Norton: Why did you decide to make a documentary about pro wrestling?

Blaustein: I’ve been threatening to do this for years (laughs). I’ve been a fan all my life. I know a lot of people in it and I always felt that what happens behind the scenes is more interesting than what happens in front of it, so I felt it would make a fascinating film. I had a surprise birthday party, where my wife invited everybody I knew. I heard a very familiar voice… that of Dusty Rhodes saying "Blaustein, come on out, this is your life!" In the backyard, my dad built a wrestling podium, a cake with me as a wrestler on it… I was very flattered because my wife went to so much effort. But it was so humiliating that everybody now knew I was a wrestling fan. It wasn’t something I was proud of, because when people hear you’re a fan, they give you this look… at that point, I thought "I’m out of the closet, I might as well make the damn film!" (laughs) I wanted to show everybody what I liked about it.

Norton: How long did it take you to make the film?

Blaustein: Five years… I had to find funding, follow the wrestlers, gain trust. I was going around with them for two years without cameras. It wasn’t five straight years, I was doing other work at the time. I had a family to support.

Norton: So you were feeling it out for a few years… talking to the guys…

Blaustein: Yes, yes. Finally they said, "So when are you going to bring cameras already?"

Norton: So you knew that was the time to bring a camera…

Blaustein: Yeah! (laughs)

Norton: What kind of a budget was it?

Blaustein: A half a million dollars, which for a feature film is the "Shrimp Cocktail" budget. Most TV documentaries have 2 –3 times that kind of money. For a film this was not a lot of money.

Norton: What were your hardest challenges to overcome?

Blaustein: Gaining trust and getting access. Those are always difficult.

Norton: Did you find it took you a long time for wrestlers to...

Blaustein: Open up to me? Yeah, a long time. Terry Funk signed on early, and helped me out a lot. He vouched for me to other guys. Originally the film was about young guys trying to make it. But I found that because they don’t have the experience the older guys have, they inherently just weren’t as interesting. One guy we were going to follow is Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley)… and by the time we got the cameras, he’d already made it! (laughs) You want people to have different stories to tell.

Norton: Certainly, "What I did" is surely more interesting than "What I’d like to do," particularly because wrestling is so unpredictable.

Blaustein: Certainly… it’s so bizarre… so surreal.

Norton: How would you compare Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon?

Blaustein: They both have a lot of passion for the business. I think Paul has a little more passion and compassion for the wrestlers. A lot of what you see the WCW and WWF doing now is stuff that Paul did years ago. Vince is an incredible promoter. I’m having some problems with him right now. You have to look at it as a business acumen.

Norton: On that topic, what has Vince done to prevent advertising for the movie, and why?

Blaustein: In a lot of ways, Vince McMahon is like Jake Roberts. He portrays a bad SOB on screen for so long that, he feels he has to be that way off camera. It’s easy to portray him as a bad guy, but I don’t think he’s a totally bad guy. He does have certain passions, he has passions for the sport and some for the guys. During the making of the movie, Vince wanted to invest in it and then he wanted to buy it. I’ve made little to nothing on this movie, but it was important for me to be independent. He saw the movie and I think he was a little uncomfortable… "How could you put me in this movie with other promoters!" He was very upset that he was in the movie with Roland, "A guy like that." I said "Vince, you’re in your offices every day. You go to your shows every day. You take that for granted, but most people haven’t seen that, they haven’t seen Titan headquarters. A lot of the audience hasn’t been to a wrestling show." You have to show all the levels. If I’m going to do a movie on acting, I show Tom Cruise and I show an aspiring actor, it’s the same person. I think when you see Mick and his children crying, it’s powerful, and I think he wants people to think it’s all fun and games. I said "listen, this is what I told you I was going to do. I wanted to show the wrestlers as real people." It’s very hard to make this profession, and get respect for the profession. He’s not selling that these days. First he said he won’t promote the movie, which is a shame, it’s a tremendous way to reach the fans. Then he said that his wrestlers couldn’t either, if they did, it would be at career peril (they’d be fired). Right after ads from us were accepted from the USA network, UPN and Chris Craft stations, just after Mick Foley’s last match, Vince pulled the advertising from these shows. Again, I thought it was vindictive, and it hurt the film tremendously. Is it within his rights? Possibly. But what really scared me is that he forced those stations into not showing ANY advertisements on ANY program. Dave Meltzer came up with a great analogy. The NFL was unhappy with the "Any Given Sunday" Oliver Stone movie, but they didn’t put any pressure on CBS or FOX not to run any ads on it. It’s a really scary precedent that…

