Wrestling Fans Get Into the Act

In a city where most movie shoots are elite, off-limits affairs overseen by uniformed cops, this one was a regular free-for-all featuring those big-muscled kings of publicity, the hairy-chested he-men in black leotards from the World Championship Wrestling organization.

And like 4,000 other wild-eyed wrestling fans turned unpaid extras who filled the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles Saturday, Steve Szapiro was in head-lock heaven.

Wearing a shiny king’s crown with phony plastic jewels provided by event promoters, Szapiro joined fellow wrestling fanatics in a staged screech-hoot-and-hollering session during the shooting of a movie based on their favorite sport.

Producers for the film “Ready to Rumble” couldn’t have been happier.

Although they could have shot scenes for the movie in Toronto or Las Vegas (where the fight sequence filmed Saturday supposedly took place), they said L.A. fans captured the multiethnic roots of the sport’s fandom.

“On most shoots, the extras we attract are just average folks, not ready-made fans,” said Jeffrey Silver, a producer for Outlaw Productions. “But these people are just crazy. When the wrestlers take a bump, they know exactly when to cheer. They don’t need any coaching.”

Fans like Szapiro didn’t need much enticing, either.

The 26-year-old works the graveyard shift at a Unocal gas station in the San Fernando Valley. But his real reason for living? Body slams, spine-numbing throw-downs, and those high-flying pile-driver maneuvers that can turn a mat opponent’s mind to mush.

Szapiro calls himself professional wrestling’s most rabid fan. He travels the country looking for more outrageous wrestling rumbles. At home, with his satellite dish and pay-per-view TV menu, there isn’t one finger-stabbing wrestling event he misses.

“I just love professional wrestling,” he said. “I know people must think there’s something wrong with me. But honestly, I can’t get enough of this stuff.”

On Saturday, the fans came offering homage to their heroes. Despite free parking and pizza, and giveaways that included a new pickup, wrestling gift packs and computers loaded with wrestling-game software, the faithful who lined up outside the arena early Saturday didn’t come for any door prizes.

They came to scream their brains out for mostly large men with long hair and stage names such as Inferno, Sid Vicious and Bam Bam Bigelow.

To attract fans, organizers spread the word on various wrestling-related sites on the Internet. They placed ads in wrestling magazines and made announcements at other professional wrestling events.

“But you know what, we probably didn’t have to give away one prize to attract these people,” said promotions director Tina Kerr. ‘We could have charged these people to get in here and we still would have had a line that stretched twice around the block.”

The fan turnout Saturday was described by organizers as “a lot of little boys, and men who are still little boys.”

With prizes offered for raunchiest costume, the crowd resembled a Halloween nightmare come one day early. Or perhaps a segment of “Let’s Make a Deal” filmed at the world’s biggest monster truck show. There were men with shaved heads, women with exposed bellies, and the occasional legitimate mask.

One fan, Anthony Dalton of Ontario, tried to explain the attraction of a sport in which most moves are choreographed. He started talking about pro wrestlers as role models, but each time he began a sentence, he’d see one of his mat idols, Diamond Dallas Page, and scream “Dallas! Dallas! Woooohooooo!”

Her eyes glued to the ring, Laura Segura had another reason for coming: “Those bodies!” she said, holding up a banner celebrating her two favorite wrestlers, Sting and a character who bills himself as Big Sexy.

“Now this is entertainment,” she added. “Just to come out here and see those guys sweat. And did I mention those bodies?”

Not all the fans cheered themselves hoarse. Some were present as favors to wives, husbands or boyfriends. One twentysomething man said his girlfriend made him do it, even though she refused to accompany him to the shooting of a Kiss video.

Wincing in distaste, some called the wrestling scene the Cirque du Soleil for the blue-collar class, a screaming cry for help, perhaps professional therapy.

Said 30-year-old James Murr of Montebello: “It’s soap opera for men. You’ve got the same back-stabbing and outrageous story lines. And it’s naughty and subversive. Let me tell you, you’re not going to see this stuff on the Lifetime channel.”

Producers for “Ready to Rumble,” acknowledge the sport’s pedestrian appeal. The film involves two loser buddies who empty septic tanks for a living and happen to be huge wrestling fans. The pair travel cross-country to return to glory a felled wrestling idol they believe has been robbed of his rightful crown.

“Pro wrestling may be considered a lower rung on the artistic ladder, but it’s also the widest rung,” Silver, the producer, said. “People live for this stuff.”

They live for their sport like 6-year-old Brendon from Palmdale, who spotted his hero, a wrestler known as Goldberg, back near the makeup van.

“Hey, Goldy!” he yelled, extending a paper to be autographed.

“Hey, little man,” cooed Goldberg, bending his head down to near knee-level to face the boy.

Memento in hand, the boy watched his hero walk away and admitted that he didn’t know the names of any of the wrestler’s moves inside the ring.

“But I’ll bet they hurt,” he said, wide-eyed.