Providing solutions to problems in the wrestling industry after the Benoit tragedy.

An article I found interesting about the way the industry is reacting after the benoit tragedy and how to maybe help the situation. Thankyou to Mike Johnson at PWInsider.com.

With the findings of the Chris Benoit toxicology report yesterday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, a huge sigh of relief was felt within the professional wrestling industry. It could have been worse, one prominent performer told me last night during a phone conversation. Worse? We're talking about an entire family being wiped out and the reaction is it could have been worse.

The Chris Benoit family tragedy will never have any real, hard answers for those who lost loved ones. That is a burden they will be forced to carry for their rest of their lives. For many fans, this will be the wrestling equivalent of the death of "Superman" actor George Reeves. If you look hard enough at the evidence, the theories, you start to see things that may or not may not be true. Suicide? Murder?

Just like with George Reeves, we will never know.

The wrestling industry, however, doesn't want to know. By all accounts, it seems prepared to resign itself that it's time to get back to business as usual. The excuses are already floating out there.

"He tested negative for anabolic steroids." - John Cena on Larry King Live.

Uh, what do you think injectable testosterone is, Mr. Cena?

"He tested clean during our last test." - WWE

So that excuses the fact that Benoit may have been beating this test for some time, and the test may need to be improved?

"It wasn't our company." - an employee of another wrestling company.

Maybe not, but had Chris Benoit been released from WWE, even if for health-related reasons, everyone would have been scrambling over themselves to book him. Kurt Angle, anyone?

"That guy lost his mind and isn't indicative of the business." - WWE contracted wrestler

Chris Benoit may have lost his mind, but now he's not indicative of the professional wrestling business? He headlined Wrestlemania. He was considered THE BEST in-ring performer at various times of his career. He worked every major American-based promotion of the 1990s and toured extensively around the world. He was the inspirational story of the performer who was too good, too vanilla to be a star but instead stood atop the wrestling world at Madison Square Garden in what was designed to be one of the greatest feel-good moments in modern day World Wrestling Entertainment. A moment that is now smeared forever because just about everyone standing in that ring that night in March 2004 is now dead.

Yet the business seems ready to trudge on.

I can understand wanting to get away from the Benoit tragedy because the more one thinks about it, the more depressing it is and the more you want to simply spit in the face of pro wrestling, turn around and walk away. You need someone to blame and if Georgia authorities are correct, Chris Benoit, for all of his tough guy exterior, wasn't man enough to face that blame.

I can understand wanting to move on and get back to "putting the smile on people's faces" as so many WWE performers have stated in recent weeks as if it was their company mantra.

To simply move on though, is disrespectful.

It's disrespectful to Nancy and Daniel Benoit. It's disrespectful to their families and friends, to Daniel's playmates who have had to try and understand why their friend is never going to come play again. It's disrespectful to grandparents who will never get to dote on their little Daniel again. It's disrespectful to fans that have spent their time and money and emotional investment in WWE as a company and their distinct performers. It's disrespectful to the next performer that drops dead, whether it's tomorrow, a year from now or 50 years from now.

And, as much as he should be vilified for all of this, it's disrespectful to Chris Benoit because to move on may not help to prevent someone who may one day be in his mental state, his depression, his depravity. This story needs to be more than just another sad wrestling death. It needs to be, for once, about learning from tragedy, pulling yourself up, and improving yourself in the process.

Chris Benoit and the tragic end of his family needs to be the epiphany this business needs to finally mature.

***

Now the hard part. No matter what sound bite the media plays and no matter what any current or former professional wrestling star says, there is no black and white to problem. It's easy to point the finger at Vince McMahon and proclaim him Satan and the blame for the ills of the industry, but the truth is, the origins of steroids in the business pre-date McMahon as owner to the WWF. Anyone who reads Superstar Graham's book can see that for themselves. So who do you blame?

I simply say, stop the blaming. Stop the cycle of finger pointing. We all know the reasons and we all know the excuses. Let's just start making solutions to help the wrestling industry, now. The culture of the business in 2007 must improve for today's performers. In a perfect world, one would also hope the business would police older stars who are now on the outskirts of wrestling, but it's not a viable reality unless we get into unions and such, and to me, that is a story for another day, so I am going to focus on the current generation here.

There will be other deaths no matter what. It's going to happen. Jesse Ventura, of all people, once said, "You can't govern stupidity" and you'll find those who make stupid decisions in each and every walk of life. The wrestling industry at large, however, needs to start becoming proactive instead of dismissive and reactive. I'm not placing blame for past or even current sins. Anyone can do that. I simply hope to offer some solutions and hope that in two years from now, we see a different landscape when it comes to the health of the performers in this unique sports genre.

Eddie Guerrero's death was the catalyst for some change, but the Benoit tragedy shows that WWE and the industry in general must not stick to the status quo while breathing a sigh of relief and wiping the sweat from its brow. It's time for those changes to continue to evolve and mature, not just to try and prevent the next death, but to provide an overall better quality of life for everyone in the industry.

