Def Jam founder Rick Rubin is absolutely enthralled by the world of professional wrestling.
The former financial backer of Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Rick Rubin has never lost his love for professional wrestling. A fan of the more gritty style that is associated with the territorial era of wrestling, Rick Rubin’s love for professional wrestling is equal to that of his love for music and he reveals that both passions were formed around the same time.
Speaking on Marc Maron's WTF Podcast, Rubin reveals that he still watches more than 8 hours a week of professional wrestling and considers it to be the most honest display of human nature.
"I absolutely love it. I watch more than eight hours every week. There's a tremendous amount of pro wrestling on TV,” Rubin began. “It's a really beautiful, fine art form. It's storytelling taken to the next level. It's beautiful. It's American Opera.”
He continued, “It's definitely DIY crazy. The stories they tell are reckless in a way that you don't get to see in the mainstream. There'd be violence towards people in a completely inappropriate way on a regular basis, but it makes sense because you're setting up bad guys and good guys, so the bad guy has to do something really despicable to be a bad guy, so they do some things that are really despicable.
"It's like this hyperreal/not real. It's like that line, and the fact that they work reality into it -- if a guy gets hurt, that becomes part of the storyline but then sometimes, they say a guy gets hurt and he didn't get hurt, it's only in the storyline. Sometimes one of the characters gets divorced and then, he might be getting a divorce but maybe it's just a story, and you never know! It's like this parallel reality always going on and it never ends. It goes on forever. It's amazing.”
Rubin would further say that he feels professional wrestling is more honest than any other depiction of “real life.”
“I would say it's closer [than a reflection of life]. It is more honest. If the most honest form of information in our society. Pro wrestling is the most accurate representation of life, dude.”
Rubin would go on to say that Donald Trump, who is in the WWE Hall of Fame helped expose that the world is a lot more like professional wrestling than most would admit, adding that it makes perfect sense that the biggest heel president is in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Rick Rubin can currently be seen on the Hulu series, McCartney 3-2-1 alongside the legendary Beatle, Paul McCartney, breaking down some of the intricacies of the many songs that Paul has released through the years.
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