In other news, Iran - the country, not the usual comment you get from a triathlete in response to the question, "what did you do this morning?" - is angry about their portrayal in a new film. It seems that the new Mickey Rourke film, "The Wrestler," has a character called "The Ayatollah" who waves an Iranian flag around, and wrestles dirty. The Iranian government has
lodged the strongest of possible protests about this negative portrayal of Iran, because, y'know, everybody takes professional wrestling seriously. Face it, when you need information about Iran, you go to the
WWE website, or the
website of some movie about professional wrestling, rather than the
CIA World Factbook or other sketchy sources of made up, fictional information.
No word yet on whether the Saudi government is going to go to the U.N. over the antics of
The Iron Sheikh, whether Scotland is set to officially protest
Rowdy Roddy Piper, or whether People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is going to file suit over the anti-insecta animus evident in the name of
Superfly Jimmy Snuka, or
Andre the Giant's savage 1983 Tag Team Steel Cage Death Match beatdown over
George "The Animal" Steele.
Feeding Your Animals Turnbuckle Padding:
Animal Abuse, or a Good Meal?
8 comments:
I remember him. He just sort of hunched over and skulked around a lot.
He also tried to rub his bald pate down onto his face like he was coming out of some opium induced stupor.
Not that anyone from that country would ever be in one of those, not the opium induced stupor, but a wrestling ring.
-B
Good to know about this. I was going to name my wrestling persona "Doped-Up Climbing Specialist", but I think some Italians and Germans would get offended.
Bluenoser, two things. One, is GTA Steele was a high school teacher. I'm guessing the students paid attention to him. He was one of the last of the real old school guys - all those guys did was skulk around. Jimmy Snuka probably did more to change that than anybody with his antics off the top rope. As for that country, Iran actually has a tremendous cultural history of wrestlers and strongmen. Their wrestling cred rivals Greece's. Now, if they'd come along and said they objected to the pro wrestling movie because pro wrestling is obviously fake and about as worthy of fictional treatment as, say, the intellectual pretensions of the Rockettes, they'd have had more sympathy from me.
Jason - Pantani would have come back from the dead and committed suicide - again - from the sheer insult of it. Good thing you didn't.
Jim
I was thinking more along the lines of Bernard Kohl and Leonardo Piepoli, but I can see the reference going straight to the Il Pirato himself. My second choice for wrestling personality was "Insanely Over-hyped, yet very Played Texan", but I didn't think it would go over to well in Austin.
Yes Jim, you are correct about that. I did mean pro wrestlers and not the kind of PRO that BKWarmers talks about.
I skulk around corrected... can this hole get any deeper?
-B
Hmmm, I don't recall any righteous Iranian indignation when Mario Van Peeble's character referred to himself as the "Ayatollah of Rock'n'Rollah" in "Heartbreak Ridge."
Musta been 'cuz they had *such* respect for MVP as an actor...
Jason - I thank you, Zombie Marco Pantani thanks you.
Bluenoser - you can skulk around corrected. Just please don't chew up the corners of my blog.
AH - I think it's because they knew that Clint Eastwood's character would come kick all their asses if they complained. Or maybe actual Clint Eastwood would have done it, with the help of his friend, Chuck Norris. Kind of like how you never read a bad review of anything done by Joe Pesci, Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson, or Michael Madsen.
PLEASE tell me that they are bringing back Iron Sheik-Sergeant Slaughter grudge matches...
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