Hey, Vince McMahon doesn't hate The Wrestler anymore!
Maybe he took a second viewing, removed the gold-plated stick out of his ass and finally saw the film's beauty. Or maybe he saw that Mickey Rourke is getting nominations in everything but the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award (there's still hope!) and decided to pretend he's always been The Wrestler's homeboy. Whichever the case, McMahon now wants to endorse The Wrestler by inviting Mickey Rourke to participate in this year's Wrestlemania.
I'd written about McMahon's reported fury towards the film's negative portrayal of what happens to wrestlers after their stint in his biz, as well as Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky criticizing wrestling promoters like himself for halting attempts to unionize pro wrestlers. So a lot of people were surprised last Friday when WWE SmackDown! aired a video in the middle of the show praising and promoting The Wrestler. A little late, sure, but it's the thought benefit that counts.
I guess what Vince didn't see at the time was that the film is attracting lots and lots of attention from the mainstream media, and it wouldn't help his business any if Vince was seen denouncing the film the way WWE.com coyly did (see previous article mentioned above). Moreover, since Darren Aronofsky screened him the film in December, Mickey Rourke went on to win a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination.
So what's a guy to do? Jump on the bandwagon, of course. A bunch of wrestling blogs reported Saturday that there were some internal talks to get Mickey Rourke on board Wrestlemania, and last night at the SAG awards, Mickey publicly accepted the offer while being interviewed by Extra, directly challenging Chris Jericho.
I don't think he'll win—Sean Penn will, as his SAG win last night seems to indicate—but I bet Vince is crossing his fingers for Rourke to win so he can conjure up some cross-promotional deals and marketing hype. Wrestlemania has a history of having celebrity guest appearances from Burt Reynolds to Donald Trump, but never an Oscar winner (Burt appeared way before he got his Boogie Nights nom).
