Randy "The Ram" Robinson calls out Chris Jericho for WRESTLEMANIA 25!
It would seem like the deal is almost done for Mickey Rourke to appear at the biggest wrestling night of the year, Wrestlemania 25, just over a month after he may have won a Best Leading Man Oscar for playing Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a down and out performer in THE WRESTLER. It's a BLOCKBUSTER deal, no doubt. One that could give wrestling the kind of exposure it hasn't had since The Rock moved to Hollywood nearly a decade ago. Never one to shy away from a publicity stunt, WWE owner Vince McMahon has made a huge offer to Mickey Rourke to appear at the event on April 5, 2009 and from the sounds of it, he may have given away the plot already for his storyline. In a video interview he calls out wrestler Chris Jericho and confirms he will make an appearance at "the grand daddy of them all"...
Then in a print interview with Access Hollywood he says...
The boys from the WWE called me and asked me to do it, Rourke told Access Hollywood. I said, I want to. Im talking with Rowdy Roddy Piper about it.
Bit of a shame he has let the cat out of the bag very early but at least we know it's the right one, the one that will work. A scenario that makes sense instead of putting him in the ring with Hulk Hogan or trying to recreate a match that never happened by making it The Ram vs. The Ayatollah, putting him against Ernest "The Cat" Miller, in some kind of reunion of a fictional event.
Watching THE WRESTLER, I was amazed at how quickly a man north of 50 so authentically picked up the sport, it's mannerisms and it's physicality in particular. Everything was present in his natural in ring performance and he instantly won the respect of his acting peers and also the respect of legends in the industry like Mick Foley. I dare even say that when I watch ROCKY again, I will be disappointed that Stallone's performance doesn't feel as epic or as natural as Rourke's and that maybe the story can't match up to what Darren Aronofsky pulled off here.
I know I'm gonna feel the more I watch it, the more it should have easily won an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and should have been running hard against Gus Van Sant's MILK to take home the gold next month.
But back to what I was talking about, and ya know, we saw an awful lot of backstage shooting as the movie was being made and Rourke was wrestling in front of the ROH crowd, the rowdest Indie crowd of the lot and managed to win the respect of those guys. That's something many men who do the sport for a living never ever receive.
Rourke was wrestling full matches, so putting him in a ring with a seasoned proffesional like Chris Jericho, who by the way is the perfect solid choice for this (he has made mediocre wrestlers look like world beaters for a decade and is so good on the mic and as an actor himself) and will truly make Rourke will look great. The only worry I would have is Rourke crumbling in front of such a huge crowd because it's not the same as those smaller housed Indie arena's.
Another question of course is whether it will be Mickey Rourke vs. Chris Jericho or Randy "The Ram Robinson" vs. Chris Jericho. I would go for the latter because it feels more unsual then, more like "anything could happen" and I wanna see "The Ram" pull of his signature moves AND would love them to play up on his dodgy heart gimmick. And of course, he will probably get a manager or someone in his corner (which hopefully won't be Hogan or something like that), or maybe a bunch of vets in his corner...
And well, if the reports of Marvel offering him just $250,000 to play Crymson Dynamo in IRON MAN 2 are correct, a good number of millions from McMahon is an offer Rourke clearly couldn't refuse.
I skipped WRESTLEMANIA for the first time in my life last year but I don't think I will be this year. What a year it's been for Rourke!