Barry Blaustein, the director of the critically acclaimed documentary Beyond The Mat, passed away at age 72 yesterday.
His death, following a long battle with Parkisnon’s disease and stage four pancreatic cancer, was announced by the Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, where Blaustein served as a professor.
In 1999, Blaustein wrote, directed, produced, and even narrated the Beyond the Mat documentary, gaining unprecedented access at the time to the WWE and ECW locker room. The documentary is famous for highlighting the lives of a few stars outside their wrestling personas and also had a big spotlight on the Royal Rumble I Quit match between The Rock and Mick Foley, where Rock blasted Foley with powerful unprotected chair shots to the head as Foley’s wife and two kids watched at ringside.
The filmmaker had an extensive list of credits and also worked with Eddie Murphy to write his scripts for Saturday Night Live.
