21.11.2005, 13:12
Hier ein Kolumne von Larry Matysik zum Tod von Guerrero:
Eddie Guerrero's untimely death again drives home the fact that today's version of professional wrestling is ugly and manipulative. Even though World Wrestling Entertainment was surely distraught, the company had to put its "spin" (poor Eddie, we tried to help, they were his decisions, we did a nice special honoring him) while selling more DVDs and books about Eddie.
But what is going to change? Wrestlers, like baseball and football players, are only doing what they feel they must to get ahead by using steroids and enhancement drugs. Who created this atmosphere of steroids, drugs, and coercion? Not the performers.
Wrestling today profits because it flies under the radar of government and media scrutiny. "It's just 'rassling!" Yet the health of real human beings is at stake. Furthermore, the powers that be ignore that this product, this philosophy, this atmosphere of a dangerous steroid culture is marketed directly in four hours of national television every week to a million or more teen-agers and younger viewers.
This youthful audience has no context in which to understand the issues and risks. These fans do not know that a "certain look" is what a performer in wrestling needs to be chosen for a prime role today.
Wrestling was always a hard, tough, often unethical business. In St. Louis, we were lucky that Sam Muchnick helped elevate it so that the entertainment and athletic values could be enjoyed. Steroids fortunately were barely a blip at that time. But those days are long, long gone.
Whatever problems baseball and football have with steroids and their approach to the problems it brings, save for Ken Caminiti and Lyle Alzado, athletes in their prime or just past are not dropping dead like Guerrero, Hennig, Rude, Studd, Hawk, Pillman, and so many other wrestlers.
It deeply saddens me to see that wrestling today has become a victim of its own excess. And another young father is gone forever because of it.
Larry Matysik
http://www.stlwrestlingfromthechase.com/main.html
Eddie Guerrero's untimely death again drives home the fact that today's version of professional wrestling is ugly and manipulative. Even though World Wrestling Entertainment was surely distraught, the company had to put its "spin" (poor Eddie, we tried to help, they were his decisions, we did a nice special honoring him) while selling more DVDs and books about Eddie.
But what is going to change? Wrestlers, like baseball and football players, are only doing what they feel they must to get ahead by using steroids and enhancement drugs. Who created this atmosphere of steroids, drugs, and coercion? Not the performers.
Wrestling today profits because it flies under the radar of government and media scrutiny. "It's just 'rassling!" Yet the health of real human beings is at stake. Furthermore, the powers that be ignore that this product, this philosophy, this atmosphere of a dangerous steroid culture is marketed directly in four hours of national television every week to a million or more teen-agers and younger viewers.
This youthful audience has no context in which to understand the issues and risks. These fans do not know that a "certain look" is what a performer in wrestling needs to be chosen for a prime role today.
Wrestling was always a hard, tough, often unethical business. In St. Louis, we were lucky that Sam Muchnick helped elevate it so that the entertainment and athletic values could be enjoyed. Steroids fortunately were barely a blip at that time. But those days are long, long gone.
Whatever problems baseball and football have with steroids and their approach to the problems it brings, save for Ken Caminiti and Lyle Alzado, athletes in their prime or just past are not dropping dead like Guerrero, Hennig, Rude, Studd, Hawk, Pillman, and so many other wrestlers.
It deeply saddens me to see that wrestling today has become a victim of its own excess. And another young father is gone forever because of it.
Larry Matysik
http://www.stlwrestlingfromthechase.com/main.html