****

Suggestions for Solutions:

TIGHTEN UP THE WELLNESS POLICY

Detractors of World Wrestling Entertainment will decry the Wellness Policy and point out loopholes. Employees of the company will vouch for it, since they are the ones down in the trenches, who's lifestyles were changed by its implementation. The truth is that the Policy is a good start but needs to evolve to continue to be (or become, depending on your opinion) effective in policing performers in the wrestling industry. Ways to force that evolution -

*Close those testing loopholes, now. Every piece of media scrutiny has been attracted to the levels WWE will allow compared to tests required by other entities. While Aegis Science's Dr. Black has pointed out in recent media appearances that he is trying to change lifestyles (and no one wants the health of anyone to be adversely affected by cold turkey removal of any substance), the company needs to update its standards and make that clear. Then, they need to tell talent when that is going into effect and stick with it. If talents are unable to get their levels down due to health reasons, sit them out for their own good. The wrestling business will survive missing them for a period of time. The talents will be healthier in the long-term. Put the good of the individual over the good of the company.

*Hit performers where it hurts, in the wallet - In recent months, performers who failed tests continued to work while on suspension. That has to end. Sit them at home. Refuse to reward them professionally, no matter who they are, until they adhere to the company standards. While the company has to put the health of their performers first, if the performer refuses to respect their own health, it's time for WWE to step in to stop them financially. Suspend these performers without pay. Take any royalties owed and suspend them as well. Better yet, donate those monies to an anti-drug organization, privately. It's WWE's sandbox and as every wrestler knows, if you don't play ball with the bosses, you will soon find yourself on the outs. It's time for the company to make the health of their wrestlers not just a priority, but a requirement of employment. The threat of losing those T-shirt, action figure and PPV royalties might just force the hand of those who otherwise might sway towards personal demons.

*Publicly announce failures. If WWE doesn't want a series of failures to pollute their main page and detract from the latest storyline, PPV or merchandise that they are promoting, issue announcements on the corporate website. This will not only embarrass those who refuse to adhere to Wellness standards, but also provide the media and (more importantly) shareholders proof that the company is indeed working towards the improvement of the industry they control.

DEVISE WAYS TO CYCLE WWE PERFORMERS ON AND OFF THE ROAD

The national expansion of the WWF in the 1980s was, by all accounts, an insane back and forth zig-zag cross-country touring schedule with no rhyme or reason and the company booking whatever buildings they could on any date, sometimes with multiple shows on one day in different cities. Travel alone should have killed more performers from that era. Part of the reason so many are dying today is because of what those performers did to cope. That situation was not created by WWE and Vince McMahon and was not exclusive to that company. Anyone who worked for Bill Watt's Mid-South promotion has horror stories about hours upon hours driving hundreds of miles in an era before there were highways to make live events. It was a hardship on a lesser scale, but a hardship nonetheless. It's an industry-wide problem.

Today's WWE schedule, is without a doubt much better than it has for previous generations of WWE performers. For most wrestlers, they are on the road 3-4 days on the road, with perhaps another day (on average) lost to travel. They are working loops in one geographic area. Some performers, including WWE's Ken Kennedy, have been quick to defend it, as is their right. Still, no one will claim that the system is perfect.

In the wake of Eddie Guerrero's 2005 death former WWE star Andrew “Test” Martin wrote, “When I started wrestling I had never seen or heard of Vicodin or Percocet or Soma. How come so many wrestlers die from these medications and football players and hockey players don't? The answer is simple...wrestlers especially WWE wrestlers work 5 days a week all year long taking bump after bump in the ring, a doctor explained it to me like this...every time you take a fall in the ring it's like getting rear ended by a car going 20 mph, so how many bumps in the ring a night do you take? Multiply that by how many times a week you work all year long..that's a hell of a lot of whiplash and pain.”

In the effort of maturing the business, World Wrestling Entertainment needs to force mandatory time off the road for all of their performers. To me, six weeks (either as a whole or three weeks twice a year) would be perfect. It would allow performers time off to rest up and heal, spend time as a normal person as opposed to living the haggard performance lifestyle and plan and prepare for normal family vacations. It will also provide performers a chance to go away and become fresh characters upon their return, extending their in-ring careers and overall worth to the company.

This can't happen overnight. It will take some work, but the company can provide this for their performers without risking the loss of income from merchandise and PPV royalties. If the creative team of the company can plan ahead, they can prepare storyline reasons for the departure of talents. Those can be "injury storylines", the end of a feud that leads to a Loser Leaves Town stipulation, storyline suspensions, or quite simply a performer who quietly steps out of the "WWE World" for a few weeks upon the end of their storyline before returning in a major fashion down the line. The company should even have an idea of when they will return the performer to their storylines and the road, as well as how.

