During the match, his heart strains, but he continues despite the Ayatollah's concern. Randy fights through the pain, and slowly climbs to the top rope to deliver his signature "Ram Jam" finisher. In the final shot he salutes the fans, leaps from the ropes, and the screen fades to black.

Cast

Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson
Ernest Miller as Bob/"The Ayatollah"
Marisa Tomei as Cassidy / Pam
Evan Rachel Wood as Stephanie Robinson
Todd Barry as Wayne
Also appearing in the film are actual professional wrestlers: Necro Butcher, Nick Berk, DJ Hyde, Johnny Mangus, Whacks, Kid USA, Ron Killings, Claudio Castagnoli, Romeo Roselli, John Zandig and Nigel McGuinness. In addition, several local New Jersey wrestlers from Bodyslam Wrestling Organization and NWA Liberty States appear in the crowd during Randy's match against Tommy Rotten.

Production

The Wrestler was scripted by former The Onion writer Robert Siegel and entered development at director Darren Aronofsky's Protozoa Pictures. Actor Nicolas Cage entered negotiations in October 2007 to star in the film's lead role as Randy "Ram" Robinson, a former wrestler. The following month, Cage left the project after attending a Ring of Honor show in New York City, and Mickey Rourke replaced the actor in the lead role. According to Aronofsky, Cage pulled out of the movie because Aronofsky wanted Rourke as the lead character. Aronofsky stated that Cage was "a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but… you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race." Production began in January 2008, with filming taking place in Elizabeth, NJ, Linden, NJ, Rahway, NJ and New York.. Scenes were also shot at Alhambra Arena in Philadelphia. Afa Anoa'i, a former professional wrestler, was hired to train Rourke for his role. Anoai brought his two main trainers, Jon Trosky and Tom Farra to work with Rourke for eight weeks. Both trainers also have parts in the movie.

Music

Clint Mansell, the composer for Aronofsky's previous films, π, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain, reprised his role as composer for The Wrestler. A new Bruce Springsteen song, also titled "The Wrestler", plays over the film's closing credits.

Awards and nominations

The film won the Golden Lion Award at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. On December 11, 2008, it was nominated for three Golden Globes: Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Rourke, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for Marisa Tomei, and Best Original Song for "The Wrestler".

Reception

The Wrestler has received overwhelmingly strong critical acclaim.

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 98% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based upon a sample of 111, with an average score of 8.2/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 81, based on 27 reviews. Mickey Rourke, in particular, has received considerable critical acclaim for his performance in the film. Alonso Duralde, of MSNBC, said, "Rourke's work transcends mere stunt-casting; his performance is a howl of pain that seems to come from a very real place." The movie currently holds a ranking of 8.7 on IMDB and is #66 on that websites Top 250. Todd McCarthy, of Variety, said, "Rourke creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes its place among the great, iconic screen performances."

Ben Mankiewicz, from At The Movies, said, "To put it simply, this is the best film I've seen this year."

Website

The Wrestler

TNA iMPACT!, by Greg Miller - 16th September 2008

Rating 3.5 stars

Price $109.95

Summary

TNA iMPACT! had a lot of potential, but it didn't follow through on most of it. Beyond the limited/repetitive moves, lackluster CAW, and scaled back online, my main problem is that iMPACT! doesn't feel like real wrestling. The opponents never stay down long enough, there's an announce table and announcer voices, but no announcer bodies, there are no championship belts to wear or defend, chairs are just sitting around the outside of the ring, there is no rope break, and every match is no count out/no DQ.

IF you wanted to bring the pageantry and bone-crushing moves of professional wrestling to your console of choice, there's pretty much been just one game in town for the last several years. However, that's all about to change. TNA iMPACT! is here to officially end the monopoly on licensed professional wrestling videogames.
If you need a quick primer, Total Nonstop Action was founded in 2002 by former WWE and WCW star Jeff Jarrett along with his father. Since then, the organization has moved to a six-sided ring, landed a Thursday night spot on SpikeTV, and picked up a number of big time professional wrestling stars such as Kurt Angle, Sting, and Kevin Nash. Now, Midway is bringing the high flying moves of the federation to videogame fans across the world.

The first time I got the chance to sit down with the developers behind iMPACT!, they admitted that they couldn't match the competition's feature set their first time out of the gate but were focusing on bringing a brand-new, fun gameplay experience to the market.

In more than a few ways, Midway succeeded.

iMPACT! utilizes a simplified control scheme in an attempt to nail that "pick up and play" experience. The face buttons govern punches, kicks, grabs, and actions, while the shoulder buttons reverse, run, taunt, and modify moves to be stronger. The left stick moves your guy (sorry, gals and guys starved for female contact, there are no lady competitors), and in multi-man battles, the right stick changes targets. When you're pinned, you'll need to rock your joystick side to side to fill a kickout meter.

You take these easy to use/difficult to master controls into seven arenas and nine match types that are all no count out/no DQ as one of about 25 TNA wrestlers in front of several crowds. The results will be impressive at first.

Right off the bat, iMPACT! looks good. The character models are detailed with the shine you'd expect from their real life, sweaty counterparts but more impressive is the animation system iMPACT! deploys. In the game, moves and grapples blend together so you can go from a suplex to an arm bar submission to a couple of stomps without having to stand there for a second while a reaction animation plays out. Anytime you're playing, you can break up a move or deal out an attack.

Now, when you're playing you'll have a three part heads-up display on the screen – a silhouette to manage limb damage, an iMPACT! meter above your name, and a stun meter behind your name. As the match wears on, all the parts will change – the silhouette parts will change from green to red as you take attacks, iMPACT! will slowly fill with yellow as you pull off moves, and the stun meter will slowly fill with red as you get tossed around by your opponent.

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Video Games

Rourke off the ropes, by Kerrie Murphy - The Australian - 27th December 2008

With all the buzz surrounding Darren Aronofsky's new film The Wrestler, it's tempting to give tuxedo makers time off and just hand Mickey Rourke the Oscar for best actor now. That Rourke has so quickly been anointed statue-worthy is a little surprising - this is a comeback that would impress Robert Downey Jr - but it's not half as surprising as the fact the movie is about professional wrestling.

The film, which chronicles the decline of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a headline act of 1980s rock'n'roll wrestling, now trying to reclaim past glories in school halls while working at a local supermarket, may seem an unlikely candidate for acclaim.

Respect and pro wrestling rarely go hand inhand. A combination of spectacle and athleticism, awkwardly dubbed "sports entertainment", it is, to use the parlance of a wrestling commentator, the red-headed step-child of entertainment.

Movies and wrestling have never had a particularly warm relationship. As Aronofsky told Film Journal Magazine: "Most films that deal with wrestling make fun of it ... I think people basically roll it off saying, 'Oh it's fake' and they forget all about it."

It's true that watching World Wrestling Entertainment can stretch credulity. We know the match is predetermined. We can see that the ref is not so distracted by the buxom valet that he can't hear the heel (wrestling slang for bad guy) landing a low blow on the face of the good guy.

But look beyond the garish tights and histrionics and wrestling is not so easy to dismiss.

Unlike movie actors and other entertainers, wrestlers have no stunt doubles, no crash mats. When hardcore wrestling arrived in the '90s, martial arts weapons and bowling balls became standard issue. In one scene in The Wrestler, The Ram and his opponent discuss how a staple gun can be used; a later scene shows a medic removing the staples from his torso and arms. This is not fanciful movie invention.