Norton: One power can (control so much of the industry)...

Blaustein: Yes. It speaks a lot about integration…. It’s just tough.

Norton: If you were to have ads on RAW (you would have reached a huge proportion of wrestling fans)

Blaustein: It hurts a lot. Vince can’t own it… it comes back to control. If he can’t control it, he wants to make sure that nobody knows about it. The ironic thing is that WCW wasn’t part of the movie, they didn’t sign the release. Yet they let us advertise with them, they’ve even talked about it, they feel it treats wrestlers with respect. I think it’s really… I know he’s a better person than this… there’s certain people in wrestling that don’t respect the profession and the guys in it as much as some of the fans do.

Norton: Is there any amount of money Vince could have offered that would make you say "wow… this is an awful lot of money!…"

Blaustein: Vince said "name your price," that was the last thing he said. I worked five years on this on and off. I have a career as a screen writer which I make my money off of, so this was never about making money. I would like to make money off it now… Of course, after five years, it would be nice to get a little something for it! (laughs)… but, no, for me there was never a point. If he offered a hundred million yesterday… well, I don’t have that much passion! (jokingly).

Norton: What would he have done with it?

Blaustein: I think he would have made it a puff piece. Towards the end, maybe he wanted to suppress it. I don’t know why, because it’s not negative towards wrestling, and I don’t think he comes off badly in it.

Norton: The WWF comes off as the major power…

Blaustein: Which it is, which it is. So no one can understand why he’s acting this way. There’s even people within his organization that won’t go public with it, they want to protect their jobs.

Norton: Having an independent guy make the WWF look like the top dog I’d think…

Blaustein: Exactly, yeah. I don’t understand it at all. The easy thing as a film maker would be to push Vince as a jerk, who exploits his guys. But I don’t see it that way. It’s weird, because I feel like I’m in a wrestling angle, except it’s real, unfortunately. (Puts on Hogan’s voice) Brother, this is a shoot! (laughs)

Norton: One of the things I found in the documentary is that you seemed to present Roland Alexander in a negative light, shooting him from underneath…

Blaustein: Well, there was only one shot like that on the road. The rest were in small offices, there was no other place to put the camera. If I was Roland I wouldn’t be wearing tight T-Shirts… (laughs)… I didn’t catch him by surprise or anything like that. Roland said he felt he looked heavy in the film. He IS heavy. There’s a lot of stuff about Roland there’s interesting, though, and in defense, I went to tons of wrestling schools. For whatever reason, the graduates of his school are better trained, better wrestlers, give a better quality of wrestling at APW than anywhere else around the country. He’s really to be congratulated for it. There’s things he does to survive as an independent promoter. But I think… I understand he’s sort of unhappy with it, that he was called a carney. If I thought it was negative, I wouldn’t have included it. Wrestling comes from a carney tradition. The fact of the matter is, some guys tell you he doesn’t pay.

Norton: There’s that one point…

Blaustein: I had much worse stuff than that on film.

