Can the WWE recover?

Last night, I tried watching TNA. The entire hour was based upon a three-way match between Christian, Kurt Angle and Rhyno. There was nothing wrong with the match. It was perfectly good, to be truthful.

But I couldn't watch it. Not without thinking that one of those three men could possibly be the next to die; that one of them could perpetrate a Chris Benoit-esque tragedy.

I grew up a wrestling fan, but no more. WWE may recover. It may not. But I can't watch it anymore.

 

From the AP's enterprise budget for this weekend...

PRO WRESTLING:
It’s not in the script: Too many athletes dying young
ATLANTA — Everything is planned: the high-flying moves, the outlandish story lines, the crackpot characters. But there’s one thing that isn’t in the script — the stunning number of pro wrestlers who die young. Chris Benoit was the latest, taking his own life after killing his wife and son. Three other prominent ex-wrestlers had already died this year. Through it all, illicit drugs — especially steroids, human growth hormone and painkillers — have been a recurring theme. Maybe it’s time to say enough’s enough. Maybe it’s time for someone outside this pseudo-sport to step in before more grapplers wind up at the morgue.
BC-Wrestling’s Shame. AP Photos. AP Video.
By National Writer Paul Newberry.

 

Kriegel writes that Congress needs to investigate WWE:

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/6982280?MSNHPHMA

 

Maybe Benoit updated his own entry?

And hockeybeat, tonight will be the first time I will have watched wrestling since Benoit, so that's going to be my test.

 

Oz, I'm going to try to watch Raw but I think I'll end up just flipping the channel to something else.

 

I'll watch more to see how they move on from the aborted McMahon death angle than anything Benoit-related.

Last week's TV numbers didn't move a lot from previous weeks, which means real death sucks as much as fake death when it comes to popping a rating.

 

WWE's real problem is UFC and MMA, even more so than the rash of deaths in the past decade or so, IMO.

 

Yeah, 50, 60, 70, 80 dead wrestlers isn't a problem at all.

 

I don't see why it shouldn't go on. The deaths of Jim Morrison, John Bonham, Steve Clark, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Bon Scott and many others didn't stop the music industry. Shit happens.

 

That analogy doesn't really work, because nobody is talking about these deaths and problems hurting the pro wrestling industry as a whole, but the WWE specifically.

 

I like the entertainment analogy here, as 'pro' wrestling is entertainment, and not actual athletic competition. Let me try to build on it and narrow it to a particular historical sub-group.

Jazz musicians were often identified with very heavy drug usage. So much so that in many corners of the genre it was doubted whether a person could be a successful jazz artist if he/she did not take drugs. I believe the Clint Eastwood film "Bird" (starring Forrest Whitaker as Charlie "Bird" Parker) dealt with this topic, as do a number of other sources on jazz' history.

Suffice to say, jazz lives on today, well past its 'you have to use drugs to play, or play well' phase. Yes, it is even expected to survive the Diana Krall era, which is a true testament to its resiliency, IMO.

Pro Wrestling has existed for, what, 60 years? It has ebbed and flowed in terms of public opinion and ratings before, and will do so again. The WWE's ratings numbers were slipping before Benoit's death, as I mentioned previously.

Pro wrestling has a drug problem, I don't think anybody could seriously debate that it doesn't. So does rock and roll. And pro cycling. And track and field. And MLB. And the NFL.

If WWE fails, it won't be because of drugs or public disinterest. It will be because Vince McMahon's kids screw it up when their dad hands the company over to them. Vince is 'carny' (short for 'carnival,' meaning in the PT Barnum tradition of huckstering/selling a show), but he's also a billionaire. That is, he knows what he's doing.

As I stated, the biggest thing denting WWE's pocketbook these days is MMA's emergence as a 'real' alternative to the WWE's scripted storylines. If you want to know what keeps Vince up at night, go check out the UFC. IMO, Vince has about as much compassion for his performers as Don King does, or as Gene Upshaw seems to for former NFL'ers.

 

Agreed... to vince, people are a renewable commodity