Just ask Mick Foley, the masked wrestler "Mankind", who had a successful run in the WWE in the late '90s and wrote several best-selling books about his experiences. One of his most famous matches was The Hell in the Cell 1994, where Foley was chokeslammed by "The Undertaker" on top of a cage, falling several metres into the ring and landing on top of a pile of thumbtacks and a steel chair. "I had one and a half teeth knocked out, 15 stitches below my lip, a dislocated jaw, a dislocated left shoulder, a bruised kidney and a couple of cracked ribs," he told me in 1999. "I imagine I had a concussion, although I didn't get that checked." This from a man who was already down half an ear after getting his head caught between the ropes.

Wrestlers can seem quite blase about routine head injuries. "There have been times where I was talking complete Greek and I wouldn't realise it," says WWE chairman Vince McMahon. "All you can do is laugh. Post-concussion syndrome they call it."

Even Rourke, who famously quit acting in 1991 to become a boxer, was surprised at the far greater risk of injury from wrestling. "I got hurt more in the three months doing the wrestling than in 16 years of boxing," he said at a New York press conference. "I think I had three MRIs in two months."

While Aronofsky's film lays bare the real pain experienced by these sportsmen, it also provides a glimpse of the tricks and make-believe that make up their carnival world.

It shows the wrestlers roughly outlining their match beforehand or, if they have particular confidence in each other, calling it on the fly by surreptitiously whispering the moves to each other as they go.

Then there's the matter of blading.

A wrestler will often hide a small piece of razorblade behind the tape on his wristbands. When he's face down on the ground after a "brutal" attack, he will discreetly cut his forehead, an area that can appear to produce a lot of blood, especially when it's mixed with sweat, and not cause too much damage apart from scarring. (That's no stunt blade Rourke uses in the film.)

Then there's the whole notion of play-acting, of being a character. Christian Bale can take off his Batman suit at the end of the day but the best wrestlers don't. As wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson once noted, a wrestling character is an extension of the wrestler's personality "with the volume turned all the way up". There can be a painful disjunction between the superman of the ring and the human being, though: one attracts legions of admiring fans; the other can hardly pay the rent on his trailer.

Which is what makes The Wrestler so heartbreaking. Fame, as we know, is a fickle mistress, but she seems particularly harsh on pro wrestlers. Not only is there the matter of being a has-been, there's the broken body: a combination of all that physical exertion and injury, and the steroids and painkillers that flood the locker rooms (not to mention the recreational drugs that go hand in hand with the party lifestyle of travelling on the road).

Barry W.Blaustein's 1999 documentary Beyond the Mat, with wrestling legend Jake "The Snake" Roberts smoking crack in his motel room and trying to make up with his estranged daughter, shows that The Ram's problems are not far from the truth.

And wrestlers such as The Ram are the lucky ones. They're not like Darren Drozdov, who became a paraplegic at the age of 30 after a pile-driver went wrong in a match. Or one of the 24 well-known wrestlers under 50 who have died since 2000, including WWE headliner Chris Benoit, who tragically killed his wife, son and himself last year.

Even in the bizarre world of sports entertainment, some unpalatable truths about the human condition emerge.

The Wrestler opens on January 15. (Credit: The Australian)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling

WWE

Movie Reviews

CALDWELL'S Daily Word 1/1: Happy New Year, HBK employee program, McMahon and Torch reader response to "The Wrestler"

-- In a few weeks, we'll know whether "The Wrestler" will have a seat at the table for the prestigious Academy Awards ceremony that recognizes the best in movies for the year. Mickey Rourke is a virtual lock to be nominated for Best Actor, as is Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" track for Best Original Song in a movie.

If WWE's Vince McMahon had a vote, he certainly wouldn't pick "The Wrestler," as we reported yesterday that McMahon believes the movie is below WWE. The thematic material related to wrestling is set in the long-forgotten territory era and under-the-radar independent wrestling scene of today, which gives the movie its gritty feel perfect for Mickey Rourke's character.

WWE wants to distance itself from pro wrestling, as evidenced by corporate-friendly statements from CEO Linda McMahon about the company not being in the wrestling business, but the entertainment genre, competing against the NFL, NBA, and entertainers putting on rock concerts.

McMahon most-likely feels the movie being any way associated with WWE would bring the company down to a level they long-since tried to escape from. WWE's attitude of superiority has been displayed in recent JBL promos and the Shawn Michaels "employee" storyline where HBK is willing to sell his soul to JBL to prevent becoming Randy "the Ram" Robinson.

The real story continues to be wrestlers being gobbled up and spit out if they aren't protective of themselves and the investment they're making with their bodies. Other than the two irreplaceables - John Cena and Triple H - McMahon can always find someone else to slide onto the card.

"The Wrestler" hits too close to home with McMahon, who obviously doesn't want his company associated with low-rent indy wrestling, but also because he's the corporate face of a wrestling business that couldn't generate mainstream interest unless someone died or was blown up in a limo.

Now, the positive accolades are going to a movie that focuses on something outside the WWE machine and not kids dancing in the ring with Finlay or WWE touring Iraq. McMahon simply won't stand for that.

Torch reader stonecoldmark commented on the article we posted yesterday about WWE's official anti-"The Wrestler" position after McMahon picked up his movie screening in December. Here's what scmark had to say:

Ask Jake Roberts or Roddy Piper if any of what is in "The Wrester" pertains to them. The Wrestler is about what happens when the WWE dumps these guys. Guys like Duggan are lucky Vince still keeps them employed. Even HUGE stars like Hogan and Flair can be included. Flair never knew when to call it quits because it's all he's known. Hogan would still give it a try if Vince gave him a chance.

The Wrestler should be a calling card for anyone that wants to get into the biz, not everyone can get a job in the big-time and if you do save that money. This film speaks to not just wrestlers, but can apply to any job where the excitement, fame, and money can fade seemingly overnight. Just ask Mickey Rourke. The movie is his life.

Vince is right it's not the WWE, but does that mean his guys are treated any better? Not on your life with that schedule. I think wrestling five or six days a week is just as bad as taking a stapler to your head for one night on a Saturday in Secaucus.

Greg Tingle comment...

The Wrestler is not the WWE, however parts of do tell part of the story of workers with the WWWE in years gone by. Thank god that The Wrestler is not the WWE, and Vince McMahon and the top brass at the WWE have every right to distance themselves from the film. At least some lessons got learned along the way, and the WWE body count is not as high as it once was. If pro wrestling schools showed The Wrestler to potential students before they signed on I think its likely that the sign up rates for wrestling academy's would decline. One needs to be mindful of what they wish for - they might just get it. The Wrestler is a perfect example of show business not being all it's often cranked up to be, and in my position as a media agent I'm in the position to know this. All respect to Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine and many other legends for supporting The Wrestler and Mickey Rourke's effort. Piper's line about it being "not his story, but it is my story" is classic, but in reality Piper came out of the business in better shape than most, and he still picks up a WWE cheque from time to time. Are we one step closer to a wrestling union? I doubt it, but you never know. The US is cracking down on gambling and other moral and ethics type matters, but will they care enough to ensure professional entertainers, wrestlers and the like don't end up on the scrap heap when promoters are finished getting their slice of meat from them? McMahon has cleaned up his act a hell of a lot over the past 5 years or so, and let's hope other wrestling promoters do the same. The Wrestler gets 5 stars for impact, story telling and acting, and talk about a movie for the times.

