Larry David has a pretty PRETTTTTTYYYYYYYY big opinion on professional wrestling.
The acclaimed writer, director, and actor, who is best known for creating the hit series Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast to discuss this very subject. When Simmons mentioned wrestling to promote his upcoming Vince McMahon Netflix documentary David fired back stating that he stopped watching wrestling when he found out it was fixed.
Larry David: You watch wrestling?
Bill Simmons: Yeah.
LD: What is that?
BS: You’re out on wrestling?
LD: What? What is this with you and wrestling?
BS: This goes back to being a kid.
LD: Yeah, I watched when I was a kid, too. Then I realized it was fixed and I stopped watching.
BS: It’s performance.
LD: So you love the performance?
BS: Yeah, I don’t think it’s real. I’m not like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe Roman Reigns won again.’
LD: They’re all the same, aren’t they? Every match looks the same.
BS: There is some art to it. There is art in the storytelling, how they build arcs. It’s not much different than what you’re trying to do with Curb. Trying to build two-three month arcs with two characters and have these different matches. There is cool things to it. I can’t say I’m watching Raw every Monday night, but I always kind of semi-know what’s going on. My son got into it, which is great, but now he’s out. My son is into MMA now.
LD: It’s so stupid. You’re watching this thing…yeah, you know it’s fixed, but the people who are there, they think it’s real.
BS: Ehhhh.
LD: No, they do. Are you kidding? They go crazy. They wouldn’t go crazy if they thought that it was real.
BS: Are you having an intervention right now?
LD: I’m trying to.
BS: Netflix gave them $5 billion for Raw. It’s getting bigger and bigger.
LD: It’s remarkable.
BS: Are you going to watch my Vince McMahon docuseries on Netflix? I’m going to make you watch the first episode and I bet you keep watching. I showed my dad…
LD: Is this scripted?
BS: No, it’s a six-part documentary. My dad, I was like, ‘Can I show you this?’ ‘I don’t like wrestling.’ ‘ Just watch one part.’ He watched three in a row. I thought that was a good sign.
LD: I’ll watch the first one.
BS: Vince is a pretty interesting character.
In season 3 of Curb Your Enthusiasm David gets back a wrestler who harassed him by telling his kids that the sport was fixed.
You can check out the full interview here.
