wrestling / Columns

Chyna, Tragedy and Wrestling’s Culture Shift

April 23, 2016 | Posted by Rob Stewart

On April 20th, 2016, Joan “Chyna” Laurer passed away at the age of 45. Barely more than a week prior, former ECW star Balls Mahoney passed away on April 12th at the age of 44. As wrestling fans, we’ve sadly become accustomed to seeing the age in those kinds of reports be a rather young one. In recent years, The Ultimate Warrior passed on at just 54, and Mabel was 42. Roddy Piper, dead at the age of 61, almost seems to have lived a long life in comparison to some of his contemporaries. As many know, or have at least heard in passing, a full third of the roster of Wrestlemania VI has passed away, the oldest of whom was but 63 years old.

Obviously, no one is taking these events lightly, but society as a whole tends to react to the death of another professional wrestler at another young age with a shrug and a comment akin to “Well, drugs and steroids. What do you expect?”. And it’s not an unfair reaction. A culture of drugs abuse has dominated the wrestling landscape for decades. It was just part of the lifestyle; whether the drugs used were to craft a perfect physique or to dull the pain of injuries or simply to use recreationally between shows, they just went hand-in-hand with wrestling.

Drug use in wrestling is so predominant and so poorly hidden that it has even been monetized by promoters in storylines that were usually crass (such as the alcoholism “angles” given to Scott Hall, Jake Roberts, or Road Warrior Hawk), but less often, inspiring (the redemptive stories of Shawn Michaels and Eddie Guerrero that dealt with overcoming such demons, though in the case of the latter, this became disheartening to look back on). Drug usage was an unpleasant silent handshake, agreed to between all of the parties involved. Promoters wanted their talent to be both available despite injuries and physically intimidating, and the wrestlers wanted to dull the ache of what was then considered to be “minor” injuries and to have fun and impress the other boys when they went out after shows. And so for years and years, the cycle continued.

It would, of course, be the gut-punchingly devastating deaths of Eddie Guerrero in 2005 and Chris Benoit and his family in 2007 that showed how tragic and dangerous this culture had become. In the years since these deaths, WWE—which, for better or worse, is synonymous with professional wrestling to much of the world—would slowly begin a shift in tone away from this drug culture. A more stringent Wellness Policy was enacted, and while we all have our skepticisms as to the possibly biased nature of the testing under this policy, it is better than what was before it because if it has genuinely helped anyone at all, it’s a welcome change. Injuries have also been treated more seriously than they had previously. Look no further than the current status of Bray Wyatt: he’s shelved for four-to-six weeks with a reportedly not severe pulled muscle, an injury that before the 2010’s would have been referred to as “not an injury” and would have been treated with some pills so that Bray would not miss any time. Now it’s certainly unfair of me to imply that without four weeks to recuperate from a pulled muscle, Bray might eventually become a casualty of drug abuse, and I don’t mean to; he’s just the best current example of a talent whose health is finally being treated appropriately in the modern era. It is good to see WWE erring on the side of caution in regards to the health of its superstars and letting them heal before they enter competition. Bray Wyatt is a fascinating young talent, and if losing him for 6 weeks now means ultimately adding another year onto his career, it’s absolutely a fair trade.

There is the cynical response that WWE has only initiated these policies due to bad press from the Benoit situation or from the string of young deaths, or maybe it was due to Linda McMahon’s runs at public office. It’s fair to question WWE’s motives, and ultimately, they are a publicly traded company. It used to be more profitable to keep talent working unless they simply could not; nowadays it is likely more profitable to be viewed as humanitarian toward their employees. But whether the change is due to public opinion or the goodness of Vince McMahon’s heart, what matters is that a healthier culture is being promoted in the hopes of avoiding more unfortunate events going forward.

What’s possibly even more exciting than seeing a change on a corporate level, however, is seeing it at an individual talent level. And thankfully there has been paradigm shift here, as well. Look no further than Diamond Dallas Page, who has had an incredibly successful career outside of the ring as a yoga instructor and health guru. He’s helped the aforementioned Jake Roberts and Scott Hall turn their lives around when so many people had long-since given them up as lost causes. Page has taken it upon himself to try to undo the decades of damage on his friends. The now former NXT champion Finn Balor was presented on a WWE Network special as a quiet man who spends his free time collecting and building Lego sets, while The New Day spend their downtime playing video games with their fellow superstars and hosting a YouTube channel (along with, presumably, just thinking up a seemingly-limitless batch of ideas for being glorious entertainers). Perhaps the days of the athletes needing to keep up with each other at the bar and in the hotel rooms is fading away; perhaps we are entering a new era of superstars who get their high in healthier ways.

Now, again like with the rationale for the corporate changes, it’s hard to say whether this is a generational culture shift in what Millennials want to do in their free time or if it is current stars learning from those that came before them is hard to say. The current generation of superstars were mostly the children of the 90’s who grew up in the current arrested development culture of video games and cable and constant media entertainment, and that is where many have learned to find their fun. They also grew up in the era of seeing their heroes die so young, so frequently. Not unlike with the corporate culture, it’s undoubtedly a little bit of both.

On April 20th, 2016, Joan Laurer passed away, possibly in no small part due to the culture of professional wrestling in her day, a culture that has taken so many lives from us far too soon. There’s absolutely nothing good about that, but it’s possible that all these years later, the current generation is helping put that culture to rest, as well.

article topics :

Chyna, WWE, Rob Stewart