(Credit: Pro Wrestling Torch)

Hulk Hogan enjoying ‘second half’ of his life, by Peter Centineo - The Black Hills Pioneer

Wrestling superstar comes to reservation, Rapid City to boost Native Americans

Sitting in his hotel room after arriving at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn Thursday night, wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan’s eyes were red and he was a bit road-weary.

Hogan had just gotten in after visiting the Porcupine Indian Reservation earlier in the day, meeting with the locals and just having a good time with close friend Ernie Stevens Jr. and a host of others. His visit was part of his work with Dreamseekers Foundation, which he and Stevens Jr. formed several years ago to help tribal nations battle poverty, violence and a lack of resources.

And even though Hogan was visibly tired from his adventures that day, his eyes lit up when he shared his experiences.

“We saw three eagles,” he said excitedly. “One was sitting on a fencepost and there were a few others overhead. It was pretty amazing. I’d never seen an eagle that close.”

Stevens Jr. just shook his head and smiled. He and Hogan have been friends for several years, and the two have a lot of admiration for each other.

“The Hulk is an amazing man. He a great friend,” Stevens Jr. said.

Hogan said all the Native American people he met Thursday were friendly and polite, wishing him well at every turn.

“We were driving and we stopped at a Common Cents to get something to drink. A lot of people came up to shake hands and talk. What great people we met today,” he said. “We saw people walking down the road and we’d just stop and pick them up and give them a ride.

“Where I’m from (Florida) we’d be afraid to pick anyone up because we’d be afraid they’d kill us. But we gave a lot of people rides. We didn’t know their agenda. We just helped them out.”

The wrestling legend, who turned 55 this summer, may be a bit older, but he doesn’t lack enthusiasm especially when talking about Dreamseekers. He and Stevens Jr. formed Dreamseekers Foundation several years ago with hopes that the foundation could generate funds to help tribal nations that face numerous problems. Hogan became aware of health-care problems Native American children face in 2005, and after meeting and talking with Stevens Jr. they decided to join forces to help Native American people.

Hogan is hoping his Hulkamania Experience (TM), a multilevel progressive video slot-series based on his adventures, will be in Oklahoma and California casinos this year. A portion of the proceeds from the machines will go to Dreamseekers and those funds will go to those in need. Stevens Jr. is chairman for the National Indian Gaming Association.

“When I met Ernie I thought what better way to use the Hulk brand name then to help these people. I had no idea about what kinds of problems these people face as far as healthcare goes,” Hogan said. “Then I found out about other problems like suicide and alcoholism. I felt I could help to address some of the needs these people have.”

Dreamseekers is in its infancy. The foundation has funds coming in, but they are hoping the Hulk’s machines will provide a steady source of revenue. Other sources will be sought as well, but all those involved are willing to wait and do things the right way. There are a lot of things to tackle, but Hogan said they’ll take it step by step.

“I think we can have a big impact on a lot of people’s lives,” Hogan said. “That’s what it’s all about. It’s all about helping people. I’m really just starting to understand what it’s all about. We’re going to take it one piece at a time and keep pushing forward.”

Hogan is involved with many other charitable organizations. He also works quite a bit with the Make A Wish foundation and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Hogan recently received the National Indian Gaming Association’s Humanitarian Award for his work on behalf of Dreamseekers at the Las Vegas Global Gaming Expo in November, and it’s an honor he didn’t take lightly.

“When I do something I’m all in. If I don’t want to do something I’m all out. I’m all in on this. We have great people working with us who are dedicated to what we’re trying to do,” he said. “I’m sitting in this room with these people and five years from now I expect to be here again with this same group of people. Nobody is going anywhere.”

Hogan’s career in pro wrestling is well documented with six WWF and WCW titles. At 6-7, 275 pounds, he was larger than life in the ring and drew the adulation of millions of fans the world over. He may not be the force he once was in the ring but he’s making his presence known on television and with his philanthropic ways.

Born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Ga., he never loses touch with who he is and what he wants to do. He’s at peace with himself and isn’t the hyper Hulk Hogan character people have come to know through wrestling. Out of the ring he’s engaging and mellow, and puts people at ease.

“I’m in the second half,” Hogan says with a smile. “It’s no secret I don’t have any hair and I’m getting a little older. I was in the ring with Rick Flair last week and managed to pull a few muscles but I didn’t break anything.”

Hogan’s personal life has also been well documented and he’s had his share of personal battles over the past year. But if Hogan is down about any personal struggles he’s had he sure doesn’t show it. He loves being Terry Bollea, but he never grows tired of becoming Hulk Hogan.

“I’ve been blessed my whole life and I’m blessed to be part of what we’re doing here. To have kids 7 and 8 years old coming up to me for autographs is really something,” he said. “I’d hate to be one of those guys who used to be popular and now don’t get any attention. It seems like more and more people are wanting to see the Hulk and that’s a lot of fun.”

Stevens Jr. said Hogan’s presence in Indian Country never goes unnoticed.

“Moms, dads, little kids all love Hulk Hogan. I’m bowled over and amazed how many people love this man,” Stevens Jr. said. “Here is a man who is a superstar and he reached out to me telling me he wanted to help Indian kids. That’s an amazing person.” (Credit: The Black Hills Pioneer)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Hulk Hogan

Casino News

Entertainment News

WHAT'CHA GONNA DO ... WHEN THE HULK HOGAN SLOT MACHINE RUNS WILD ON YOU?

LAS VEGAS, NV. On Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 12 noon, Hulk Hogan will be honored by National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) Chairman Ernie Stevens, Jr. in conjunction with the Global Gaming Expo 2008 in Las Vegas, NV. He will receive the “Humanitarian Award” for his work on behalf of the “Dreamseekers” Foundation.

Working with the Spirit of Sovereignty Foundation at the National Indian Gaming Association, Hulk and Dreamseekers have committed to building the non-profit organization in partnership with Indian Country to provide needed assistance to Native America youth and their families.

Hulk Hogan, one of the most successful entertainment personalities and Executive Producer/host of the “Celebrity Championship Wrestling” series on CMT, will participate in the foundation’s activities by providing a familiar public face and forwarding the organization’s goal: providing greater opportunities for youth in Indian Country. Hulk Hogan has made it a priority to start this program in areas of Indian Country with the most need.

Once the project is implemented, the Dreamseekers Foundation hopes to provide a significant amount per annum to tribal nations that face adversities such as poverty, violence and lack of various resources. “We’re specifically focusing on efforts to improve healthcare and education for Native youth and their families around the country, as well as give them access to as many other critical opportunities as possible,” said Ernie Stevens Jr., co-founder of the foundation.

The Hulkamania Experience TM, a multilevel progressive video-slot series based on the adventures of the iconic superstar, is expected to debut at the 2008 Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas and roll out nationally during the next several months. As a part of the foundation’s fundraising initiative, a portion of the proceeds from The Hulkamania Experience tm will go towards the various health and education initiatives yet to be determined by the foundation.

The game, developed in conjunction with Rainmaker Gaming Technology and ID Interactive, LLC, represents a fundamentally new approach towards community involvement in Indian Country. Hulk’s efforts alongside that of the National Indian Gaming Association are a first of their kind, and it all spawned from an initial conversation between Ernie Stevens, Jr. and Hogan. “Hulk simply asked what he could do to help Indian Country, and we both agreed that it all starts with our children,” Stevens said.

“American Indian children are more likely to live in poverty than any other racial or ethnic group in this country“, Hogan noted, citing recent U.S. Census Bureau data. “It’s time to change that, and I’m proud to be associated with that effort,” said Hulk Hogan.

