Mickey Rourke taps out early

In an update to a story posted January-28-09 at 2:52 pm


A spokeswoman for actor Mickey Rourke says he won't be taking his role as a professional wrestler into a real-life ring after all.

Paula Woods told The Associated Press on Wednesday night that Rourke will not wrestle WWE superstar Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania 25 in April at Houston's Reliant Stadium.

Woods wrote in an e-mail that the Oscar-nominated actor "will not be participating in Wrestlemania. He is focusing entirely on his acting career."

Rourke portrays professional wrestler Randy the Ram in the acclaimed movie "The Wrestler." He made a surprise announcement about the wrestling event Sunday night on the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles.

Rourke had said he was going to toss Jericho "around the ring like tossed salad."

Actor Mickey Rourke calls out WWE Superstar Chris Jericho

Several years ago, Will Smith starred as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali in a movie.

It was a movie....Play acting. Pretend.

Smith didn’t actually get into a ring and box 12 rounds with Mike Tyson for real.

Now Mickey Rourke is winning awards for his role as professional wrestler Randy the Ram in the acclaimed movie The Wrestler.

That’s the difference between boxing and pro wrestling.

Rourke has signed to wrestle WWE superstar Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania 25 in Reliant Stadium on April 5. For real, or as real as pro wrestling can be anyways.

Rourke made the surprise announcement Sunday night on the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles. He told Access Hollywood that he was pleased by the acceptance of The Wrestler by all the WWE wrestlers — except Jericho.

“So come Wrestlemania 25 in Houston, I’m going to toss him around the ring like tossed salad. Chris Jericho, you better get in shape,” Rourke promised, or threatened, or whatever you call it when wrestlers don’t particularly care for each other.

Jericho, appearing on WWE television this past Monday, and said, “You are out of line. It’s one thing to play a wrestler in a movie, something entirely different to actually be one. Your comments offended me. You made a mistake. It’s the last thing that you and Ric Flair want to do, and that’s offend Chris Jericho.””

In a related development, tickets for Wrestlemania 25 at Reliant Stadium are for sale at www.ticketmaster.com.

By the way, what does Ric Flair have to do with any of this?

According to Jericho, it was wrestling legend Flair who talked Rourke into thinking he could actually be a wrestler.

Rourke admits that Flair is “teaching me some tricks.”

The only thing Flair will admit to is, “Let’s just say, I will be at Wrestlemania, and that’s all I’m saying.”

In wrestling lingo, that means, “I am training Rourke, Chris Jericho is in a heap of trouble and whatever other rumors you’re hearing, they’re all true.”

Can't you just see the pay-per-view buy rates for Wrestlemania 25 going through the roof for the WWE with this "stunning" new development?

Yeah me neither...

WWE Fan Robbed of History

I saw this posted on one of my favorite sites, 1wrestling.com and thought i'd repost it here

FAN EJECTED FROM WWE PPV -- SHOULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED?

By: Derek Greser

This past Sunday at WWE Armageddon 2008, history was made. In a shocking conclusion to the event, Jeff Hardy captured the WWE Championship. This would mark the first time that the high-flying Superstar would capture what is considered to be crown jewel of the sports entertainment business.

Any fan of the WWE and/or Jeff Hardy can tell you this has been a long time coming. The event emanated from HSBC Arena in Buffalo, NY. The event marked the 2nd ever Pay-Per-View event in the city and venue’s history, as well as its first major title change.

29-Year-Old Tom Griffith attended the event, and had front-row seats. Tom has been a 20-year tenaciously loyal fan of the WWE. I know Tom personally and I can say that without question, the WWE is one of the biggest passions in his life. Tom has attended over 25 live events in Buffalo, Toronto, Philadelphia and Rochester. He has purchased countless WWE DVD’s and box-sets (many on their release date), video games, memorabilia, clothing, and roughly $7000 dollars on pay-per-view events.

Unfortunately for Tom, he was not able to witness history. Prior to the main event, Armageddon featured a mid-card bout between Batista and Randy Orton. Tom, an avid fan of Randy lead his friends in a raucous chorus of boos Batista’s entrance. They even dared to direct a naughty hand gesture (The same that mega-star Stone Cold Steve Austin used on television for years) at the 300 plus lb. powerhouse dubbed “The Animal”. Batista himself made eye contact with Tom and his friends, and got right in their face before ascending the ring apron. Due to the quality of Tom’s seats, this was clearly visible to fans at home as well as in the arena.