Norton: The point where Tony Jones says "some nights you get paid, some nights you don’t," and it cuts straight to Roland saying "You always get paid." I was talking to Roland, and he said that you were aware of the fact that Tony Jones is in his first year or two years, and the agreement is that because he’s still training with the school he doesn’t get paid for those shows. According to Roland, you knew about this agreement, but the way it was spliced it looked like…

Blaustein: I knew of no such agreement. I know guys who don’t get paid, Tony’s not the only one, and they’re not first or second year students.

Norton: So you know guys who don’t get paid?

Blaustein: That’s what they tell me. But that’s common practice. He’s trying to make a living, Roland is trying to put out a product with very little money. He puts out a product that, as far as the indy scene goes, is top grade.

Norton: You weren’t aware in this specific case that he and Tony Jones had a deal…

Blaustein: I realize that everybody in wrestling has an agenda, I try to look past that agenda. But Tony is not the only person I heard this from. I think other guys in the school saw this movie, and think it’s honest. I asked Roland if there was anything in the movie that’s not true. I know he had a problem with… like where he starts crying about Mike Modest not making it. He’s the one who started crying. Some say it’s sincere, some say it’s not. I don’t know which one, I think there’s a mixture. I like Roland, I thank him for the access, and I think that ultimately the move will do him well.

Norton: He’s getting exposure.

Blaustein: Yeah, I told him, he’s the only independent. It’s him, Paul Heyman and Vince, that’s good company to be with, and his guys are bieng shown as being good wrestlers. Why they weren’t picked up by the WWF, there’s a million different reasons. They went in and did a good match, the WWF was very impressed. I said to the WWF " I want to bring in some guys for a dark match." They said "Yeah, but what if they embarrass us, we have a big show…" I promised I wouldn’t bring the fallout guy who was trying to make it and I don’t think has a chance. Right after I spoke to everybody and I asked "what do you think," and they were very impressed with them. There’s a lot of determining factors, if they have a place or an angle, whether they get signed or not. I talked to Mike Modest, he had no problem with the movie. Roland was saying "This place is dirty," but… it's always dirty (laughs), Mike didn’t have a problem with it.

Norton: The movie showed Paul Heyman’s speech before the first ECW PPV, I thought it was great…

Blaustein: Yes, indeed.

Norton: Given what you’ve seen backstage at ECW, do you think they’re destined to become a major player?

Blaustein: I think so, I hope so. I was backstage on Saturday. There’s a good spirit back there. It’s a very loose locker room. They’ve gone through tough financial times. Paul is a great wrestling mind. Unfortunately, a lot of what he did four or five years ago are being done by the big companies, so he has to find another niche, but I would not count him out. He’s a brilliant mind in wrestling.

Norton: WCW wasn’t a part of the movie.

Blaustein: They wouldn’t sign my release.

Norton: Why do you think they didn’t when the WWF did?

Blaustein: WCW wanted editorial control. Eric Bischoff wouldn’t sign the release…

Norton: It was messed up at the time, not that it isn’t now, but certainly it’s possible that you’d come across something and they’d be afraid you’d use it…

Blaustein: Yeah, but I was always like "listen, if there’s areas you don’t want me in, we can talk about it." There’s always sensitive areas around wrestling. Steroid abuse. I could care less if they’re on steroids. As a fan? It’s their own issue. It’s not why I watch wrestling one way or the other. Anyway, WCW didn’t sign a release. Terry (Funk) was very influential in talking to Paul, and I don’t think he has anything to hide. I wanted ECW very much… I found them fascinating. Vince? I caught him on a good day! (laughs) Everyone said "How did you get him?" I said "My knees are worn out!" (laughs) You think Terry Funk’s knees are bad?

Norton: One reader, we asked readers for questions, we got about three billion… one reader said…

Blaustein: It makes Vince unhappier if the film does well, so… (laughs) and this is the real "Mr. McMahon!"

Norton: He said he saw a screening at the University of Chicago where you answered questions. You said that you suggested some storyline to WCW, but I assume you meant the WWF.

Blaustein: No, it was WCW.

Norton: It was?