"This is an exciting opportunity to use the Hulk Hogan brand in a fulfilling way that makes a difference in people’s lives at the local level,” says Eric Bischoff of Bischoff Hervey Entertainment, Hogan’s partners in the project.

Last year Hogan was a recipient of a very high honor on behalf of the tribal leaders and the traditional community of South Dakota for his help in Indian Country while attending the Lakota Nation Invitational in Rapid City, SD. It was one of very few times in history that someone from outside the community has received such a prestigious honor. Hulk continues to feel the energy of that ceremony that took place ten months ago and looks forward to doing so much more.

* * *

KEY DATA / NEWS HOOKS:

* Nearly a third of all American Indian and Alaska Native children live in poverty

* 32.8 percent of Native American children in single-parent homes live below the poverty level. This is the highest rate among minorities, and more than twice the rate for White children in similar homes.

* SOURCE: "Children and the Households They Live In," a special report released by the Census Bureau.

About HULK HOGAN

Known most recently as the host of NBC’s top-rated “American Gladiator”, and host and Executive Producer of CMT’s series, “Celebrity Wrestling”, Hulk Hogan is one of the best-recognized celebrities in the United States.

A twelve- time world wrestling champion, including six WCW World Heavyweight belts, six WWE Championships, and a World Tag Team championship belt, Hulk Hogan is arguably the greatest wrestler in sports entertainment history. Rarely has an athlete held so many professional titles to his name in such a vast career.

Hulk Hogan is also well known among young fans for his four "demandments": which include training, saying prayers, eating vitamins, and believing in one self. As a result, he is one of the most-requested celebrities for the Make-a-Wish Foundation children’s charity.

About ERIC BISCHOFF

Eric Bischoff began his TV career in syndication and sales for an organization in Minneapolis known as the AWA in August of 1987. His transition from an obscure “office” position to an on-camera host for the company’s daily program on ESPN and in syndication was an event that truly defined the phrase “right time…right place”.

Being in the right place at the right time isn’t always simply coincidence. Indeed, in many respects it’s really all about passion, instinct, commitment, and risk. Bischoff’s move from the AWA to Turner Broadcasting in 1991 and his subsequent path that began as on camera talent at Turner Broadcasting culminated in 1999 when he was named President of Turner/Time Warner’s WCW division.

During this period he had the opportunity to take a fledgling division of Turner Broadcasting that happened to be a personal favorite of Ted Turner, from a money losing-content producing lost leader (from a corporate point of view) to a $300+ million dollar leader in the industry that had ABC Television up at night wondering how to shore up the male audience that was making “Monday Nitro on TNT” their preferred destination during the NFL season.

Today, Bischoff and Jason Hervey own their own production company (BISCHOFF-HERVEY ENTERTAINMENT), developing television content for NBC, VH1, CMT, E! and many other outlets as well as developing licensing opportunities for entertainment brands..

About ERNIE STEVENS, JR.

Stevens is the Chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association, representing 184 tribes in gaming, based in Washington, D.C. Stevens is a former councilman for the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, as well as former 1st Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians. He is currently serving his fourth consecutive term as chairman for the association.

About the NATIONAL INDIAN GAMING ASSOCIATION (NIGA)

NIGA is a non-profit trade association comprised of 184 American Indian Nations and other non-voting associate members. The mission of NIGA is to advance the lives of Indian people; economically, socially, and politically. NIGA operates as a clearinghouse and educational, legislative and public policy resource for tribes, policy makers, and the public on Indian gaming issues and tribal community development. For more information, visit www.indiangaming.org.

About ID Interactive

ID Interactive LLC, producer of the Hulkamania multilevel progressive, is an independent game developer, designer and distributor with a domestic US focus on Indian Country and a history of commitment to charitable community programs. ID distributes games in the US, Western and Eastern Europe, Mexico, Central and South America and Asia. CEO Jon Goldstein is a founding partner of the Dreamseekers Foundation.

About Dreamseekers and the Spirit of Sovereignty Foundation

Dreamseekers and the Spirit of Sovereignty Foundation recognize students that are exceptionally talented and demonstrate skills that positively represent the Native American community. Recipients are qualified based on criteria such as, but not limited to: Course study, GPA, and Enrollment. The selection process for scholarship is competitive, and the award is distinct and prestigious.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Hulk Hogan

Native American Indians

Casino News

Entertainment News

WWE Wrestling Legend Hulk Hogan Hulkamania Slot Coming Soon

Pro wrestling icon, Hulk Hogan, will soon have his own slot in casinos around the world.

Rumour also has it that the late, great, Andre The Giant will also have a slot based on him, and Andre's slot game will be found in various online casinos!

Pro wrestling has mainstream appeal and caters for young and old alike, so it should be of little surprise that wrestling icons would have their own slot games. This trend appears a natural progression from movie blockbusters being turned into films such as Top Gun and The Godfather (PartyCasino.com) and Marvel Comics with the likes of The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Iron Man.

2009 promises to be a banner year from entertainment industry themed slots, and WWE icons and entertainment industry mainstays are set to be in the thick of the action and excitement. POW and Hell Yeah!

Media Man Australia Profiles

WWE

Hulk Hogan

Andre The Giant

Wrestling Star Features On Slot Machine

Hulk Hogan to appear on new video slot machine developed by US firm.

One of the world's most famous wrestlers is set to enter the gaming market with a new slot machine offering.

Former World Wrestling Federation star Hulk Hogan has put his name to The Hulkamania Experience, a progressive video slot based on his glory days in the ring.

Due to hit US casinos in early 2009, the machine will be unveiled by developers Rainmaker Gaming Technology and IDInteractive at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas next month.

The Dreamseekers Foundation, a non-profit organisation which works to improve living conditions for Native American families, is in line to receive a substantial proportion of revenues from the slots game.

"We're thrilled to work with such a worthy cause and such an incredible superstar," said Ike McFadden, director of marketing at IDInteractive.

At next month's gaming exhibition, Hogan is set to receive a humanitarian award from the National Indian Gaming Association in recognition of his work with the Dreamseekers Foundation.

Media Man Australia and Casino News Media has also learned that there are plans for a leader in the online casino game market to develop a themed slot game on Andre The Giant.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Hulk Hogan

Andre The Giant

New Games

Slots

Casino News

Jeff Hardy...WWE Champion, A Personal Look...."The Wrestler" ...A Few Random Thoughts

Wed, 12/17/2008 - 7:11pm — J.R.
Posted in:Wrestling
It is always good to arrive back in Oklahoma safe and sound after a 5 day road trip that at times felt longer. At least the weather was warmer in Buffalo and in Baltimore for the most part than it was back in Oklahoma while I was away. It was a momentous week within the WWE with Jeff Hardy joining the ranks of those who have held the coveted WWE Title. Most onlookers would likely have never put Jeff Hardy in the same sentence with the likes of Bruno Sammartino, the first, truly dominate WWE Champion, but the history books will now always reflect that the son of a rural mail carrier from North Carolina is among the men who have had the responsibility of holding the WWE's most coveted and tenured title.

When I first met Jeff and his older brother Mat they were a tag team who came to selected WWE TV tapings in the southeast and were normally used as cannon fodder for the featured, antagonistic tag teams of the WWE. Their matches occasionally aired on WWE Superstars but more often on WWE Challenge did not last long but the two brothers, who designed and sewed their own wrestling attire, never failed to make a memorable accounting of themselves albeit usually in a losing effort. Looking back on those days around '98 I don't recall the two teens ever winning a match.

