USA Today Article on Death's in Pro Wrestling.

[iliketurtles 0]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-03-12-...wrestling_x.htm

 

It mentions McMahon & Wrestlemania XX, so it should go in this folder of the forum.

[chaosrage 0]

Come on, it's not like it's heroin.

[Guest Anglesault]

Crash had bulging muscles?

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

In the newspaper addition they also had graphs showing how WWE has been on a slide since 1999

 

A sample

 

Attendance:

1999- over 12,000

2003- under 5,000

 

Raw viewers since move to Spike TV

2000- 6.4 million

2003- 4.4 million

 

Smackdown viewers

2000-7.3 million

2003-5.4 million

[Scroby 0]

So what that is basically is USA TODAY's way of bashing the buissness and the WWE right before WrestleMania right?

[Downhome 0]

It's about time that this goes mainstream. It should have happend about, oh, five or so deaths ago. Or way before that.

[The Tino Standard 0]

McMahon says he requires only that his wrestlers are in shape, not that they're "the size of monsters," as many were in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. "We're not looking for bodybuilders," he says

 

Oh COME ON.

[Downhome 0]

Here is a very good read from Wade Keller talking about the above article.

 

KELLER: Another disappointing mainstream media article on deaths in pro wrestling

 

By Wade Keller, Torch editor

Mar 12, 2004, 1:55 pm

 

 

Today's USA Today story on drug deaths in pro wrestling was another letdown in mainstream media coverage of pro wrestling.

 

I think journalists should be required to take statistics courses so they have a concept of how to put relevant facts and figures in proper perspective.

 

Several months ago I talked at length to the journalist who wrote the story, Jon Swartz. I e-mailed him, and he later he confirmed he read, my criticism of the HBO's use of statistics in their story last year. He also read Bruce Mitchell's most recent column on the subject of drug deaths in pro wrestling. Yet he made the same mistakes other journalists have.

 

There is an intelligent case to be made that there is a problem with drug use and corresponding early deaths in pro wrestling. It doesn't do a service to anyone to undercut the intelligent argument with out of context statistics and oversimplied arguments.

 

USA Today listed that 1,000 wrestlers have been active in pro wrestling since 1997. There have been 65 deaths of wrestlers under the age of 45 since 1997. He said 25 died from heart attacks or other coronarry problems, 12 others showed evidence of pain killer usage, cocaine, and other drugs. "It is pro wrestling where the problem appears to be the most pervasive and deadly," he wrote.

 

Said the story: "USA Today research shows that wrestlers are about 20 times more likely to die before 45 than are pro football players, another profession that's exceptionally hard on the body."

 

That may be the case, but grouping 1,000 wrestlers as part of the stastical sample just doesn't create a fair picture. The fair picture would have been citing the number of wrestlers who died since 1997 who also worked full time for a major promotion (WWF, WCW, or ECW) within the previous 15 years. That's not a perfect statistic, but it's better than listing all wrestlers when comparing to NFL players.

 

Or, USA Today could have tracked all athletes who played semi-pro ball in other sports, and college ball (which is most comparative to indy groups in pro wrestling). Then track how often they have died. The numbers might be more incriminating for pro wrestling. Or less. But at least the stats would have been relevant.

 

Also, the length of career of an NFL player is much shorter than true full-time wrestlers. NFL players have an off season. Pro wrestlers don't. Those are glaring relevant facts to bring up, not in defense of pro wrestling, but just to put some semblance of perspective on the differences.

 

I got the sense talking to Swartz that anything other than a hysterical indictment of the pro wrestling industry or Vince McMahon being responsible for killing wrestlers painted me as a wrestling apologist lacking credibility.

 

Mike Lockwood, a/k/a Crash Holly, was one of the centerpieces of his story. Lockwood committed suicide, which the story even said (although his mom, understandably, believes otherwise). His prominent inclusion in the story is baffling. He may have eventually died from years of drug abuse, but he died of suicide after his wife filed divorse papers. Not exactly Vince McMahon's doing.

