In what smells like a made-up non-news story, Michael Moore (the king of made-up non-news stories) claims that he was inspired by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat character in creating camera ready stunts for his pseudo-documentary Sicko. The two met at the Toronto Film Festival last year and Cohen said that Moore’s willingness to put himself in uncomfortable situations gave him the courage to for some of his Borat like adventures like naked man-on-man wrestling. Moore, in turn, says that the Borat shenanigans required him to “up the ante.”
Moore specifically cites the naked wrestling as an inspiration for a stunt in Sicko where he sails into Guantanamo Bay. We are all thankful that it didn’t inspire him to wrestle naked (or do anything else without his trademark slob outfit.) Since the relationship between the two stunts is tenuous at best, it seems more likely that Moore is just trying to cash in on the Borat movie success by claiming a tie to Sicko.