Nonetheless the Hardy Brothers had the wonderful gift of passion and had excellent skill sets for their roles and I vividly recall that many tag teams requested to work with Matt and Jeff on those short, one sided bouts of that era.

Jeff's past has been well documented but it merits saying that the younger Hardy, not unlike many of us, has made bad decisions in his life but not without penalty. Jeff left the WWE the first time on my watch. I had one vision for him and he had another. I think I was right, and still do, while I'm sure that Jeff feels that he did what he needed to do at the time which unfortunately resulted in him leaving the WWE. Those days are more like a blur to me now but I can say that at no time did I ever feel that Jeff Hardy was a bad kid. Perhaps I could have done a better job in managing him and mentoring him but the bottom line is that he left the company and at the time I thought, "what a waste of talent."

Jeff's last misstep cost him a Wrestlemania appearance and the payday that would have gone with it including 60 days away from the business of which he was born to be a part. Lost income as a result of that indiscretion had to easily exceed six figures. That's a lesson learned the hard way but a lesson learned nonetheless.

I have read where some fans are uncomfortable with Jeff Hardy being the WWE Champion because of his past "strikes." I have read where some fans feel that because Jeff won the WWE Title at one of the WWE's perceived "secondary" pay per views that it is a tainted title win. Others have predicted that Jeff will be the proverbial "interim" champion and will be losing the title before new merchandise can be made and distributed.

Ironically, prior to Sunday's Armageddon PPV, one of the hottest topics on our Q&A section of our site and on other sites was "When is Jeff Hardy going to win the WWE Title?"

I prefer to look at Jeff's victory which came in one of the best Triple Threat matches I can ever remember broadcasting in a positive manner. The new champion is unique, young, deserving, innovative, and provides several options for a variety of challengers with which to have some potentially, excellent matches.

How long will Jeff Hardy be at the top of the WWE mountain as the WWE Champion? I have no idea other than the obvious answer, " until he loses it." I choose to look at this as an adventure for the talented, young man and to vicariously travel with him on it.

It should be a helluva ride.

One thing that I am thankful for is that I had the opportunity to be a part of the broadcast team that called the match Sunday. Those types of moments are still special to me and aren't just another day at the office. Years from now when I am off the road and selling BBQ full time for a living I can always pop in a DVD of that night or tune into WWE 24/7 On Demand and mentally re-create the extraordinary night when a life long wrestling fan who, from the age of 9, was raised by a single parent and who learned many of his skills on a trampoline lived the dream of a life time.

Like I said, it should be one helluva ride.

Congratulations Jeff and enjoy your accomplishment. You persevered and never quit. You deserve the opportunity and I for one hope that your WWE Title reign is as unique and memorable as is your personality and approach to the business.

"The Wrestler" is going to be in theaters every where soon and I am anxious to see it. I am not concerned about the perception some may get from the film as it relates to the wrestling business. From what I understand from those that have seen the film and by what I have read about it, "The Wrestler" represents an era of wrestling that wasn't a positive representation of the genre but an accurate one based on the individuals who chose to live their lives in an undesirable manner. The wrestling business is not unlike any other form of sports or entertainment in that it does have its non flattering side. That's what an entity gets when they deal with humans who have proved time and again that they are far from perfect. I can assure you that the wrestling business was a traveling Wild West show in the 70's when I got in it. For a young man from rural, eastern Oklahoma I saw things my first couple of years in the business of which I had never dreamed. When wrestling had territories that regularly ran the same markets weekly, the facilitating of many things not advisable was somewhat easy. Not every wrestler partook but enough did to adversely affect the perception of the business. The trend did not end after the 70's as temptations and circumstances helped facilitate more self destruction by those that lived life in the fast lane. However, without question, I can honestly say that things are much better now as it relates to the overall aspect of the business of which I am associated.

However, the past is what it is and history can't and shouldn't be erased but instead be utilized to better the future.

I am sure that for many of us who have lived most of our adult lives immersed inside the wrestling business that the film "The Wrestler" will remind us of many of our peers including many that are no longer with us. That won't elicit happy memories but the film's message could certainly be a sobering one and may help encourage those that emotionally invest in the fictional story of "Randy the Ram" to make better decisions in their lives no matter their vocation.

Speaking of making good decisions, I am proud that the superstar formally known as "Cherry" is heading back to college and taking a sabbatical from the ring. I applaud this young lady's decision as her education is vital in today's world and if she chooses she can always resume her wrestling career. Wrestlers with no college degree or nothing to fall back on if things don't work out for them in the business put themselves in a position to be paranoid and insecure more often than not which can't be deemed any thing but unhealthy.

Friday Night Smackdown is really in-ring, wrestling heavy this week which is a good thing from where I sit.

There's a wrestling connection between the only two players to ever be named AP college football All Americans, James Laurinaitis and Bill Fralic. Laurinaitis, Ohio State's #33 who will graduate with a bachelor's degree after his 4 years for the Buckeyes, is the son of Road Warrior Animal as we all know while Fralic once wrestled in Wrestlemania in a Battle Royal. Fralic and I were friends when I lived in Atlanta and worked with WCW and the Falcons and he was a wrestling fan while growing up in Pittsburgh and a Bruno Sammartino fan in particular. The younger Laurninaitis could end up in a WWE ring after his NFL career finishes but major money awaits James who is a guaranteed first round pick in the 2009 NFL Draft. Fralic even used the prospect of a pro wrestling career to leverage more money out of the Falcons who made him the #3 overall pick in the draft.

We are Toronto bound next week for a huge Monday in TO with Friday Night Smackdown being taped prior to Monday night Raw going live at 9, I assume. Nonetheless both Monday and Friday shows will emanate from Toronto while ECW will have a "best of" type show as I understand it Christmas week. The great fans in Toronto should get their money's worth as the ACC should be packed Monday night for a star studded evening.

Thanks for all your business in our on line store, in our restaurants in Oklahoma, and for telling your friends about our site. Don't forget that my Smackdown blog will go live on WWE.com Thursday evening or Friday morning.

We are still working on your holiday orders and if you hurry we will do our best to get your shipments to you when you need them.

Boomer Sooner!

J.R.

(Credit: J.R's Blog)

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WWE

Snuka, Piper and Muraco team up for TV show

Media Man Australia inside sources have leaked the news that WWE legends, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka and Don "The Rock" Muraco will be teaming up for a TV show. More news as it comes to hand.

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling

Andre The Giant Online Slot To Be Released By CryptoLogic

Media Man Australia has learned that CryptoLogic will be releasing an Andre The Giant online slot game. More details as they come to hand.

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WWWA honors Bruno Sammartino, and vice versa, by Lou Rabito - Philly.com - 6th November 2008

He sold out Madison Square Garden, the Spectrum, and other arenas in his career, but when Bruno Sammartino accepts a wrestling Hall of Fame induction tomorrow for what he says might be the first time, the ceremony won't take place in one of those hallowed halls of headlocks.

Rather, it will be held at Marjeane Caterers in Lansdale, where the only high school in the borough doesn't even have a wrestling program.

It's all because pro wrestling's evolution into a showcase for scantily dressed women and ribald entertainment - and its history of drug-related deaths - turned one of its greatest champions into, for years, a Hall of Fame don't-wannabe.

"I've rejected just about every wrestling Hall of Fame that has tried to induct me," Sammartino said.

But an invitation from Dino Sanna, owner of the Montgomery County-based World Wide Wrestling Alliance, changed his mind, and tomorrow night at 7 he will become the first wrestler immortalized by the minor-league WWWA.

