In July 1978, Valentine claimed his third NWA World Tag Team title along with Baron Von Raschke. Lost to Rob Conway on an edition of Heat on 23rd October 2005. He really wanted to capture it.Considered by Roddy Piper to be his toughest opponent, and Valentine as implied that the feeling is mutual. I remember Darren speaking for a long time with Bundy, off and on with various guys. I met with Darren very early on with Nikolai and Johnny Valiant - who recently passed, tragically - and various other wrestlers. He really wanted to capture it and he, like Greg said, he interviewed him early on. It's a movie, of course, but I would give it props as far as being a pretty darn good movie.Įvan Ginzburg: Basically as the associate producer, I took Aronofsky and the screenwriter and executive producer to indie show every weekend for 6 months. It looks close, but it was "This guy was a big star and now he's doing independent shows." It's pretty realistic. He said that he used to come to watch me wrestle and stuff. I went in for a few interviews with Aronofsky at his place. Greg Valentine: I thought that movie was great, Mickey Rourke did a hell of a job. For lack of a better term, it really pissed me off.ĭo you feel that The Wrestler sets the record straight about your old lifestyle? Or is there more that you still want to share about how things used to be? Fine, he wasn't in there getting the crap beat out of him every night, I was. Then he goes to court, just because he doesn't want to pay for commission fees. 99 of the matches were real punches, we did everything to make people believe that wrestling wasn't B.S. Greg Valentine: I used to have these matches with Tito Santana where we beat the hell out of each other. He went public with it and at that point, what was there to hide? The Internet hit strong and at that point, it was wide open. Going through the airports I was really quiet, didn't really talk to people, but I never turned down an autograph, no matter how nasty I was supposed to be.Įvan, in your case, when did you find wrestlers start to be receptive to doing shows like yours? As I mentioned earlier, it used to be about never breaking character or doing anything the boss didn't approve of.Įvan Ginzburg: I would honestly say that the big change was when Vince McMahon, of all people, exposed the business. That was my character in the ring and I tried to do that. Ox Baker's in there and he's very upbeat and positive and cooking. When we started the project, we said to Michael, "Find the most powerful, poignant stories." They weren't all grim or tragic. Michael worked with Paul McCartney, Sting, HBO, and he's an Emmy Award-nominated editor. When you're getting the true stories of people like you did, were there anyone you felt wound up a little too happy or well-off to fit into the documentary?Įvan Ginzburg: Michael Burlingame is the editor. Not everyone is Randy The Ram characters, some could be comparable. Some are very successful and well-off and others aren't. Is it safe to say that the documentary is the real-life version of The Wrestler ?Įvan Ginzburg: Yes and no. Also, I did a documentary about The Junkyard Dog, we did together.Įvan Ginzburg: Yes, that's gonna be out down the road.Ī lot of people I've heard compare this new documentary to The Wrestler, which Evan worked on. Greg Valentine: We're in the midst of trying to get my dad's book out. Had you worked on any projects together that you can talk about?
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