The following story was submitted by our very own Keith Watson and the media accompanied with the story is from actor, George Kosturos.
In early November of 2015, I was trying to figure out my role in wrestling after 27 years coaching. 6 months earlier, my John Carroll Wrestling team placed 5th at Nationals, by far the best finish ever by a team from NE Maryland, and my 2nd time being named MD Coach of the Year. I ran across a story about a new movie about wrestling on social media and decided to look into the cast and storyline.The movie was based on a true story, and featured Academy Award winner, Jon Voight and William Fitchner, who I remembered from movies (Blackhawk Down, Independence Day) and television (West Wing, Entourage). I did a little looking and found a phone number for the production company (ESX Entertainment), so I called and producer/director and actor, Ali Afshar answered. I told him that I was with USA Wrestling in Maryland and was interested in potentially host a the premier of the movie in Baltimore at the historic, Senator Theatre. He suggested that he would be interested but needed to talk to his ‘people’. We agreed to circle back in a few days.A few days pass and he calls me to discuss. He wanted to confirm that I was legit and that the theatre would be willing to host. I gave him my main contact with USA Wrestling in Colorado and the business office for the theater. I told him that before I lined things up and spent too much money I’d need to confirm that the movie was worth endorsing. We agreed that he’d check out the theater and me, then send me a “screener” that would be viewable for 48 hours. After a couple of days, he called me and made arrangements for me to get the ‘screener’ in a couple of days. I pulled together a few local wrestling people to watch it at my office in Bel Air. Afterward, we agreed it was good enough to promote and potentially spend money promoting the premier.So I line up the Senator Theatre and arrange to have the reels sent to the theatre….but I also ask if we could fly out the actor that played the main character, George Kosturos. At first, it seemed like the answer would be ‘no’, but after talking with George, Ali found out George had family/friends in Annapolis that he could visit and stay with….so George came to Baltimore, at no charge to usThanks to a wrestling supporter, Haswell Franklin, we sold 500 tickets to the movie. The star of the movie, George Kosturos, addressed the crowd before the movie then stayed around for over a hour after ward signing autographs, etc. It was a hectic couple of weeks leading up to the premier, but a great night that worked out better than we had hoped.
We spoke with George Kosturos who stars in American Wrestler, American Fighter, and Everything I Ever Wanted, who told us that he learned how to wrestle just for this movie. Ali, the movie producer who the movie is about, also plays a character in the movie. He plays the uncle to George’s character and he taught George how to wrestle in local high school practices and they would drill for hours throughout the span of a couple months.
George showed up at the screening to sign posters and watch the film for the first time with the local wrestlers.
It was one of the coolest moments that I have had in my career. It was still before the movie came out and it was my first big leading role and to hear that these wrestling kids want to see the movie, it was like super exciting for me and my family. They were like WOW you got to go, you have got to be there. So, I willingly flew myself out, stayed with my uncle, and the response was wild. I was signing autographs for the firs time. It was really my first experience and like wow this is crazy! It still touches my heart to remember it.