Sanna, who lives in Hatfield, has been Sammartino's friend for more than 25 years. Sammartino has advised him on running the organization and has appeared at shows.

Sammartino, 73, who has lived in the Pittsburgh suburb of North Hills since he emigrated from Italy in 1950, was champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation - forerunner of the World Wrestling Federation and today's World Wrestling Entertainment - from 1963-71 and from 1973-77. These days, the scripted championships rarely last even a year.

The differences between the eras, though, go far beyond that.

In Sammartino's G-rated heyday, the male wrestlers were brawny and the female wrestlers looked like, well, wrestlers. These days, in the Vince McMahon-led WWE, the men tend to resemble bodybuilders and the women exotic dancers, and some engage in story lines that push even R-rated limits.

Also, substance abuse has increased. At least 65 pro wrestlers younger than 50 have died in the last decade, and the cause of death was consistent with steroid use in more than half the cases, the Orlando Sentinel reported this year.

"As a guy who wrestled for many, many years, it's very bothersome to me what I've seen," Sammartino said. "That's why I won't have anything to do with wrestling anymore, as far as the major leagues, because of what they've brought it down to - to the gutter, as far as I'm concerned."

The Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in Amsterdam, N.Y., targeted Sammartino as part of its initial, 13-member class in 2002. He refused to take part, he said, because a couple of the organizers had "lied" to him. (In a display of brass-knuckles bravado, the hall inducted him anyway.)

Sammartino declined to elaborate on the lie, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the dispute was over McMahon's involvement with the New York organization.

Two years later, the WWE revived its hall, which had not inducted anyone since the mid-1990s. "I wasn't considered the first year," Sammartino said, "but I think they got a pretty good backlash from it from the fans. . . . I don't think they expected that kind of reaction." He said McMahon's attorney had contacted his, and then him directly, "and, of course, I wouldn't have anything to do with it each time."

This time is different. Sanna sought Sammartino's advice before starting the WWWA in the early 1980s. Sammartino preached old-school, and Sanna listened. The WWWA touts its "family friendly" wrestling.

"I've taken his advice from the very first day, and we're still around," Sanna said.

(Credit: Philly.com)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Bruno Sammartino

The Wrestler, by Todd McCarthy - Variety - 4th September 2008

A Wild Bunch (France) presentation of a Protozoa Pictures (U.S.) production. (International sales: Wild Bunch, Paris.) Produced by Scott Franklin, Darren Aronofsky. Executive producers, Vincent Maraval, Agnes Mentre, Jennifer Roth. Co-producer, Mark Heyman. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Screenplay, Robert Siegel.

Randy "the Ram" Robinson - Mickey Rourke
Cassidy/Pam - Marisa Tomei
Stephanie - Evan Rachel Wood

Talk about comebacks. After many years in the wilderness and being considered MIA professionally, Mickey Rourke, just like the washed-up character he plays, attempts a return to the big show in "The Wrestler." Not only does he pull it off, but Rourke creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes its place among the great, iconic screen performances. An elemental story simply and brilliantly told, Darren Aronofsky's fourth feature is a winner from every possible angle, although it will require deft handling by a smart distributor to overcome public preconceptions about Rourke, the subject matter and the nature of the film.

Co-produced by Wild Bunch in France, where Rourke has retained his most loyal following through thick and thin, this is nonetheless an American picture through and through, beginning with the way it strongly evokes the gritty working-class atmosphere of numerous '70s dramas. Spare but vital, and with the increasingly arty mannerisms of Aronofsky's previous work completely stripped away, the film has the clarity and simplicity of a great Hemingway short story -- there's nothing extraneous, the characters must face up to their limited options in life, and the dialogue in Robert Siegel's superior script is inflected with the poetry of the everyday.

All the same, for the first few minutes one could be excused for imagining the film was directed by Belgium's Dardenne brothers, as ace lenser Maryse Alberti's camera relentlessly follows around aging wrestler Randy "the Ram" Robinson (Rourke) from the back, concentrating on his long, dyed-blond hair and hulking body before fully revealing his mottled, puffy face. This guy is 20 years past his prime, but he's still in pretty good shape and aims to get back on top on the pro wrestling circuit.

Ram seems to have always been a big fan favorite -- he is one of their own, a fearless bruiser the white working stiffs can root for against the assorted freaks, ethnic interlopers and outright villains in this macho cartoon universe. A beguiling early scene that firmly sets the movie on its tracks shows an event's muscled participants, all warmly easygoing and chummy with one another, pairing up and discussing what moves they'll make in their matches. A similar later scene has one of the wrestlers offering Ram his choices from a laundry list of dubious-sounding pharmaceuticals.

Apart from the momentary camaraderie of his ringmates, however, Ram is alone in life. At the outset, he's also penniless, locked out of his dismal trailer home until he can pay up. He works occasionally, lugging cartons at a big-box store, and his tough-guy posture is adored by small kids, but he's got no friends and nothing to show for his strenuous efforts.

From time to time, he has a drink at a gentlemen's club, where he visits aging stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), whose days of using her body for her livelihood are similarly numbered. After getting a load of some of Ram's battle scars, Cassidy, whose real name is Pam, tells him he ought to see "The Passion of the Christ." "They threw everything at him," she says, to which Ram guesses Jesus must have been a "tough dude." Ram must confront his mortality after the film's second wrestling match, a bout so gruesome and barbarous it will force some people to look away.

Assessing his options while recovering, Ram decides to gently step up his relationship with Pam, as well as to try to reconnect with his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), whom he hasn't seen in years. Both women have good reasons not to allow such a damaged man into their intimate lives, but even their most tentative signals of openness give Ram reason to hope for a new chapter in his life. His encounters with them are sensitively written and acted with impressive insight and delicacy, and Ram has one monologue in which he lays his feelings bare to Stephanie at a deserted old Jersey boardwalk -- "I deserve to be alone," he admits -- that is so great, one wishes it were longer.

After a stint at a deli counter that is the source of more good character humor, Ram decides to unretire and fight in a 20th-anniversary rematch of one of his most legendary bouts, "Ram vs. Ayatollah." Despite the hoopla, the way it all plays out is as far from "Rocky Balboa" as one could get, resulting in a climax that is exhilarating, funny and moving.

Shot in rough-and-ready handheld style, pic atmospherically reeks of low-rent lodgings, clubs, American Legion halls, shops and makeshift dressing rooms on the Eastern seaboard in winter (it locationed in New Jersey and Philadelphia). Stylistically, it's agile, alert and most interested in what's going on in the characters' faces.

And that is a lot. Physically imposing at 57, with a face that bespeaks untold battering and alteration, Rourke is simply staggering as Ram. The camera is rarely off him, and one doesn't want it to be, so entirely does he express the full life of this man with his every word and gesture. Ram's life has been dominated by pain in all its forms, but he's also devoted it to the one thing he loves and excels at, so he asks for no sympathy; he may have regrets, but no complaints.

As vibrant -- and as naked -- as she was in last year's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," Tomei is in top, emotionally forthright form as she charts a life passage similar to Ram's, if much less extreme. Once her character stops stonewalling her father and hears him out, Wood provides a fine foil for Rourke in their turbulent scenes together. The many supporting thesps, especially the wrestling world habitues, are richly amusing and salt-of-the-earth.

