The month of May has been rather historical. One hundred years ago, it was the month that featured the birth of the predecessor of all major wrestling titles—the American Heavyweight Championship—in a match between George Hackenschmidt and Tom Jenkins on May 4, 1905 in Madison Square Garden. But the impact was not lost on modern times either, as this year it was the month of TNA’s expected move from Fox Sports Network to WGN in a timeslot opposing WWE RAW for the first time something of the sort happened since WCW went out of business in 2001, and the month that UPN made the decision to move WWE Smackdown to Friday evening, in a move that dramatically alters the company’s TV position. Also, in a historical segment, Eric Bischoff, Vince McMahon, and Paul Heyman appeared in the same ring to promote an ECW PPV run by WWE. The implications, historical and otherwise, of the above stories will no doubt be the subject of discussion for time to come.
The month, unfortunately, has also not been without its share of tragedy. Earlier this month, the second known death in mixed-martial arts occurred after a match between two untrained and unskilled fighters, and the victim was Kim Lee Seon, 35. Also, the first in-ring American indy death occurred when Dan Quirk, 22, died May 23. In May 2003, we read about the drug overdose and death of Elizabeth Hulette; in 2002, Alex Rizzo died at age 34; this year, Chris Candido died in the process of rebuilding his life after drug abuse. Of course, and perhaps most notably, was the death of Owen Hart a few weeks after his birthday and days before his anniversary in 1999 at the Over the Edge PPV.
It’s mostly the latter that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I re-watched the RAW dedicated to Owen, a few of the news articles, many TV news clips from the day after Owen died, and Dave Meltzer’s touching biography of his life. As if it’s necessary to have all of these deaths to confirm it, wrestling is a business without justice. Some of the worst human beings—without morals, compunction, desire, talent—are some of the most idolized in this business. Many of the others, who work their asses off, trying to be something, all the while never losing their smile, are often thrown by the wayside, get caught up in vices, make mistakes, and die with little fanfare and perhaps no mention at all. And whether you like the man or not, it is quite clear that Vince McMahon is rich because of the money he makes from other people’s work (and indeed his own) and those people who have worked for him have enjoyed varying amounts of success. When Candido disappeared from the WWF, it was of little concern to people like McMahon what happened to him, a feeling further drawn out by McMahon’s defense against his culpability in the death rate of wrestlers (that they hadn’t worked for him for years). Even Crash Holly, who had recently worked with the company, received no salute to his life in the weeks that followed his death. WWE seems to care only when it is in their interest to care, and the company has handled many deaths (Brian Pillman, Hulette) disgracefully.
Joe talked about Owen in a recent column, and one of the questions he brought up was what has been learned. From a personal perspective, the lengths to which human beings go to entertain, against better judgment, the sacrifices, the disregard for human life, the absurdity of it all. From WWE’s perspective, very few thematic lessons have been taken. I won’t criticize WWE’s hasty decision to continue the broadcast after Owen’s death—which was in hindsight tasteless—because it was a difficult, emergency decision, and no one knew Owen was going to die. What I will criticize is WWE’s lack of respect for their athletes. WWE has, respectfully, dramatically lowered the amount of bodily damage that wrestlers incur in their matches—but the decision, like the recent decision to downgrade WWE athletes to coach seating on overseas flights—was one made for fiscal perpetuation. Economically speaking, if a wrestler does fewer bumps in one match, they can do more bumps down the road. You protect the investment. Business class seating, on the other hand, is seen as a dispensable luxury.
This company doesn’t treat its employees, just like its fans, with any respect. When John Cena went to bat for his fellow employees on the above issue (for which he had nothing to gain, his flight status doesn’t change under the new plan), he was politely told that his argument was heard but that the company had made its decision and it was final. On previous occasions, when questioning the decisions of management, Chris Jericho and Trish Stratus among others have been told that it wasn’t there place to criticize management. Triple H has told wrestlers, from his odd vantage point, that the wrestlers should work harder and stop complaining. Wrestlers, who refused to go on the trip to Iraq, were pressured into it. Matt Hardy was fired for a situation that was largely not his fault. Andrew Martin, who wrestled as Test, was fired while injured—in doing so, setting a dangerous precedent.
My point here is that wrestlers are not cattle, that they are human beings. It’s very important that when WWE asks a wrestler to lower their downside or not provide them travel arrangements or designate them independent contractor to avoid costly medical expenses, that they realize they are making not just a business decision, but a decision that will affect someone’s life.
Wrestlers like Candido and Hulette are not blameless in their fates, no one forces them or anyone else, including the wrestlers in WWE onto steroids and painkillers, and they make the final decision. But their disposition—over which WWE has great control—is also at many times the problem. WWE sets a rather unrealistic standard in some respects: wrestlers have to look like toned, photograph-ready specimen, and also keep up with a hard road schedule. The temptation to do steroids is immense. On a recent episode of RAW on which Randy Orton appeared, he looked slimmer due to his recent injury. Vince McMahon, in a comment that was intended as humorous, made the heartless comment that Orton looked “anorexic.” You can’t give someone one option, they make the wrong decision, and then claim that they were 100% at fault. Treat them with respect, if not because they are people, because they make sacrifices to work in your employ.
In the upcoming years, it is something of a foregone conclusion that more wrestlers will die. And in many cases, they will be largely responsible for their fate. And in many more cases, they will be fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, husbands, wives, people with mortgages, who probably made a mistake somewhere along the road.
New Year’s Day some years ago, Eddie Guerrero could have lain dead on asphalt, but he’s at what could be described as the peak of his career, and the World is better for it. We recognize his mistake stems from his inability to confront his problems, and we respect him furthermore for his ability to not only confront but triumph over his problems and become better than he had been before. WWE should treat its athletes with the dignity that people like Eddie Guerrero carry themselves with on a daily basis.
Owen Hart is survived by his wife, Martha, his son and daughter, Oje (now 13) and Athena (9) respectively. He was one of the good guys.
*Follow-up to “The PPV Problem”: The main lesson from this year’s WrestleMania, as some had suggested, is that long-term booking will overcome most problems. At the very least, it was a fresh idea. Batista vs. HHH, as you very well know, was an immense success, despite that poorly cultivated undercard and lagging latter-week build. WWE fans picked the challenger, and came in number to see the chosen one win the title.
*Smackdown thoughts: The show has been largely hit-and-miss lately, but the big news story so far this year is John Cena’s success, which with younger people is on the order of what Eddie Guerrero did with the Latino market last year. He has his weaknesses, that we’ve heard about again and again, but it’s very clear that he’s the right thing for Smackdown right now and their best hope—outside of the roster draft—to make Smackdown better in the short term. The Rey Mysterio/Eddie Guerrero feud, despite my original trepidations, has turned out to be one of the best feuds in awhile, thanks in large part to the strong wrestling by both, the booking, and Eddie Guerrero’s amazing job at selling the angle. On the other side of the coin, the Booker T, Kurt Angle, Sharmell feud has been the most pandering, racist, hideous angle in awhile. Wrestling is the only place you can get away with being racist or sexist (I think the worst recent example of this is Lawler’s comment on Viscera, “black is not my favorite color”) and that’s a testament to the great WWE fans out there—no wonder advertisers and TV stations want nothing to do with the product.
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