Blaustein: Yes. When I was negotiating with Eric, he always said "maybe I’ll hire you and not tell the boys." I said it was a dream job for me, but that I wouldn’t do anything with it until I was finished the film. He asked if he could run angles by me, I said yeah, sure. I didn’t want to get paid for it, and I wasn’t. I made certain suggestions.

Norton: Anything we’ll know, love and recognize?

Blaustein: I try to not talk about it, but actually, there was a big thing. Right at the PPV I got a call from Eric thanking me for it. But he still wouldn’t sign my release!

Norton: Well that sucks! You can work for WCW and the WWF gives you the release.

Blaustein: Right, right (laughing) I talked to Terry Funk the other day, he said something really funny. "It’s just like wrestling… you do something great for the industry and two of the three companies want nothing to do with you." (laughs) WCW’s been great.

Norton: That’s funny, the WWF and WCW switched roles since…

Blaustein: They’re not even in the movie and they’re talking about it on the air. And they’re willing to promote it.

Norton: It’s as if both of them feel the WWF is portrayed badly, but I don’t see it myself.

Blaustein: WCW don’t know what Vince’s problem with it is. They’re telling me that this is the best thing that could of happened, we’ll bring new people in to it and all that...

Norton: That’s a rather noble stance for the company to take…

Blaustein: Well, I appreciate it. They get a lot of criticism, but you know, they have their own "Ready To Rumble" thing coming out… As much criticism as they’re getting lately, they’ve been great with me, and they’re really standing up to this. It’s really admirable. If they banned the commercials and said they’re not going to talk about it, I’d understand, I’d totally understand, but they said "You know what? We think it’s good for the business."

Norton: The movie was full of potent moments. Which did you find the most powerful? It’s all about heartbreak.

Blaustein: Yeah. Jake and his daughter. Jake on crack.

Norton: That was my second question… I figured they might end up being the same one.

Blaustein: Yeah… and Mick and his children. Shooting Mick was the only time I used more than one crew. I wasn’t in the arena while that filming was going on (his wife and his children crying in the crowd). I thought it was really sad. Mick went and killed himself, and had to ask Vince if it was okay.

Norton: I got that impression from the backstage shots. I was a little… I wasn’t sure about his approach, with this guy literally going out and killing himself for the company.

Blaustein: I think he appreciates Mick up to a point. As long as he does what he’s told.

Norton: Vince is a businessman.

Blaustein: Yes. So I didn’t see the stuff with the kids until it was developed, but the guy shooting it was saying "oh my God." And the stuff with Jake on crack. That was seven days in a row. That’s a long time to spend with anybody, particularly Jake Roberts.

Norton: Did you feel they were very sincere?

Blaustein: Oh yeah. Like I said, some of these guys play you a lot, and sometimes I have to say "cut out the wrestling crap." Whenever I felt there was a fake moment, I cut it out. I felt I was pretty good at that. It was quite an emotional journey.

Norton: One moment that got me was not just seeing Mick’s wife and kids in the crowd at the ’99 Royal Rumble where he was being hit in the head with a chair, but afterward when Mick had to watch the footage of them… I liked the way the camera was on Mick’s face. You could see his heart drop in his eyes.

Blaustein: When you spent a lot of time with the guys, you become close to them, especially Mick. Mick is a wonderful father. His parents are going to make mistakes. He called me up a few weeks after the show and asked about the footage. I said "it was horrendous." He said he felt they were okay backstage, and they were to an extent… but I said "Mick, you have no idea how they reacted to seeing this." My editor was against me showing him the footage. And my wife was against me showing him the footage. Even though he has no control over the movie…

Norton: He might get really offended by it…

Blaustein: Yeah, he’d be upset and you’ll want to keep it in, and should keep it in, but it will make things hard for you emotionally. But I wanted to show it to him for two different things; (A) because I felt he needed to see it and (B) I didn’t want that to be the last impression of Mick Foley in the film (his wife and kids crying). I knew what a conscientious father he was. I wanted him to have the chance to respond accordingly. I went down there July 4^th. Mick was like "I think the kids were okay." I had someone take the kids out for ice cream. I showed it to him, and it was like punching a close friend in the stomach. He was really taken aback by it. I think that contributed a lot to him wanting to stop.