Tom then received a signal from one of the cameramen working outside the ring. This WWE employee made the “slit the throat” gesture at Tom which universally means “cut it out”. Tom nodded, and decided that he had expressed himself enough. Minutes later, approximately 8 imposing looking men dressed in gray suits asked if they could speak with Tom in the aisle. Tom obliged and was then walked out of the arena, concluding in the gray suits tearing his ticket up in front of him. The explanation Tom was given was “The person renting this building tonight has requested you be removed from it”. Tom spent the rest of the event outside in the freezing rain waiting for his friends who were still inside to drive him home.

In the past, WWE has encouraged their fans to express themselves. Vince McMahon has encouraged fans to bring signs to their support, or anti-support of his performers. This leads to the question; why was Tom removed? He was not involved in an altercation with anyone performing at or attending the event. He was not publically intoxicated. The only possible reason Tom was removed is that the powers-that-be at WWE wanted to protect the image of their Superstar Batista, who is presented as a fan-favorite.

The right thing to do here is to refund Tom’s ticket price. In the interest of fairness, this should be the very minimum. The best case scenario is to give Tom priority seating at the next WWE event at HSBC to make up for this obvious mistreatment of a great patron and fan. This article will be sent to World Wrestling Entertainment as well as HSBC Arena and Tickets.com. The ball is now the court of these companies. Will any of them step up to right this wrong?

I am asking for the support of the Pro-Wrestling community to please let Tom’s story be heard. Let’s protect the right to express ourselves as fans, and paying customers.

- Derek Greser

What do you think? was the WWE right in doing what they did? or was this a company impeding freedom of speech/Freedom of expression and owes this fan somewhat more than an apology for there behavior and the way they handled this matter? What do you think should be done here? What are your thoughts?

Wrestling!!!

Growing up, I was a HUGE wrestling fan! I admit it, I never missed a show when the WWF (now WWE) came into town to the old Maple Leaf Gardens (NEVER missed it!!)

Back in what is often referred to as "the golden years" of wrestling, when wrestling was arguably at it's peak in popularity... was significantly different from what has been shown on TV then what it is today.

In the 1980's as I was growing up, Wrestling had a more cartoon look feel to it, with crazy storylines (ok, crazy story lines may have kept going beyond the 80's) and way over the top gimmick wrestlers.

Then in the 1990's, a change took place, wrestling had "grown up" and it was what was labeled "the attitude era", with stories portrayed on screen increasingly moving toward the mature (definitely PG) side of things, where as in the 1980's, you had wrestler gimmicks aimed towards the kids, wrestlers like KOKO B. Ware, Dusty Rhodes (and that yellow polka dot outfit on such a large man, yikes) George "The Animal" Steele, Hillbilly Jim, The Ultimate Warrior, the Junk Yard Dog, and the all american hero, Hulk Hogan... the 1990's brought us "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Mankind, The Undertaker, The Rock with his jokes and one liners not all kids would (or should) get, and Degeneration X, consisting of Triple H (Hunter Hearst Helmsly) and Shawn Michaels, Their gimmick was that of a gang of rebels who acted,did and spoke as they pleased, no matter how provocative. (DEFINITELY PG13.. at least) as well as Val Venis, with his porn star gimmick.

Through the changes and everything, fans continued to watch and return (maybe not as many as in there "heyday" but many still do) many spend there hard earned money (even in this economy) to order the monthly pay-per-view shows, which are, more often then not, with very predictable outcomes.

Lately wrestling has scaled things back a little bit, no longer pushing the envelope on just how much they'd do for shock factor, moving from a more Mature show that has been on the last few years, to a definitive PG13 rating, wrestling storylines may have become stale, and that may be due to the limits a PG13 rating would allow (or it may be due to other factors, not to let anyone off the hook) but there are still some very exciting wrestlers (or as they're being referred to lately on screen "entertainers" wrestling seems to be removed slowly from the product entirely, first it was changed to World Wrestling ENTERTAINMENT a few years back, and now the wrestlers themselves being referred to as entertainers)

Here's my list of 30 favorite wrestlers of the past 30 years (in no particular order)

- Ric Flair

- Triple H

- Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat

- Edge

- Randy "Macho Man" Savage

- Rob Van Dam

- Andre "The Giant"

- The Undertaker

- Ron Killings

- Abyss

- Sabu

- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper

- The Rock

- Chris Jericho

- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin

- Demolition (tag team)

- Randy Orton

- C.M. Punk

- Sting

- Abdullah "The Butcher"

- King Kong Bundy

- Tazz

- Jeff Hardy

- Raven

- Kevin Nash

- Vader

- Kurt Angle

- Samoa Joe

- "Mr. Perfect." Curt Hennig

- Scott Hall


What about you? any other wrestling fans (past/present) reading this posting that have there own list of 30 over the past 30?

Until next time........