A performer being off the road doesn't mean they have to be out of the spotlight of the wrestling fan at large however. During a performer's first week off, send a WWE production crew to tape footage of the performer (or better yet, bring that performer and their family to WWE HQ, film the footage, and send them out for a weekend in New York City as a thank you for all that performer does for the company). WWE's crack production team can edit the hell out of it and spread that footage out over several weeks and outlets, including WWE.com. While a wrestler may be sleeping in his own bed for six weeks, he's still out there in the eyes of the fans because for four of those six weeks, they are still on TV giving fans reasons to anticipate their return to action.

A second idea may be to pull performers off the touring schedule and have them doing goodwill appearances for the company for local charities in their geographic area, phone and TV interviews and other appearances to help the company in their local area. They are still working for the promotion, but at the same time, not taking bumps.

Other concepts could be to send certain performers to TV only on certain weeks, to cut out all house shows all together or to plan ahead and tape two weeks of TV at one taping, so performers can be completely off the road the following week. Under the current system, this may seem to be far fetched when it comes to a public company that has to explain its finances quarterly to shareholders and would have to absorb some losses.

There is never an immediate and easy answer to making major changes to any business. The company would have to create a system of planning far in advance as well as a way to insure creative, paranoid performers that these changes will not hurt their short or long term career advancement. There is no black and white here and no immediate answers. It would take time but it's something the company should at least research via an outside entity that can anonymously interview performers for their thoughts and idea, then present their findings to WWE.

World Wrestling Entertainment may need to run 52 weeks a year. Each and every one of their performers do not. They shouldn't be the human equivalent of Greyhound dogs running themselves into the ground. This is something WWE needs to start researching immediately, for the good of everyone employed.

UPGRADE COMPANY PHYSICALS

In the wake of the Guerrero death, WWE's Wellness Policy began providing regular cardiovascular exams to their performers. It's time to look at those exams and upgrade them. Performers should undergo full physicals every three months, including regular EKGs and the measurement of their heart to detect any long-term health issues from a history of steroid and drug abuse.

Beyond that, WWE needs to maintain a regular full-time team of medical professionals that travel with the company to provide regular physicals. They need a full-time mental health professional on hand at all shows to help deal with the unique job stress and paranoia that comes with working for an industry where everything you do is scrutinized for perfection and every aspect of your job is manipulated by those with more power than you.

Years of abuse can’t be reversed, as has been proven by all the enlarged hearts in so many dead young wrestlers, but at least those who work for the company can go to bed knowing that their employer is doing everything possible to help them in appreciation for the physical and mental wear and tear they go through daily.

DIXIE CARTER, MEET DR. BLACK

Most of the professional wrestling scrutiny has fallen upon the shoulders of World Wrestling Entertainment but this is an industry level problem. Thus, it's time for WWE to commit the blasphemous act of contacting their primary national competition in TNA and introduce them to Aegis Science.

It's time for Aegis Science to not just oversee World Wrestling Entertainment's Wellness Policy but evolve into an independent testing agency for the professional wrestling industry at large. Both major national companies need to share the same standards for testing, so that one company isn't a safe house for those who don't want to adhere to the health standards of the other.

By the same token, the companies need to make the official agreement that if one performer is dismissed from a company for health reasons, that the other company will respect the dismissal and not hire them until the performer can prove those issues are behind him or her. That will prevent the flea market like scrambling to hire a newly released performer, no matter what his or her demons may be, in the pursuit of PPV and merchandise sales.

Don't think Ring of Honor should be exempt here either. Now that they are contracting their performers (and despite the fact that some of those performers are getting medical insurance), ROH performers should have to fall under the same standards for steroids, drugs, and overall health as everyone else. Just because you are a good worker doesn't mean you should be allowed to use steroids

The wrestling industry is more than just WWE, although given the shady carny evolution of this business, it has been hard for promotions to work together for any extended period of time. For the good of the health of the professional wrestling industry, it's time for everyone to do that and Aegis Science can be the outside, independent monitoring company that becomes the singular force to effect that change.

***

These are only a few suggestions to help this industry and bring it back in line. Will it happen? I don't know. I just don't want the deaths of the Benoits to be in vain. It certainly isn't time to get back to business. As far as I'm concerned, that time will never come, not as long as the business is waiting for the next body to fall and be buried.

Now, all of the ideas I mentioned above could have been in play and we'd still have seen the sad Benoit family tragedy come to light. I don't know what could have prevented them and no matter what they claim or who they blame, neither does anyone else.

However, instead of putting all of their energies into the defense and the public relations spin of the tragedy, its time for WWE and everyone else in a position of power in professional wrestling, to take that energy and effect change....today.

It's too late for Chris and Nancy and Daniel and Eddie and Louie and Curt and Anthony and Sherri and Davey and far too many other men and women that someone reading this loved to watch, loved as a person, or miss greatly. It's not too late to change things today so that this sad, dark, depressing era of professional wrestling deaths are staved off, if not today, for future generations.

I'm ready to stop blaming and offer solutions. Will the wrestling industry at large and their detractors do the same?

Mike Johnson @ PWInsider.com.