What to do with pro wrestling
Never have been a pro wrestling fan.
Never watched it. Never liked it.
That’s probably a shared sentiment among folks in the sports media. Sure, there are some of us who like the scripted act, but a vast majority prefer our sports to be un-rigged. We like for the teams, the athletes, the coaches to decide the outcome.
So, pro wrestling has gone largely uncovered by the mainstream media.
Now, we see how badly it’s gone unchecked.
The murder-suicide of pro wrestling star Chris Benoit, his wife and young son have illuminated what is an unregulated multi-billion dollar industry. The WWE has been allowed to grow and flourish without so much as a check or a balance by those outside its walls. It has created an unsafe working environment for many of its employees.
How else to explain the deaths of almost 100 wrestlers before the age of 50 during the past two decades?
These athletes — even though pro wrestling may not be sport, it’s participants are still athletes — are dying of drug overdoes and heart attacks and other maladies linked strongly to their time in the ring. Their causes of death are often the residual effect of years on steroids and painkillers, an all-too-familiar drug cocktail in pro wrestling.
If this many former NFL or NHL players were dying, don’t you think the media or the government would’ve stepped in?
Of course.
But those of us who watchdog for a living have dropped the ball here. Pro wrestling fell through the cracks because it isn’t really sport and it isn’t totally entertainment. Who’s supposed to police it? Who’s supposed to regulate it? Who’s supposed to look out for the safety and well-being of its participants?
That’s a question that must be seriously considered now. It’s clear, after all, that pro wrestling isn’t looking out for them.
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