Norton: It was shortly after that on Off The Record that he said he’d retire…

Blaustein: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m glad he’s retired. As a friend, for himself. Even as a fan, he’s given enough. I can say thank you.

Norton: Wrestling fans are very cutthroat, but when it came to the subject of his retirement, I’ve found that most fans are, to a degree, selfless enough to say "that’s enough." I saw his last match with Triple H, and they’re both up on top of the cage, 20 feet in the air. I was really looking forward to it, his big finale… but when the time for the match came, I found myself turning away from the screen. I was afraid they’d go through the cage, I was afraid there’d be a final injury.

Blaustein: The only difference between that match and the last match is that when the cage broke in the last it was an accident. Just like wrestling, they turned it into an angle, a gimmick, which is what I feel this movie is being turned into (laughs). But it’s not. I remember showing this film before, and I knew the ending of the match before the match at No Way Out. I knew Mick wasn’t going to win, that this was it. I showed it at some schools and kids said "what’s going to happen?" And everybody said "I want him to win," but almost all of them said "but I don’t want to see him getting hurt anymore." Mick has a bond with the fans which is really unique. At the start of the film, he was in ECW, PA. That’s where I started travelling with him. I didn’t know he’d become this huge, it could never happen to a more deserving guy. People asked "why not this guy or this guy? Why Mick?" I was there when he signed with the WWF. Mick went over the whole WWF roster and he told me everybody he thought would and wouldn’t make it. Vince will admit privately when he’s wrong all the time, "well, we got this guy a bad gimmick" or whatever. But he was very accurate with most people. I remember saying "I think I’m going to focus on Mick, and he says "…Mick? … You think… Mick?" I said "As a person, he’s interesting. He’s one of the most interesting people. If you can get across what he is like a person, I think he’ll be like a huge star."

Norton: And that happened in ’98. It was weird. After the first Hell In A Cell, he went into the match a big heel. When it was over, people were clapping and chanting "Foley," he was known as "Mankind" at the time.

Blaustein: It’s also great that he is also known as Mick Foley. Of course, Vince doesn’t also own that name…. (laughs, because he can’t stop him calling him that). Mick Foley is in the movie. Terry Funk is in the movie. Jake the Snake is in the movie.

Norton: And Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)

Blaustein: And Dwayne Johnson (laughs)

Norton: I loved the way the movie ended. The last line was something like "He hopes to one day walk again" – it was an update on Droz being paralyzed. He was one of the characters you took for granted in the movie. It came out of left field. I didn’t actually think it would be mentioned by the time the movie finished.

Blaustein: The movie had to be locked in October 1st for the movie to run for Academy consideration (for the Oscars). (The Injury) literally happened a week later. I didn’t have time to mention it in that run, but I wanted to do some sort of update. I wanted to tell people you get that hurt, that was a simple move, accidents happen.

Norton: We’d seen Foley suffer though a lot of footage. It was almost more potent to say "Oh By the way, he’s paralyzed." It gets people thinking.

Blaustein: It’s a real tragedy for him… he was in the ring with one of the best guys, D’Lo Brown. He’s one of the most sensitive, gentle. It’s terrible and shows that these things happen.

Norton: One of our writers, Chris, when he heard Beyond The Mat wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, wrote this story and sent me the link to proof read it… the title of the story was "Screw The Oscars!"