 

Hawk was cited in the story. Hawk put everything and anything into his body from the mid-'80s through the time he died. He was known in the Minnesota wrestling scene for being perhaps the most abusive to his body of anybody. He claimed within the last few years he had found religion and wasn't taking anything that wasn't natural. There are a lot of "natural substantances" that could have contributed to his death. There are a lot of dangerous supplments sold in nurtrition stores. Hawk also took recreational drugs for many years, not just steroids. A lot of them. For a very long time. Even when he wasn't in pro wrestling. Many of his colleagues who had the same schedule as he experienced did not take the same array of drugs that eventually caught up to him.

 

Scotty "Raven" Levy, who made some bold statements in a "Torch Talk" last year (which I emailed to Swartz), was quoted in the story. Levy was listed as a former drug addict who kicked the habit. He wasn't quoted talking about steroids, but instead was quoted talking about pain pills. Pain pills are an entirely different subject than steroids. The reasons for taking pain pills are largely different than steroids. Their addictiveness is different. Their long-term ramifications are different. The ability to test for them is different. The solutions to pain pill problems is different. USA Today didn't even touch on the differences.

 

Said Levy in his "Torch Talk" last year in the Torch Newsletter: "I don't think anything is dangerous when taken moderately. It's like you could kil yourself with antibiotics if you take too many of them. You can kill yourself with asprin if you take too many of them. Steroids are the same way. If used intelligently, they're incredibly safe. You could get by on a small cycle off and on for 20, 30 years."

 

This may or may not be true. Perhaps Swartz could have found an expert on steroids to counter such an argument. But there was no depth to the article. No sense that there are shades of gray in this discussion. No sense that perhaps those who are dying of steroid use were pumping anything and everything into their bodies, well before getting into pro wrestling, during their full-time careers, and long after.

 

That calls for a different solution than simply WWE testing. The article did point out that testing doesn't work all that well because there are so many masking agents and ways to beat tests.

 

Sadly, Vince McMahon didn't express any real concern for the situation, either. His first goal always seems to be to distance himself from the issue, absolve himself of any guilt, rather than repenting for his approach to who got pushes in the past and at least pretending to care about preventing young up-and-coming wrestlers from choosing dangerous lifestyle paths just to make it to WWE some day.

 

"These guys took steroids because they wanted to," McMahon said. "Because we are the most visible organization, we get the black eye," adds McMahon, noting that only two of the 65 deceased wrestlers died while working for his company. "It is alarming whenever young people pass away from these insidious causes, but you can't help someone if they don't want to help themselves."

 

There is truth to McMahon's statement, but just once I'd like to see him, as the most prominent promoter in the industry, seem to care. Or seem frustrated that he doesn't know how to fix the situation. Instead, it's always "don't blame me, blame them."

 

The USA Today article did acknowledge that WWE does test when they believe there are indications of recreational drug use (which is selfish in the sense that unlike steroid use, recreational drug use can interfere with a wrestler making his dates or performing well). The article also pointed out that WWE has cut back the schedule for wrestlers since the '80s and mid-'90s by a few dates per month.

 

The death of Hercules Hernandez, if it was related to his years of steroid use, is another sign that wrestlers ought to take inventory of the chances they're taking with steroid usage. If today's wrestlers rationalize, as Levy does, that there is a smart way to take steroids and a dumb and dangerous way, they ought to be sure they know what they're talking about. If they believe the steroids taken in the '80s were crude, whereas the steroids and other muscle enhancements being used today are "cleaner and safer," they ought to be willing to look their children in the eye and tell them they're 100 percent sure.

 

Because while many - if not the vast majority - of deaths of wrestlers under the age of 45 can be written off as the result of reckless and excessive drug abuse (in most cases after their full-time careers were over), there are enough deaths that wrestlers - and all athletes - should take a hard look at the odds and decide whether it's worth the risk.

 

I'd also like to see a mainstream story cover this without falling into the same traps of faulty stats and simplified "who's to blame" arguments that permiate this discussion. It deserves better.

 

Deposit Your Reactions Here: "kellerstake" (@pwtorch.com)

 

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© Copyright 2004 by TDH Communications Inc.

[Guest thetrendsetter]

Was I the only one to get an ad while looking at the article from a Mexican Pharmacy that sold Steroids and Growth Hormones, on top of Painkillers.