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A while back, I posted on my baseball blog about Shawn Michaels’ statements claiming that pro wrestling is more honest than baseball regarding steriod use. I grew up watching pro wrestling and enacted make believe wrestling matches in my living room. I also grew up adoring baseball. There was a time in my life when I felt that both were “real” and then I ultimately came to appreciate pro wrestling as a form of “unreal” entertainment.
Without going into excessive buildup, let me explain where I am going with this. Tonight, I was jetting through the on-screen guide of my DISH channel menu when I came across a new channel — DOC (or, documentary). On the channel was “Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows.” It depicts a period of Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s life, concluding with the infamous “screw job” in which WWF (now, WWE) owner, Vince McMahon Jr. forces Hart to hand over his championship belt before leaving the organization (the prevailing assumption was that McMahaon feared Hart would show on a rival organization television show the next night with that belt in his hands).
I had seen the documentary a few years ago, but after just a few minutes of watching this evening, I realized how foretelling the title of the documentary is. In the segment I came in on, there was footage of professional wrestlers like; “Mr. Perfect” Curt Henning, “The Brittish Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith, Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, Road Warrior Hawk and others. All of them were helthy, young athletes in the prime of their lives. All of them are now dead.
I am reminded of others, like; Louis Spicolli, “Ravishing” Rick Rude, Miss Elizabeth, Crash Holley, and most recently, Eddie Guerrero. Many of these people passed of heart related causes or drug related incidents. Now, I am not about to contend that all of these untimely deaths were the result of drugs (that most certainly was not the case for Owen Hart).
However, it does make you wonder. I am pretty sure that someone in pro wrestling isn’t being entirely honest.
Chad Gramling is a baseball loving author, Christian and family man. WordUp is his platform for discussing what's on his mind, his publishing endeavors and pretty much anything else.
Horaayy..there are 3 comment(s) for me so far ;)
Sounds like a cool show. It does seem wrestlers die again and again at young ages. What is the real story behind Elizabeth’s death?
From what I have read and heard, Elizabeth died in the home of the wrestler known as Lex Lugar after taking a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol.
There is a pretty good article about premature wrestling deaths on USA Today at
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-03-12-pro-wrestling_x.htm
[...] I’ve blogged about this already, so I won’t expand too much on it . . . but pro wrestling lost another personality today. Mike Durham, known as Johnny Grunge of Public Enemy, passed away Thursday morning at the age of 39. [...]