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But Blaustein's searching documentary on the sport, "Beyond the Mat," has come under fire from McMahon and his powerful franchise, culminating in a cease-and-desist letter aimed at disrupting the movie's advertising campaign.

McMahon is a charismatic on-camera presence in the movie; at one point he even wanted to invest in it. But now he's told his wrestlers that they can't help promote the film -- and he's used his muscle to keep the film's commercials off his shows. Blaustein says McMahon has even worked to bar TV ads from two networks -- a charge that the WWF denies. The contretemps has chagrined both Blaustein and his distributor, Lions Gate Releasing.

Michael Sragow Michael Sragow's column appears every Thursday in Arts & Entertainment + Archives

Mark Urman, co-president of Lions Gate, has said, "Mr. McMahon has decided that he doesn't like our film, so now he wants to prevent wrestling fans nationwide, who so far have embraced the film, from finding out about it."

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How could such a battle come about -- and with such unlikely combatants?

Blaustein and his comedy partner, David Sheffield, have been writing for Murphy ever since the three joined "Saturday Night Live" in 1980. Blaustein and Sheffield share credit with other writers on "The Nutty Professor" (1996) and on the forthcoming "Nutty II: The Klumps," which Blaustein vows is better than the first.

But for a decade longer than he's known Murphy, Blaustein has been a fan of professional wrestling. When he was a kid in Westbury, N.Y., his dad would take him to wrestling bouts in West Hempstead and Queens. Blaustein never lost his love for it -- nor his embarrassment over it.

Five years ago, he decided to make a documentary about his secret passion, which he admits not even his wife or his two teenage children understand. The finished film, "Beyond the Mat" (which opens Friday nationwide) made the preliminary list of nominees for the best documentary Oscar and earned Blaustein a nomination from the Directors Guild of America. It's a potent piece of work, full of unresolved arguments and emotions. It leaves you in a state of visceral confusion toward intelligent, capable men who get paid for being bashed.

The film's hero is Mick Foley, aka Mankind, a sane, humorous family guy and the bestselling autobiographer of "Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks." Blaustein considers his Long Island homeboy the most normal wrestler he's ever met. But you feel like prosecuting Foley for child abuse when he allows his pint-size son and daughter to watch his friendly rival, the Rock, beat him mercilessly around the ring.

That sequence is typical of the jolts in "Beyond the Mat," which range from the sublime to the ludicrous -- from hearing a teacher-turned-wrestler talk Shakespeare while blood pours down his face to seeing McMahon audition a wrestler and dub him "Puke" because he can throw up on demand.

You mostly see Blaustein from the back of his gray-blond head, but there's no confusion about where he stands. From beginning to end, he's solidly pro-wrestling. He likes it, though he can't tell exactly why.

Which makes it all the more ironic that the film has put him at loggerheads with McMahon.

"When I approached Vince, wrestling was not as big as it is now," Blaustein recalled during a recent visit to San Francisco. "And Vince was getting a strong challenge from Ted Turner's wrestling group, World Championship Wrestling. I told Vince I wanted to do a movie to show why I like wrestling and to give non-fans an appreciation of what these guys go through. Not everybody can do what they do -- can go through the pain and still be these extraordinary performers -- and I thought they should be treated with respect. Usually, everything about wrestling is either negative or condescending. I promised Vince that this wouldn't be either."

McMahon didn't merely cooperate with Blaustein, he offered to triple his budget. Blaustein said no -- he wanted to maintain journalistic independence. Still, McMahon kept bidding to buy the movie. Michael Rosenberg, the president of the film's production company, Imagine, says, "During the three years of production on 'Beyond the Mat,' the WWF, through its owner, Vince McMahon, continued to try and convince Imagine to allow him to be an investor in the film." According to Blaustein, when McMahon saw the movie, he called Imagine and said, "Name your price." But Imagine turned him down.

The rebuff was apparently not what the scrappy WWF kingpin -- a bad-boy wrestling icon himself -- wanted to hear. Blaustein says, "Vince told me it's not the film he would have made: 'I like to put smiles on people's faces,' he said, 'but I think you did a great job, and I have no regrets knowing you. I'm just not going to do anything that would help you promote it.'"

He didn't want his wrestlers to promote it, either. "Six weeks ago, Mick Foley appeared on 'Good Morning, America' with me; Diane Sawyer said she'd never been a fan of wrestling but the film made her look on it as a different thing. Vince was very unhappy about that. He said, 'If any of these guys appear on any other programs with you, they do so at career risk. And if you care so much about Mick -- if he's your friend, as you claim him to be -- then you'll have him do nothing else.'"

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