‘The Iron Claw’ and Chavo Guerrero Jr. lead pro wrestling further into the mainstream

A24 Productions has made a habit of creating dramatic, Oscar-nominated films that still maintain a realistic sensibility. Utilizing movie stars as Trojan Horses that bring in mass audiences to otherwise niche stories, they have found continued success in the past decade.

The upcoming screening of the film “The Iron Claw,” which is part of Aspen Film 31st Academy Screenings, furthers this trend by telling the true story of the legendary and infamous pro wrestling family the Von Erichs. Focusing on brothers Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harrison Dickinson), and Mike (Stanley Simmons), it details how quickly a family triumph can turn to tragedy. How a family lineage can turn toxic like a cobra’s venom, doubling down on itself as the pressure increases with each passing sibling.

Pro wrestling is an art form often ridiculed as phony fighting, but it is a sport seeped in tradition. Full of families like the Von Erichs, it is often passed through generations and bonds them together into something even thicker than blood. A son watches a father who watched his uncle who watched their cousin, and one after another, they see the love and the passion for the vocation. It is so all-consuming of an endeavor that it becomes difficult, a near impossibility, to avoid entirely if a loved one is involved. For most participants, it includes 300 days a year of travel, constant soreness when chronic injuries aren’t being recovered or rehabbed from, and the emotional pain of loving something that often doesn’t love you back. It’s intoxicating, and that intoxication is addicting.

It is how we get families like the Von Erichs, the Ortons, the Mysterios, the Anoais, and the Harts. The list can go for an eternity. But it is through a beautiful cosmic connection that perhaps the greatest wrestling family of them all played a hand in this film: the Guerreros.

Patriarch Gory Guerrero was a pioneer in Mexican lucha libre and would go on to father six children who would become full-blown professional wrestlers, most notably former WWE champion Eddie Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero Sr., who would sire Chavo Guerrero Jr. who has become a pro wrestling coach to the stars.

Guerrero Jr. has been involved in Hollywood starting at 19 years old when notorious Hollywood tough man Gene LeBell – who it should always be noted once manhandled Bruce Lee on the set of “The Green Hornet” that would eventually inspire the scene in “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” where Brad Pitt’s character does the same – got him a gig for a little television work on “Showtime.”

Fast forward twenty years later, he re-entered the coaching fray when he stepped away from the ring as a full-time wrestler. As LeBell entered his elderly years, he would hand over the jobs that used to go to him to Guerrero Jr. – including as the head trainer for the Netflix television show “Glow.”

Now he has become “The Guy” for any Hollywood production that desires to tell a pro-wrestling story.

He has continued to get work in this space and with bigger and bigger stars by his ability to establish a culture of trust and understanding his role is not to train professional wrestlers but actors who want to play professional wrestlers. Putting their safety first – particularly at the beginning, when later on they get into the fifteen-minute matches that include jumping off the top rope – they’ll be willing to give it all they can give.

“I always let them know if I feel like you can’t do something repetitively, I won’t have you do it,” Guerrero Jr. said. “Ensuring the actors can improve in this completely alien endeavor while never placing them in a position where they feel in danger is how you turn actors into wrestlers.”

It’s how he turned men and women who were indifferent toward professional wrestling into admirers.

Not having time to start from scratch, he builds off the actuarial training they already hold. In Jeremy Allen White’s case, it was harkening back to his theater days.

“If you’ve done theater, you’ve done pro wrestling; it’s the same thing – we’re telling stories, we’re just doing a physical theater,” he said.

For Zac Efron as a brother Von Erich, Guerrero Jr. had a surprising reference he cited when he was teaching Efron the matches’ choreography.

“It’s the same as dance: If you’ve done some dance, you can wrestle. Zac had ‘High School Musical,’ so let’s use those dancing footwork in the ring; it’s the same thing – it’s footwork,” he said.

Guerrero Jr. carries a tough burden bringing professional wrestling in the mainstream. The burden only bears greater weight when it is being told through the lens of a story as tragic as the Von Erichs. But, as long as he continues to put his “Guerrero Stamp” on the productions he works on, he will continue to cement his legacy.

“The Iron Claw” is screening as part of the 31st annual Aspen Film Academy Screenings at the Isis Theatre on Thursday, Dec. 21, at 8 p.m.

For tickets: aspenfilm.org/event/the-iron-claw