Awkardly Blurring Lines of Reality With Mickey Rourke Edit

The WWE has a gignantor event coming up soon, ‘Wrestlemania 25.’ It’s what fans wait for, hands wringing, for 12 months. They suffer through Thursday night’s Smackdown, they sit through lesser PPV events, just soaking in all the bulging, glistening pecs and analyzing storylines worthy of Greek Tragedies, just waiting for the night when it will all come together: Wrestlemania. It’s like the Homecoming game for an East Texas high school. Except with wrestling, pyrotechnics, acting, and undeniable sexual tension.

Something interesting happened this year though: Mickey Rourke is up for an Oscar for his role as a wrestler in a movie called… wait for it… ‘The Wrestler!’

Gears started turning in Vince McMahon’s head, undoubtedly.

So first Rourke laid the ground work of a feud with Chris Jericho. He, apropos of nothing, blurted out on a red carpet that he’d get in the ring. So then it was Jericho’s turn to respond. The result was an awkward exchange on ‘The Larry King Show,’ interspersed with pregnant pauses and King’s chuckling as Jericho tried his best to improvise and look stern.

So ‘The Wrestler’ was just a movie but Mickey Rourke was in it, and Mickey Rourke’s not a wrestler but now because he was one in a movie, he’s going to go wrestle at the biggest wrestling event of the year with a real wrestler who is ostensibly “mad” because he’s a real wrestler and Mickey Rourke isn’t. Or something.

Still, it’ll probably be better than when Kevin Federline got in the ring.