More Wrestlers and Steroids

More allegations of steroids in professional wrestling. You know sometimes it makes me wonder. Steroids in professional sports and wrestling. For a lot of these guys they have nothing to fall back on. Sure, some are charismatic enough to launch an acting or TV career, but other than that what else do they have? Even though these guys make millions of dollars every year, does a professional athlete salary suffice for a comfortable salary? Its hard for me to believe that it isn't but sometimes this money is squandered early on in a career (see Mike Tyson).

I think college athletes should be called "athlete-students" rather than "student-athletes". Granted only a minority of college athletes make it to a professional team and yet others go overseas to play. But how many of these college kids actually think that they should also have an education to fall back on because they won't make it? I'm not sure, but realistically it is probably not many. Understandable. They are chasing what in many cases is a childhood dream to become a professional athlete.

Once again, the single-mindedness is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, only those who truly put everything they have into attaining the goal to become a professional athlete actually make it (with a combination of innate talent/gift). However, I believe that this single-mindedness also leads athletes to block out any possibility of not making it. Even if this "student-athlete" does graduate college, do you think that he actually cared about his degree let alone remember anything while playing a sport professionally?

A lot of professional wrestlers are former high-school/college athletes themselves who couldn't make it to a professional team either due to injury or lack of talent. These guys are not really that educated. I would be interested in seeing the percentage of college graduates that are in professional wrestling. But, does this lack of education mean that these men are really that dumb/ignorant enough to knowingly take steroids? I would argue no. These men full well know what they are getting themselves into. The choice to take steroids to get them through the sheer pain that they put themselves through day in and day out for their passion in life trumps the option of quitting and trying something else. Given that a top wrestling superstar needs to be "larger than life" in persona and physical stature I don't think that this problem will go away.

Steroids and Wrestling

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.