![]() ![]() Some might think it the most obvious thing imaginable to jump at the chance and go for the brass ring in Hollywood, but Schwartz surprised the agent with his nonplus response. A Hollywood agent caught a glimpse of Schwartz wrestling on TV while in Bakersfield, California, and travelled to meet the wrestler and extend an invitation to Tinseltown. It was while paying his dues on the road that Schwartz was presented with an opportunity out of the blue: an offer to try his hand at a different kind of acting. It was the act of getting out there and performing in front of people, being hated or being loved, and just the thrill of doing it.” The obvious question, of course, is why does anyone commit to that kind of hardship? “The best way to describe it is something John Tolos said: if he won a millions dollars, what would he do with it? Keep wrestling until he didn’t have it anymore,” Schwartz explains, “You really do it for the love of the sport. “You travel 500 to a 1,000 miles, you might get a $50 pay-off,” he remembers. Schwartz’s memories of life on the road share the similar depiction of a gruelling life to those of many fellow wrestlers. “Every time I talk to Kowalski, not a conversation goes by where I don’t thank him,” he says emphatically. ![]() A native of Philadelphia, he cut his teeth at Killer Kowalski’s wrestling school in the late 1970s before establishing his character of Joshua Ben-Gurion, “The Israeli Commando”, a decade later. Schwartz sounds a little old-school, doesn’t he? Deservedly so. ![]() When vignettes and interviews become the main source of storytelling, instead of in-ring action, Schwartz warns that what you’re left with are “stupid storylines of big-breasted women hanging over somebody dead in a casket.” Perhaps not surprisingly, he worries about the impact that has on a traditional demographic for wrestling: “The message you’re sending to kids today, I think it sucks.” He, like many others, is discouraged by the failing frequency with which matches themselves are used to propel feuds and build the ultimate goal of dramatic tension. “It was a different game and different sport,” Schwartz laments when asked of his opinion on the current state of pro wrestling, “Not taking anything away from the athletes themselves, but what it’s become from a promoter’s standpoint is crap.” Schwartz’s less than flattering take is centered on the storytelling of wrestling. Schwartz ready for action as Joshua Ben-Gurion ![]()
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