On the heels of a very successful return to the big screen in “The Wrestler”, Mickey Rourke has been selected to play Whiplash in Iron Man 2.

Variety is reporting that the 56-year-old actor had reportedly been offered only $250,000 to play the role. On Feb. 18, New York magazine reported that the deal seemed to have fallen apart, although sources told EW the next day that it wasn’t necessarily dead yet. Rourke’s agents have since renegotiated his deal, Variety says, but there’s no word on exactly how much he’ll be paid. Rourke will play a Russian character called Whiplash, using elements from another comic book bad guy, Crimson Dynamo.

Rourke recently scored an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, in “The Wrestler”. That was a movie about a once headlining professional wrestler who, now at the end of his career, makes his way through the independent circuit, trying to get back in the game for one final showdown with his former rival.

This story doesn’t necessarily relate to wrestling, except for that fact that Rourke has been welcomed into the wrestling world with open arms for his dead-on portrayal of a has-been wrestler in “The Wrestler”, plus he is going to be in attendance in WrestleMania 25, and have some role in a match with Chris Jericho.

As seen on WWE Raw earlier tonight, Shawn Michaels won the right to wrestle The Undertaker at WrestleMania 25 by defeating Vladimir Kozlov. It was Kozlov’s first defeat in the WWE since he debuted a year ago.

As first rumored back in December here at The Wrestling Frenzy, it will be “Mr. WrestleMania” Shawn Michaels against “The Phenom” The Undertaker. This promisses to be a great battle, and could be the match of the night, which would be nothing new to Michaels. The Undertaker will put his streak of 16-0 on the line, at perhaps his last WrestleMania, against Shawn Michaels, who has had some of the greatest matches in the long history of WrestleMania. For more, check out my original post about Shawn Michaels facing The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 25.

This story seems to change day by day. It looks as if the WWE is/was going to have some sort of match with Mickey Rourke and Chris Jericho. It would apparently be the match that features a celebrity outside the wrestling world, which is what WrestleMania does every year.

If you saw Raw this past week, you saw a clip of Mickey Rourke being interviewed on the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles this past weekend, and calling Chris Jericho out, of all people. Later on Raw, Jericho came out to the stage and basically excepted.

Using Rourke as this year’s celebrity at WrestleMania 25, is a good move. Rourke has gotten rave reviews for the Wrestler, even from the mainstream media. I am sure this would bring more interest to WrestleMania from people who would like to see how well he performs, and if his acting skills from “The Wrestler” carry over.

For Jericho, it should be a nice pat on the back for him to be involved in this high profile match, and will get bigger exposure because of it. He already pops up on VH1 shows and the like from time to time and has hosted a weekly radio show on XM Radio.

Now, it isn’t known yet if this would be a normal 1 on 1 match with the 2 of them or not, of if there will be any stipulations in the match. Both were on Larry King Live Tuesday night and seemed to get the ball rolling. When Rourke was asked if he would wrestle Jericho, he said that wrestling was Jericho’s world, not his, although he does have experience boxing. So, it might be some sort of gimmicky match.

However, yesterday the Associated Press reported that a spokeswoman for Rourke said he won’t be taking his role as a professional wrestler into a real-life ring after all, and that he will be entirely focussing on his acting career.

Apparently, the thought is his appearance could hurt his chances of getting an Oscar. However, Vince McMahon still sounds confident that a match will take place. He issued a statement on www.EOnline.com, stating “I am pleased that Mickey Rourke will be in attendance at WrestleMania to support the WWE Superstars who support him and the film in which he stars, “The Wrestler”.”

I guess all we can do, is stay tuned.

I am seeing quite a lot of speculation on the internet already about next year’s WrestleMania 25 as far as who is going to face the Undertaker and if his win streak will continue. What’s his record now, something like 43-0? Well, no, The Undertaker’s record at WrestleMania is “only” 16-0. So, each year people ask is this going to be the year the streak ends, and if he will finally get his first blemish on his record. It certainly won’t be some midcarder. It will have to be someone who could conceivably beat him. I doubt he will be in a title match, since he was the last couple years (barring the rest of the main event wrestlers aren’t injured). So, who is it going to be? Here is what I think at this point in time:

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, has written that Shawn Michaels has pitched to wrestle The Undertaker at WrestleMania, stating that obviously The Undertaker would go over HBK but the feeling is that the payoff for both Superstars would be very nice. Let’s take a look at why this would be a good match.

They are both legendary WWE figures, definitely future Hall of Famers.  They had a pretty heated rivalry about 10 years ago, around the same time as Degeneration X was formed. But, that was very long ago, and they have been on different brands for quite some time.

WrestleMania 25 will be held in Texas, and what would be a better match than 2 fan favorite Texans battling it out against each other. Now, who knows if they will both be fan favorites at that point, but they probably will be, because at this point in their careers and because the fans respect them so much, I can’t see either of them being jeered. Plus, the WWE likes to have 2 faces go against each other. It is pretty neat to see 2 wrestlers get balanced support from the crowd.

If this match does happen, I can see HBK willing to job to the Undertaker, just like he didn’t have a problem with losing to Hulk Hogan at Summerslam a couple years ago. And, if this is the Undertaker’s last WrestleMania, I don’t think they would have him lose it, but who knows. I would imagine that if this match is to happen, things might start brewing at the Royal Rumble. If this is indeed in the WWE’s plans, it should be intriguing!