Camera (Technicolor, widescreen), Maryse Alberti; editor, Andrew Weisblum; music, Clint Mansell; music supervisors, Jim Black, Gabe Hilfer; production designer, Timothy Grimes; art director, Matthew Munn; set decorator, Theo Sena; costume designer, Amy Westcott; sound (Dolby Digital), Ken Ishii; assistant director, Richard Graves; casting, Mary Vernieu, Suzanne Smith-Crowley. Reviewed at CAA screening room, Los Angeles, Sept. 2, 2008.(In Venice Film Festival -- competing; Toronto Film Festival -- Gala Premieres; New York Film Festival -- closer.) Running time: 109 MIN.

(Credit: Variety)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling

Wrestler will 'beat the hell out of Dicko', by Sean Cusick - NineMSN - 9th November 2008

Ian "Dicko" Dickson is in for a rude shock if he thinks his impending wrestling match with a pro wrestler will be child's play, his opponent has warned.

Melbourne's "King of Hardcore" KrackerJak is eager to get his hands on the Australian Idol judge, after Dickson ridiculed the wrestling industry on his Vega radio show.

"I'm going to do horrible things to him tonight, make no mistakes about it," KrackerJak told ninemsn.

"A lot of people like to have a laugh at wrestling, but not many are brave or stupid enough to jump in the ring and try it for themselves.

"He's going to be in incredible pain tomorrow … it takes years to build up the physical conditioning that you need to crash around the ring and get repeatedly punched in the head."

KrackerJak, 29, has been wrestling for eight years and is known for his brutal style.

While the matches are obviously staged, he has subjected himself to dangerous manoeuvres including being stabbed with scissors and thrown onto thumbtacks.

KrackerJak says the most excruciating pain he has experienced was from a botched spinal tap after suffering a severe concussion.

"Scissors, barb wire, thumbtacks, forks, chairs and tables - you name it, I've hurt someone with it," KrackerJak said.

"I like to get really hardcore on an opponent at times.

"But let's face it, wrestling against some fat guy from the radio, I probably won't need to set him on fire or anything like that."

Dickson has assumed the wrestling moniker "The Guv'nor" and has been training for the past two weeks.

However, despite the chance of injury, the wrestler also known as "The Mad Bastard" claims he has no intentions of treating Dickson with kid gloves.

"I haven't had to sign any legal documents that say I have to go easy on him, which I think is another mistake on his part," KrackerJak said.

"I want to teach him some respect about the industry that I love. He will learn that wrestling really does hurt like hell."

The pair will do battle at around 10pm AEDT tonight at Melbourne's Hi-Fi Bar.

(Credit: NineMSN)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling

Vale Walter 'Killer" Kowalski - ABC Radio National - 30th October 2008

The golden years of wrestling in Australia were between 1964 and 1978 when World Championship Wrestling was on Channel 9 every weekend. It was a magic time and it had life long consequences....

The legendary professional wrestler, 'Killer' Kowalski, who died aged 81 on 30 August this year, had a big impact on my life.

This came about through an article in TV Week around 1965. It told of how in real life Kowalski was a university graduate, with a deep interest in spirituality and philosophy. I learned from this that a man can be tough and strong and also be an intellectual. This was an important lesson for someone who was into ideas at a young age. It made me feel less marginal and okay about continuing in a scholarly direction.

I first saw him in 1964, when I was thirteen and Channel Nine's 'World Championship Wrestling' program had just started. The televised bouts advertised grudges that we viewers would pay big money to see in full gory glory at venues like Festival Hall and the Sydney Stadium.

I was there, at the old Tin Shed, which was colloquial Melburnian for Festival Hall, when Kowalski took on the likes of the 'Golden Greek' Spiros Arion, the 'Flying French Canadian' Emile Dupre, Domenic De Nucci, Dick Steinborn, Tex McKenzie, Larry O'Dea, Ron Miller and Mario Milano.

The Killer's winning manoeuvre was a submission hold called the claw hold. Kowalski would pummel his opponent, stomp and knee-drop to their mid-section, and then clasp both hands onto the abdominal region, digging in deeper and deeper with his fingers until he was manipulating their intestines. To develop the strength and skill to do this, he trained each day by squeezing tennis balls with his fingers until the balls popped. At any rate, that's how I remember him explaining it to the late great wrestling commentator, Jack Little, one Sunday lunchtime.

Kowalski enthralled me by his physique and strength. He stood at two metres and weighed 127 kilos. There was no flab, and the proportioning of his muscularity was just how my mates and pencil-necked me wanted to be. The problem was Kowalski was one of the bad guys in the ring; a 'heel' to use the lingo of the business. We admired his strength but wanted to see him beaten.

Kowalski was brilliant in tapping into the mass psychology of the audience. He needed no fancy gimmicks or costumes. He struck fear into us with a glance.

In August 1965, I wrote a fan letter to the Killer care of channel 9. The reply came from Nine's Publicity Department. I still have it. It said: "... time does not permit Killer Kowalski to answer any letters. I hope you are not too disappointed... but he did appreciate receiving your letter".

"Not TOO disappointed"!!! Of course I was disappointed, VERY disappointed. And for some reason, I kept the letter, not realizing that three decades later, it would allow my life, momentarily, to intersect with that of the man himself.

In 1996, I came across a report about a wrestling school run by Kowalski in Boston, so I decided to write again - enclosing a copy of the 1965 letter from Nine. I told the Killer how he had helped keep me on a scholarly path in my early teenage years. I also told him that I had become a father and had a two year old son named Joey.

It was an absolute surprise and delight to receive a reply two weeks later. There, in large format, was a stunning photo of Kowalski, in his sixties but still a magnificent specimen. The photo was inscribed in his handwriting with the words: "To Joey and Barry York, two great champions. Best of luck, Killer Kowalski".

The autographed photo is now framed and hangs in my study, where I continue to read, research and write.

Thank you and Vale: Walter 'Killer' Kowalski.

(Credit: ABC Radio National)


Guests

Barry York
Canberra based historian

Further Information

Ron Miller web site


Producer

Sue Clark

Media Man Australia Profiles

Walter 'Killer' Kowalski

PRESS RELEASE- WORLD PREMIER OF TIGER KHAN- FIRE IN THE BLOOD

FROM THE ASSOCIATE PRODUCER OF THE WRESTLER

Contacts:

Evan Ginzburg- evan_ginzburg@yahoo.com

Franco Frassetti- franco.frassetti@gmail.com


Marlon “Tiger Khan” Kalkai was a pro wrestler who travelled the world for well over a decade in pursuit of his dream- making it in the world of professional wrestling.

Along the way he made some bad choices and that dream tragically died with him in 2006.

In the documentary Tiger Khan- Fire in the Blood, Finamore-Frassetti Productions and Tiger’s close friend Evan Ginzburg look at the colorful life and tragic death at age 33 of this respected and beloved athlete.

Frassetti is an experienced documentary director whose upcoming film In The Ring of Honor chronicles the life and times of Bruno Sammartino. Evan Ginzburg served as Associate Producer on Darren Aronofsky’s critically acclaimed The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. The picture won best film at the 2008 Venice Film Festival and will close the prestigious New York Film Festival.

Two plus years in the making, Tiger Khan- Fire in the Blood features original music by Sounds of Tibet and Ansel Matthews, footage from the poignant 2007 Tiger Khan Memorial Show, rare photographs, interviews with legendary professional wrestlers, animation, in-ring footage of Tiger in action, as well as interview footage of Tiger himself talking about his passion for life and the wrestling business.

Tiger Khan- Fire in the Blood premiers at the Pioneer Theater in New York’s East Village on October 26th at 9PM. Tickets are $10.00 each ($6.50 students/seniors/members). A Q&A with filmmakers Evan Ginzburg & Franco Frassetti follows the showing.