Blaustein: Chris and I have a lot in common! (laughs hysterically) Someone asked me "how did it feel?" and I answered "It felt much better being one of twelve." It’s really weird to be woken up at 5:30 in the morning to be told you didn’t get something. My son was more disappointed. I said "You know, Corey, there’s a lifeline in here somewhere," he said "what is it" and I said "I have no idea, but there has to be something!" (laughs) This isn’t to knock the other films, I’m sure they’re good quality, but how can someone vote for wrestling? How can anything about wrestling be of any quality? Now it’s two weeks ago I was just nominated to the directors guild for best documentary of the year, that’s my peers, fellow directors, so that more than made up for it. Plus, it’s one less tux rental. Save a hundred bucks.

Norton: And certainly, you were in there, you had your name assocated with the Oscars. It did surprise me your name showed up there in the first place, like you said, it’s wrestling!

Blaustein: The best part was… the Good Morning America appearance that drove Vince McMahon crazy. I was on with Mick Foley. Diane Sawyer had seen the film. She said on the interview "I was never a wrestling fan before, it made me look at it differently." For someone from the mainstream media to say that, I was very impressed. Last week I was at New York and I went to this event… she was there and I didn’t think she’s remember me… that’s embarrassing. It’s like how much pride do you want to swallow (laughs)? I went up and said "Diane… it’s Barry Blaustein" and she said "oh yes, Beyond The Mat! That was such a great film!" She went on to introduce me around and everything, endorsing the film… new fans, new respect for the business. I just wanted to make a movie, if that’s a by-product of it, great. I just finished an interview with another reporter, this guy wasn’t a wrestling fan. He said that it turned him off even more than ever, asked me if I was trying to get them to like it. I didn’t. I was just trying to make people see it in a different way. I’m uncomfortable now that so many people like it. Now that it’s not underground, maybe I should like something else now. Hopefully people will see it. This Vince thing is a real blow. The studio is really nervous about it. I’m hoping people will come out to see it. I’d like to make some money! (laughs)

Norton: Just to say "thanks for the documentary." It wasn’t until a few weeks ago we were told that it would be put out on national release.

Blaustein: Originally it was just supposed to be home video. We opened in L.A. and got a great response. We were the highest grossing movie of the week in a 14-screen theatre, so I convinced them it was worth a theatre run. I’m proud of this more than anything. I don’t think you’ll look at wrestling the same way after you see it.

Norton: Who do you feel was the most outgoing and offering in the movie, and by contrast who do you feel was the most reserved?

Blaustein: The reason for spending so much time with the guys early on is to get their trust… once you start shooting, it’s expensive. It was finding people that I found would open up, so they wouldn’t be answering questions like "Yes… No… Yes… No…." There were guys we cut out just because of time, we wanted to have a story behind the documentary. We have a great thing with Afa the Wild Samoan in his hometown, singing a love song to his wife. There was funny stuff of Tommy Dreamer at home with his mother, which could be really humiliating (laughs). Real good stuff with Taz… real good stuff. Being injured backstage at ECW. I actually thought it was a work. On the way back from the hospital he was saying guys in the locker room were probably happy they could be elevated. Great stuff with Chyna, I liked her a lot. There just wasn’t the time. More stuff with Michael and Tony. I should have put them in more, but there’s only so much you can tell. We tried to focus on a few main people.

Galatea: There’s so much good footage, any chance of a director’s cut?

Blaustein: It’s really based on whether the movie does well or not. It costs some extra money.

Norton: I think to the hardcore fans it would sell really well.

Blaustein: Yeah… this is really the director’s cut, stuff just didn’t make it because of time.

Galatea: Over the course of the film what kind of fan you are must have changed… the respect you have for it.

Blaustein: I always had respect for it. The only difference now is that I know the guys. I know them as people. I know who they are. That’s the difference.

Galatea: There’s a big issue about young children watching wrestling now. How do you feel about that?

Blaustein: I think children have to be taught to watch all media. If I had little kids, would I let them watch it? Not unsupervised. I’d have to explain things to them first. But you know what? There’s worse things. It’s not just wrestling.

>> Back to Interviews