During the filming of final match, the crowd began to heckle the wrestlers because they could clearly see that their blows were faked. At that time, wrestlers publicly maintained that everything that they did in the ring was real. But the wrestlers had to pull their punches for the sake of being able to shoot multiple takes. Suddenly, a fight broke out between Roddy Piper and one of the Cannibals leading to a bloody brawl involving all of the wrestlers. Director Hal Needham, a former stuntman, jumped in to stop them but was tossed out of the ring. The brawl was eventually broken up leaving the audience, cast, and crew stunned. Later that day, Piper revealed to Dirk Benedict that the wrestlers had improvised the fight in order to get the audience to believe that wrestling was real again.
Much of the script was rewritten during filming by Needham and Dirk Benedict. Writers/producers Shel Lytton and Steve Burkow - who were also attorneys - filed a lawsuit against director Hal Needham for making changes to their script. The lawsuit prevented the film from being released in theaters.
Axe The Cannibal (Sionne) took advantage of free drinks in the hotel bar one night and refused to leave. The police were called which caused The Cannibal to go into a drunken rage and best up some of the officers. He was arrested and jailed until his wife bailed him out.
The Character Dirk Benedict plays is very loosely based on famous WWF(E) wrestling promoter/personality, Vince McMahon.
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