Interesting article in the Washingtonpost. I had no idea that even the low-end stars make around $100K a year but have no benefits package. Yeah, its definitely not a glamorous lifestyle: being on the road all of the time, punishing your body taking hits and then having to workout incessantly to maintain a physique. Its no wonder that these guys turn to illegal substances just to get themselves through the day.
The article did make a great point in that there is no off-season. The reason is that professional wrestling is not a sport, it is sports-entertainment. That means it really is basically a soap-opera in that there are scripted storylines involved. In order to give wrestlers time off the storylines need to somehow explain their absence which is usually done through a fake injury. The vicious cycle is that the top stars are the top stars because they are seen by the fans week in and week out. You don't make your way to the top by getting little face time with the fans and on TV.
Then of course there is always the money factor involved. Professional wrestling is afterall a business. As much as it is nice to think that the owner Vince McMahon cares about his employees and as much as this may sound heartless, he obviously knows that for every star that he loses there are at least a dozen if not more up-and-coming hopefuls just waiting for their chance to break into the business.
It will be interesting to see if/how Congress decides to monitor illegal substance abuse in professional wrestling.
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