– According to an article by ESPN.com, it is being reported that Andrew “Test” Martin suffered from the same brain issues as Chris Benoit. The article states the following:
*Dr. Bennet Omalu, the co-director of the Brain Injury Research Institute, told ESPN that Martin suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy — stemming from repeated blows to the head. Martin is the second former wrestler to be linked to CTE after Chris Benoit.
*The amount of CTE found in both Martin and Benoit were closer to levels of Alzheimer’s patients.
– WWE issued the following statement to ESPN:
“While this is a new emerging science, the WWE is unaware of the veracity of any of these tests, be it for Chris Benoit or Andrew Martin. Dr. Omalu claims that Mr. Benoit had a brain that resembled an 85-year-old with Alzheimer’s, which would lead one to ponder how Mr. Benoit would have found his way to an airport, let alone been able to remember all the moves and information that is required to perform in the ring. WWE has been asking to see the research and tests results in the case of Mr. Benoit for years and has not been supplied with them.”
– Former ECW and WWE employee Dawn Marie, who founded Wrestler’s Rescue, was quoted in the article, stating the following:
“I grew up with these people. It’s devastating to think that their career choices — and their passion, which is the same as my own — destroyed them from the inside out, literally. In this business, we are constantly hitting our heads. I didn’t wrestle a fraction of what they did, and I feel the pain every day. I can’t imagine what they felt.”
