Posted on 5/13/126 by Bob Magee
Barry Blaustein, the director of the critically acclaimed
documentary Beyond The Mat, passed away at age 72 yesterday.
His death, following a long battle with Parkisnon’s disease
and stage four pancreatic cancer, was announced by the
Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts,
where Blaustein served as a professor.
In 1999, Blaustein wrote, directed, produced, and even
narrated the Beyond the Mat documentary, gaining
unprecedented access at the time to the WWE and ECW locker
room. The documentary is famous for highlighting the lives
of a few stars outside their wrestling personas and also had
a big spotlight on the Royal Rumble I Quit match between The
Rock and Mick Foley, where Rock blasted Foley with powerful
unprotected chair shots to the head as Foley’s wife and two
kids watched at ringside.
The filmmaker had an extensive list of credits and also
worked with Eddie Murphy to write his scripts for Saturday
Night Live.