Remembering Barry Blaustein & Beyond The Mat
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What legacy did Barry Blaustein leave in the wrestling community?
Welcome to the Busted Open Podcast. This is Dave LaGreca. On today's episode, we talk about the life and career of Barry Blaustein and the documentary Beyond the Mat. His love letter to professional wrestling and what it means to us fans. We talk about it right now on the Busted Open Podcast. This is the Busted Open Podcast. We lost... A big part of our community, the pro wrestling community, and that's Barry Blaustein, has passed away. He passed away yesterday. And for those who don't know Barry, Barry was a big influence on the early 80s version of Saturday Night Live.
How did Barry's work on Saturday Night Live influence his career?
He wrote a lot of the historic skits for Eddie Murphy. I'm talking Celebrity Hot Tub. I'm talking Gumby. I'm talking Mr. Rogers. I mean, he did a phenomenal job on early 80s Saturday Night Live. Also a screenwriter for Eddie Murphy. The Nutty Professor. Coming to America. Coming to America. The sequel. And what we know him for here on Pro Wrestling Nation 24-7 and our community of pro wrestling is the Beyond the Mat documentary from 1999. And I know that a lot of people have probably seen that documentary a hundred times. I know I have, I actually went back and watched it again last night. And just the icon, like when you've seen a movie as many times as I have seen beyond the bat, like you could almost word for word, say some of the dialogue and some of the iconic lines and moments from that documentary and,
And for those who haven't seen Beyond the Mat, I tell you, as a wrestling fan, and obviously anybody that's listening to this show this morning is a diehard wrestling fan. It's part of our DNA. You have to go watch it. It's available everywhere. It's easy to find. Definitely take the time. And even if you have to spend a little money, spend it. It's worth it. It's phenomenal. To me, it's the best. pro wrestling documentary that there is. And for us wrestling fans, especially in 2026, we have so many behind-the-scenes shows. We have A&E's biography. The WWE has come out with so many 24-7s, so many behind-the-scenes documentaries, unreal, that we get to peek behind the curtain a little bit. and see pro wrestling that we don't normally see when we're watching a Monday Night Raw or a SmackDown or a Dynamite.
And every company now has their version from the WWE to AEW to the NWA. All have their reality shows and their behind-the-scenes shows. As far as I know... Beyond the mat was like the first real documentary that I saw. You know, you could talk about wrestling with shadows, but beyond the mat to me was it's on its own plane, its own platform. And it showed the highs and the lows of the pro wrestling business. And the, the, the thing that I have always appreciated about Barry is And he explains it in the beginning of the documentary about that that project was his love letter to professional wrestling. And he starts it off talking about being eight years old, sitting in his living room floor, watching professional wrestling.
And those moments and those memories never left him. And with all that that man accomplished, and he accomplished a lot. I mean, listen, he was a part of Eddie Murphy when Eddie Murphy was fucking Eddie Murphy, man. When he was the biggest box office draw that you could possibly... Like, I don't think people understand how big Eddie Murphy was in the 80s. From Saturday Night Live to what he was able to accomplish throughout his career. And... Barry was a part of that from the beginnings all the way up to the coming to America's in the boomerangs and those huge box office hits. But he always said publicly, and I was actually reading this in the LA times this morning that the project he was most proud of in his entire career was beyond the mat.
And I was also reading, imagine who distributed the movie and, and funded the project, didn't believe, especially back then, it'd probably be a different story now in 2026, but in the late 90s, didn't believe in the project. The only reason that they greenlit it was because of Barry, because they knew how talented he was, they had faith in him, and the fact that this was his baby and he wanted to do it so bad, they greenlit the project just on who he was as a man.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What legacy did Barry Blaustein leave in the wrestling community?
0:00–0:46
2
How did Barry's work on Saturday Night Live influence his career?
0:46–6:50
3
What makes Beyond The Mat a significant documentary for wrestling fans?
6:50–11:30
4
What are the most memorable moments from Beyond The Mat?
11:30–17:26
5
How did Barry capture the highs and lows of wrestling in his documentary?
17:26–24:40
6
What personal stories did Barry share about wrestlers in Beyond The Mat?
24:40–30:42
7
Why is Beyond The Mat considered a love letter to professional wrestling?
30:42–31:26
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Busted Open
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