The Pioneer Theater is located at 155 East 3rd Street at Avenue A in New York City. For further information call theater at 212-591-0434. Advance tickets NOW AVAILABLE- visit www.twoboots.com/pioneer and click by showtime or call (800) 595-4849 (service charges apply).

Producer/Director Franco Frassetti and Evan Ginzburg are available for interviews in conjunction with this movie.

Hear more about the film on the 3rd Annual Tiger Khan Memorial Radio Tribute Sunday night October 19th from 7-9PM EST on Evan Ginzburg’s Legends Radio (co-hosted by Dr. Mike Lano) and heard live at www.legendsradio.net and www.wrestling-radio.com (archived 24/7 at same stations) as well as on www.wrestlingrespect.com’s interview with Evan Ginzburg- both archived below. Just click to listen.

Join noted pro wrestlers and the filmmakers at the world premier of Tiger Khan- Fire in the Blood on Sunday October 26th at 9PM. Log onto www.evanginzburg.com, www.wrestlingthenandnow.com, and www.twoboots.com/pioneer for further details, directions to theater (F or V train to 2nd Ave Station), and updates.

3rd Annual Tiger Khan Memorial Radio Show Sunday 10/19

Edition of Evan Ginzburg’s Legends Radio co-hosted by

Dr. Mike Lano

Guests include:

Franco Frassetti (Co-Director/Producer Tiger Khan-Fire in the Blood)

Lee Peterson General Manager of Pioneer Theater

Eric Adamz

http://www.garageband.com/mp3cat/.UZCMYi_M7Kqi/01_10_19_08_Legends_Radio.mp3


WRESLTINGRESPECT.COM INTERVIEWS EVAN GINZBURG ABOUT HIS ROLE IN THE WRESTLER, TIGER KHAN- FIRE IN THE BLOOD & MUCH MORE. LISTEN HERE… Wrestling Respect (www.wrestlingrespect.com) is a new web site and audio show that focuses on New England-based independent promotions plus Ring of Honor, Chikara, TNA, WWE, and all other organizations that run shows in the region. The site's founder, Joshua B, spent 14 years in the music industry where he had the opportunity to interview many artists, musicians, and producers. Now he has taken that experience and applied it to his long-time interest in pro wrestling. His home studio, dubbed the Golden Touch studio, now pulls double duty as pro wrestling personality interview headquarters. Episode #1 of Wrestling Respect features an hour plus interview with New England Championship Wrestling president and co-owner, Sheldon Goldberg. The next interview was conducted at the studio with the help of an American Sign Language interpreter, and was later transcribed into text. The interviewee was Matt Calamare, the region's only deaf referee and wrestler. Now, Joshua B is pleased to announce the availability of the second Wrestling Respect audio show, a 70 minute interview with Evan Ginzburg. The radio host, writer, producer, teacher, club promoter, and manager called the Golden Touch studio from his New York apartment and went in-depth about The Wrestler and many other topics including his time at WBAI radio, his Legends Radio internet show, and much more. But possibly most fascinating are his first-hand accounts of being on the set of The Wrestler, and the six years of preparation leading up to it. Evan's accounts and stories will give you chills. On this episode of Wrestling Respect, you'll also hear about Chikara's return to Framingham, MA, Ring of Honor's return to Connecticut, and the Killer Kowalski Memorial Wrestling show coming this Sunday, October 26 to Malden, MA. Visit www.wrestlingrespect.com to hear the show now or to download it for listening at your convenience. If you like what you hear, subscribe to the Wrestling Respect podcast so you'll never miss an episode.
Contact: Joshua B, joshuab@wrestlingrespect.com
Web Site: http://www.wrestlingrespect.com
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/wrestlingrespectpodcast

CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN TO INTERVIEW WITH EVAN GINZBURG:
http://www.wrestlingrespect.com/2008/10/23/wrestling-respect-2-evan-ginzburg-interview

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling

Meet TNA’s biggest star: Vince McMahon, by Kevin Eck - The Baltimore Sun

I didn’t keep count, but it seemed to me that Vince McMahon’s name was mentioned more times on TNA Impact last night than Samoa Joe’s, Sting’s and Kurt Angle’s – combined.

Angle and Jeff Jarrett made the WWE chairman the focus of their angle, and even Mick Foley took a shot at his former boss in his much-anticipated debut promo.

TNA’s obsession with McMahon is nothing new. They’ve parodied him in the past, and let’s not forget those lame anti-WWE segments that were done by VKM (Vincent Kennedy McMahon, get it?).

The constant mentions of McMahon, the “machine up North,” past WWE story lines and current WWE stars make TNA look second rate and desperate for attention. How many times do you think WWE will reference TNA tonight on Smackdown or Monday night on Raw? There’s a better chance of Ted Nugent endorsing Barack Obama for president than there is of Samoa Joe or Jarrett getting a shout out from Triple H or Chris Jericho (both of whom were mentioned on Impact last night, by the way).

I understand that to hardcore TNA fans McMahon is the enemy, and that a heel will get heat by praising him, and a babyface will get a pop by insulting him. But I don’t think it will sell tickets or pay-per-views.

When ECW in its heyday went after WWE and WCW it was cool because they were the outlaw company rebelling against “the man.” It was what ECW was all about. TNA is not ECW and this is not 1997. The company would be better served concentrating on its own talented roster and story lines than on Vinny Mac.

Other thoughts on last night’s show:

This is what I wrote on June 1 of last year in regard to the death of Jarrett’s wife, Jill, who lost her battle with cancer the week before:

“I just don’t want to see a heel bring up Jill’s death in a disrespectful manner in order to get heat and start a feud with Jarrett.”

Sure enough, Angle, who reportedly is going through a divorce from his wife, Karen, said in his promo that he “wasn’t the only one who has lost his wife.”

As I have said before, I know this is wrestling and that real-life personal issues are often brought into story lines. I’m usually OK with it, but I draw the line at death. I wasn’t comfortable with MVP trying to get heat by bringing up Jeff Hardy’s dog, who died when Hardy’s house burned down last March, but, as much as I love dogs, a pet is not a human being. To bring the death of a wrestler or a wrestler’s spouse into a story line is disgusting.

I didn’t like it when WWE did it with Eddie Guerrero and I don’t like it now with Jarrett’s wife. It amazes me that Vickie Guerrero and Jeff Jarrett go along with it, but wrestling people are just a different breed, and using deaths in story lines has been going on in the business for decades. ...

It was refreshing to hear Sting say this week that he and Ric Flair “didn’t always see eye to eye.” That’s quite an understatement to anyone who watched them feud for over a decade in WCW, but at least it’s better than Sting referring to Flair as “a confidant and a brother.” …

Rhaka Khan definitely was a surprise as ODB’s mystery partner against The Beautiful People. Khan was a little clumsy in the ring, but she did show some personality as a babyface. …

I loved Robert Roode’s lid, but not nearly as much as Jacqueline’s shirt.

Greg Tingle comment

Pro wrestling Yankee style is finally getting interesting again. Inside references, real heat between promotions and talent, death, pet and divorce references. The storylines are supposed to resemble something believable right, with a logical and compelling sequence of events, which doesn't reflect the cartoon character stuff from the 90's when IRS , Vinny Vegas and Doink was all the rage... not. Could this be NWO part 3 or 4? Your getting strong readership from down in Sydney, Australia, so the very much global audience must tell a story also. Are the web stats up also?

(Credit: The Baltimore Sun)

Media Man Australia Profiles

Wrestling