Rourke's WrestleMania appearance in doubt

February 2, 6:58 PMPro Wrestling ExaminerMark Satrang

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AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Over this past week the story of whether Mickey Rourke will wrestle or even appear at WrestleMania XXV has changed as the wind has blown.

After Rourke himself reported on the red carpet last Sunday night at the SAG awards that he would be going to WrestleMania, WWE confirmed the challenge by having Chris Jericho appear on RAW and call out Rourke.

On Tuesday night Rourke and Chris Jericho (in character) appeared on Larry King Live to promote the angle that was started the previous weekend. It went as expected, with Rourke giving respect to the business while Jericho did a typical bad guy rant about Rourke not knowing what wrestling is really like.

Then on Thursday, Rourke’s publicist sent out a release to AP that he would not be participating at WrestleMania, and that “he was fully committed to his acting career.” Later in the day Vince McMahon told E! Online he was “looking forward to seeing Rourke attend WrestleMania to support the WWE Superstars that supported him and his film.”

Then this past weekend, wwe.com reported that Rourke will make an appearance at WrestleMania, but not as a wrestler in the ring.

Things have been going back and forth all week so going into tonight’s RAW telecast I don’t know what to believe or expect. I personally think it is all a “work” and Rourke will end up wrestling Jericho at WrestleMania XXV. I just think that all this confusion and contradicting information is a way to smooth things over until after the Oscars are handed at the end of this month. If Rourke wins the Best Actor Award it will only help in the publicity for the WWE angle, and if he doesn’t then they can play that up as well. Besides WrestleMania isn’t until April, so Rourke would have all the time in the world through March to his part to build up the story.