10 Things You Didn't Know About The Wrestler
4. Ring Of Honor
The closing scene of the movie depicts the long-awaited rematch between Randy The Ram and The Ayatollah, supposedly commemorating the 20th anniversary of their initial confrontation back in 1989. While that much is fictional, the match itself needed a real audience and where better to find one than a real live wrestling event.
The event chosen was Ring of Honor's Double Feature, emanating from the Baker Theatre in New Jersey. The filming took place over the weekend of 14/15 March in 2008, which were pretty stacked shows themselves, featuring several future WWE Champions in action.
While using a real audience had its upside, it also had its drawbacks and Randy's memorable pre-match speech was initially met by negativity from the crowd. After a verbal slap on the wrist from Aronofsky, the crowd understood the importance of the scene and were fully on board, even hilariously giving themselves a "We f***ed up" chant.
With the action filmed in front of a live ROH crowd, the audience actually got an alternative ending to the movie. While the real movie ends (SPOILER ALERT) with Ram jumping off the top rope, ambiguously leaving the audience to decide his fate, the live crowd saw Randy hit his "Ram Jam" finisher and pin Ayatollah for the three.