By James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist

-- On the weekend of its U.S. movie release, "The Wrestler" is in the top search listings on Yahoo, placing number five today. The movie continues to generate significant buzz despite going against Jim Carrey's latest movie release on Friday.

-- With a boxing background, Mickey Rourke had zero respect for pro wrestling when he started training for the role of Randy "the Ram" Robinson. Even when he started training, he says he didn't respect what he was doing.

It was when he started getting hurt - needing three MRIs in two months - that he took the role seriously and respected the business he was portraying through the movie.

"I had some hang-up about wrestling because it was pre-arranged and pre-choreographed almost like a dance, instead of real combat," he told comingsoon.net to promote the movie's release. "Everything I was taught (in boxing) to hide and move a certain way, gracefully, now it was like all this lumbering bulls--- and all this kind of crap, and I didn't feel natural doing it."

Rourke says he realized wrestlers are really suffering in the ring because of how many times he got hurt practicing moves. "I kind of gained a respect for their sport," he said.

Although he didn't name the person, a "very acrobatic" wrestler starting working with Rourke to teach him how to do some highspots for the movie.

Rourke said: "He would get bored and he started doing these flips and s--- and these scissors and I was like, 'We should put that in the f------ movie!' I'd go in on Sundays without telling Darren (Aronofsky), and I learned three or four really hard moves I shouldn't have been able to pull off."

Rourke says the wrestler was patient with him and helped him look good in preparation for the key wrestling scenes at the end of the movie. "By the time we got done doing it, he said to me, '80 percent of the guys in the WWE can't do that s---' and I said, 'Wow!'"

Link: Comingsoon.net interview with Mickey Rourke.

RELATED STORY at PWTorch.com: Details on the marketing of "The Wrestler" to audiences and Oscar voters.

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