Everything is planned. The high-flying moves. The outlandish story lines. The crackpot characters.
One thing isn’t in the script: the staggering number of pro wrestlers who die young.
Chris Benoit was the latest, taking his life at 40 after killing his wife and son in what might be the blackest eye yet for the pseudo-sport already ridiculed as nothing more than comic books come to life, a cult like outlet for young males to cheer on their freakishly bulked up heroes.
The grappler known as the “Canadian Crippler” was hardly alone in dying young.
The very same weekend Benoit killed his family, the body of old tag-team partner Biff Wellington (real name: Shayne Bower) was found in his bed, dead at 42. A couple of weeks ago, former women’s champion “Sensational” Sherri Martel died in Alabama. She was 49.
Many wrestlers have met similar fates in the past two decades. Some died with drugs flowing through their veins. Others tried to clean up but belatedly paid the price for their long-term abuse of painkillers, alcohol, cocaine, steroids and other substances.
“From my 17 years in the business, I know probably 40 to 45 wrestlers who dropped dead before they were 50,” said Lance Evers, a semiretired wrestler who goes by “Lance Storm” when he’s in the ring.
Then, he added in a voice tinged with anger and sadness, “I’m sick and tired of it.”
Reinvigorating a cause
Through the years, there have been numerous proposals to put wrestling under some sort of oversight, be it at the state or federal level. Those ideas usually have fallen on deaf ears, largely because the powers that be, be it the old time regional promoters or WWE owner Vince McMahon, the guy who largely controls the sport today, don’t want the government telling them how to run their business.
Jim Wilson, who parlayed pro football into a ring career, says he was blackballed when he began pushing for a wrestler’s union. Since then, he has written a book about his experiences and kept up the push to rein in those who govern the sport.
Although Wilson’s battle often has been a lonely one, he says Benoit’s death might reinvigorate the cause.
A union could be a useful tool for cleaning up the sport. It might lead to a pension plan, improved benefits, more stringent health and safety guidelines and a revamped pay structure that would allow wrestlers to spend more time at home without risking a pay cut.
Now, most top wrestlers get a guaranteed salary, but the bulk of their income is based on how often they compete. That leads some to feel they must get in the ring while injured, often with the aid of painkillers and other numbing chemicals.
And much like rock stars, plenty of wrestlers have fallen victim to excessive partying, alcohol and drug dependency, and marital problems during grueling stints on the road.
That’s why Wilson’s calling for Congress to hold hearings on the wrestling industry, much like it investigated doping in professional sports.
He’s already spoken with U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Isakson said his main concern is steroid abuse.
The role of steroids
Steroids and other muscle building drugs long have been an accepted part of the wrestling culture, allowing the biggest names to pump up to ungodly proportions that wouldn’t be possible through natural means.
Granted, nobody comes right out and tells a wrestler he or she should take steroids. But all one has to do is attend a match in person or watch one on TV to realize some of these physiques just aren’t plausible without help from a syringe.
“Somebody says you need to put 25 pounds on your upper body,” said Larry DeGaris, who teaches sports marketing at the University of Indianapolis and moonlights on the independent wrestling circuit as “The Professor” Larry Brisco. “Well, if you have an athletic background and have been around sports for a while, you know there’s only one way to do that. Nobody needs to tell you. It’s just a tacit understanding.”
Steroids, for which Benoit had a prescription, were found in Benoit’s home, though investigators haven’t determined whether they played any role in the killings of his wife, Nancy, and their 7 year old son.
The WWE, which employed Benoit and holds a virtual monopoly grip on the industry, was quick to point out that this tragedy, apparently carried out over an entire weekend, doesn’t come with the classic signs of ‘roid rage, the violent, unpredictable outbursts that can be caused by someone who abuses steroids.
A top expert, Dr. Gary Wadler, of the World Anti-Doping Agency, agreed.
“I can paint any number of scenarios that explain this without invoking ‘roid rage,” he said. “Roid rage tends to be impulse control. This event ... has the earmarks of some calculation.”
The WWE also said Benoit had passed his last drug test in April, part of the organization’s “Wellness Program” that was put in place after the death of star Eddie Guerrero two years ago.
Both Evers and wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez, who’ve seen guidelines for the program, found two loopholes:
• A wrestler can pass the doping test with a testosterone to epitestosterone ratio of 10:1, more than double the World Anti-Doping Agency standard. Under WADA rules, athletes are in violation starting at 4:1; the average ratio is 1:1.
• A wrestler who tests positive can be excused if he produces a doctor’s prescription and a medically justified reason for taking the drug in question.
Benoit crumbles
There’s no justifying what happened at the Benoits’ suburban Atlanta home last weekend.
Alvarez, who covers the pro wrestling scene for Wrestlingobserver.com, has some inkling of the demons that might have overtaken the wrestler.
He said Benoit never got over the 2005 death of Guerrero, who was 38 when he died of a heart attack, perhaps caused by the alcohol and drug abuse that friends thought he had beaten.