Joe writes for the Wrestling Observer, and has some very interesting comments:
 
Joe Babinsack talks wrestler deaths        
 
It’s been a rough stretch for the professional wrestling world.  
 
Death has visited too often again, and has struck the young, the not so young and then those whose time has naturally come. We’ve seen the untimely death of Lance Cade and the passing of a man who has seen many decades in “Tough” Tony Bourne; we’ve seen the demise of the legendary Skandar Ackbar and the suddenness of the news of the loss of the unforgettable Luna Vachon. And not as an afterthought, but we add the name of J.C. Bailey, Ted Allen and Jeremy Wood, as well as Judo Olympian Anton Geesink of Japanese pro wrestling fame.  
 
And I hope I’m not overlooking anyone. We’ve seen a period that has thankfully been unseen for some time, and God willing, won’t happen again.  
 
It’s not easy to see the continuance of a trend that seemed to ebb away over the past few years, but had it really? Andrew “Test” Martin and Umaga died last year, Tony “Ludvig Borga” Halme and Chris Kanyon (born Klucsaritis) both committed suicide earlier this year, and indy talent Trent Acid passed away at a very untimely age weeks ago.  
 
So have we just become numb to it all, and does it take a number of deaths to make it meaningful?  
 
Death and Wrestling become ingrained into the headlines of professional wrestling coverage, and on the minds of professional wrestling fans. We don’t even wonder anymore why the WWE doesn’t announce deaths like they once did. It’s not even a question of a ten-bell salute or a ten second video clip. It’s just about keeping clean from any attempt to link the industry’s 800 pound gorilla with the woes of the industry as a whole.  
 
Well, that would be unfair, wouldn’t it?  
 
Meanwhile, the list grows, and unfortunately, the list grows with the names of individuals who have been contracted by the leader in Sports Entertainment, and even benefitted from outreaches to help them recover from the addictions, abuses and lifestyles that seemingly, coincidentally, mystifyingly happened while they were employed (no, strike that) contracted to perform.  
 
Perform at the behest of, perform to the scripting of, perform solely and exclusively for, and perform oh so often to the detriment of their careers, lives and life expectancy.  
 
But let’s not quibble, because they all signed contracts that declared that the contract that binds them financially legally absolved the WWE of any responsibility.  
 
So talent could never work for another promotion during the term of the contract, but they could never claim that the promotion they “worked for” – and I use that term in purely euphemistic ways – controlled their lives, even though they controlled their actions almost exclusively, even though the implied and implicit expectations often pushed them past the lines of realism and into the realm of nightmarish repercussions.  
 
Is it any wonder that Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley have decided that fighting 3 or maybe even 4 times, for real, is much more satisfying, even if you get beat up, for real, for maybe 45 minutes, or maybe 75 minutes, in that year.  
 
Oh sure, there’s the training and the sparring and the sort of similar attraction to Performance Enhancing Drugs and cocktails and lots of time and money and opportunity to abuse those chemicals that can ruin lives and cut short promising careers.  
 
But the interesting reality remains that MMA is not monolithic, and the avenues that point to the direction of the 800 pound gorilla of that industry don’t point a straight path. Despite the fiscal domination of the UFC, headliners have been tempted, have flouted the contractual arrangements and have left for other promotions. And the consensus greatest fighter in the world, up until a few months ago, jilted every leveraged contractual demand of the UFC, and plied his trade elsewhere.  
 
Talent has balked at Video Game contracts. Talent has fled for testing reasons (for not-so-good and for horrible reasons). Talent has played promotions against each other, bettered their situations, but more than anything talent has been able to take bets on their careers.  
 
So the next time some Senatorial Candidate from Connecticut talks of Heath Ledger having no one in the Motion Picture industry responsible for his untimely death, ask her if the Motion Picture industry is dominated by one corporate entity, if the Motion Picture industry controls every appearance of its contracted talent, if the Motion Picture industry ever tried to lock a motion picture star or a motion picture mid-carder to a binding contract that absolves them of any physical impact of their employment, all the while preventing them from even thinking about working for a rival, or selling their own time for their own profit.  
 
Is the WWE entirely responsible for the growing list of deaths?  
 
No, that’s not possible. Personal choices and the demons of addictions aren’t spawned spontaneously by the Stamford company. And yet, there is little that absolves the WWE of a moral responsibility that goes beyond offering amends to talent that asks for help. Too many insensitive comments and far too many nearly inhumane reactions to senseless losses of life have pointed to a corporate structure far too focused on the bottom line and far too indifferent to the lives of the talent they otherwise contractually control, without any shred of financial responsibility beyond that which is agreed upon, not by any stretch at the barrel of a gun, but due to dominance, with an eye towards the reality that walking away significantly decreases the financial gains possible in the industry.  
 
True, the recent deaths are diluted when you look at their relationships to the WWE. Neither Luna Vachon nor Lace Cade were with the WWE at the time of their deaths, but could they ever escape the gravity of their tenure there? It is sadly obvious that Kanyon and Halme were troubled souls, removed from the WWE for years, yet Kanyon’s coincidences were more than just painful if you look beneath the surface. Several young wrestlers died, and one can only speculate if they had their eyes on the WWE, even though almost every talented wrestler in the world eyes the WWE as their destination. Older wrestlers like Bourne and Ackbar had scant little to do with the financial juggernaut, even though both have connections to past performers and the glory of wrestling as a whole.  
 
It may seem as though I’m picking a fight with the WWE, but keep in mind that any death in MMA will ultimately resound on the UFC, regardless of realities, and deaths in other Sports, other Industries, for any reason are ultimately attributed to the industry leader. So call it unfortunate that the WWE has found itself in that position, or call it a culmination of shrewd business strategy, but they must reap the whirlwind.  
 
Responsibility is such a strong word. Likely too strong a word for a corporate entity, but honesty and truth aren’t too high of an expectation, even from professional wrestling fans.  
 
And that’s where the WWE seems to falter. Twisting words and hiding behind euphemisms, nodding in the direction of assistance, and yet all too often rehiring talent for the wrong reasons, and seemingly overlooking foibles for business purposes.  
 
Public Relations responses during campaign season have a certain twist on what’s real and what’s forthright, but picking fights, as the WWE has done with former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski, who is president of the Sports Legacy Institute, and has spearheaded the investigations of concussions and their impact on athletes, to the point where the NFL has changed policy, shows the world just what the WWE feels about reality.  
 
Which, to this lifelong and passionate fan, is sadly similar to their approach to a sport that I painfully admit is too fake for its own good. It’s even more painful to realize that the only thing that really, truly is not fake is the lasting impact of death on the surviving families of the fallen.  
 
Joe Babinsack can be reached at chaosonejoe@yahoo.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it