Steriods and You

This is a short article I wrote after a few old time wrestlers started dying off at an alarming rate.
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When I was 6 years old Stampede Wrestling came to Regina. My cousin was a big wrestling fan. He was in Regina too and was really excited about it. So his Dad, mine and the two of us went to the event. It was pretty fun, and this guy and his kid brother were really entertaining. You might know them. Bret and Owen Hart. The Original Hart Foundation.
All the way home I was really excited about this amazing sport. My cousin and I started trying out wrestling moves we'd just seen. At this point my Dad and his decided it was time to sit us down and explain to us that wrestling is fake, it's just a show. After the initial excitement it was kind of like being told that Santa doesn't exist.
I got over it though, started watching WWF on TV and catching Stampede when it was in town. I could see the missed punches and the guys holding each other through holds to avoid injury. My appreciation took a new turn. I could see the fake parts, and I could see where these guys could, and eventually do, get hurt.
Then something new happened. A big muscular guy appeared. His name was the Ultimate Warrior. He looked very impressive and had a ton of energy. I never did see a lot of moves out of him, but wrestling's fake anyway so I really didn't care. But his entrance started a new trend. Really muscular guys.
Now. Around this time I had started lifting weights. I was always a very skinny kid, but with the weight lifting I noticed I wasn't get as picked on as I used to. So I started lifting more and more until one day when I was playing hockey and dislocated my knee. The doctor told me outright that because of my weight lifting my joints had become weak. I was only 15 at the time and human bones and joints aren't fully formed until males are in their early 20's. He told me in no uncertain terms that if I continued to lift weights and play a contact sport I would need a plastic knee. At 15. So. Eventually I was cleared to remove the knee brace I had to wear for three months while my tendons healed.
I had a choice to make. A plastic body part at 15 was just too scary to contemplate, so I focused on athleticism over raw size. I switched to baseball, soccer and 2-hand touch football. Until about three years ago I had to wear a knee brace every few months because I could feel the swelling growing in my knee from use. The doctors told me that it's normal now that I have damaged cartilage to frequently get "water on the knee" until my bones, joints and muscles finally stopped growing.
That whole time I was really into wrestling. I started becoming what some people call a "Smark". A "Smart-Mark" is someone that knows things about the wrestlers outside of their characters, knows about how things are accomplished and how the business works to a degree. Until young wrestlers started dying I enjoyed being a "Smark". When Andre passed no one was really surprised. He was a big guy and his heart gave out. When Jake "The Snake" Roberts became a cocaine abuser, no one seemed to care. When Road Warrior Hawk started abusing prescription drugs he was released from his contract and no one noticed.
I started questioning why these young guys started dying.
The unthinkable happened. Rick Rude died of heart failiar. He was young, in great shape....what the hell? I started asking questions. Reading. When wrestlers were in town I would talk to them. I learnt things about the business that no teenager should learn. Some of these "performers" start their day with their anabolic steroid breakfast, uppers of various kinds and then they hit the gym. 2 hours later they scarf down a dozen eggs, two cups of hash-browns, five pieces of toast and a bagel. Most of the really big guys are usually vibrating at this point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#Side_effects
By this point it's a couple hours until show time, so a lot of wrestlers hit a jogging machine for two hours. Most of them at this point have a quick nap until 6ish when they need to get to the arena for a show. They perform their match, a lot of them get so fed off the crowd that they get high from it and can't come down off that high for hours. Many wrestlers either take double or triple doses of sleeping pills or consume a large amount of alcohol.
So? Who cares right?
Well. Have a look at how many young guys have died before 45 in this business trying to earn the fans love. Surely some of them succeeded?
Some of them die in their sleep, some fall from a wire lowering them to the ring, some can't take all the pressure and snap. What do they earn from us in the end?
Our anger, our confusion, our accusations and a couple parting kind words.
Perhaps the wrestling industry has been left alone where the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL have not. Maybe the cure should be that the immense fortune being created by professional wrestling be, at least partially, used to look after these athletes? Maybe they should have in-house psychiatrists and nutritionists? Obviously the “drug screening” program already in place in the WWE isn’t enough.
Maybe ONE on staff doctor for 150 some odd signed wrestlers isn’t enough. Maybe they should cut two make-up artists and hire a nutritionist? We all take care of our cars, oil changes, preventative maintenance and whatnot to keep them at their best….perhaps the investment in flesh that the WWE has would be better served with a little preventative maintenance of their own?
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but if the marketing behind pro wrestling bills them as SPORTS ENTERTAINERS they should be either taken care of as athletes OR entertainers, not as commodities as dispensable as the bloody ring aprons they leave behind.