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[Monroeski]

Getting health/life insurance must be impossible for these guys.

My dad used to sell insurance, and I know he sold life insurance to a few local wrestlers (just small time regional stuff) because it was a condition of their employment; if they wanted to be in this part time association and wrestle for peanuts a match, they HAD to have it or they wouldn't be hired.

Not sure about any other organizations, obviously.

 

[MrHicks]

Another senseless marijuana death. When will people learn?

but people don't die fro...........oh i see what you did there

 

[entremet]

These guys die so young. Tragic, really.

 

[medrew]

Here's that list of wrestlers that have died before 65 since 1985. It's up to date with this guy, it seems.

It's missing Mike Bell, one of the brothers featured in Bigger Stronger Faster, that wrestled off and on for the WWE.

 

[BobTheFork]

Holy shit at the list of dead wrestlers. A few months ago I had a really morbid habit of looking up wrestlers I used to watch and reading all the awful stuff I didn't know about.
However, there are a few on that list I had no clue about Davey Boy and Curt Henning.

 

[avatar299]

Didn't Brian Kendrick get released in part of this?

He was fired becuase he burned his bridges. His upper midcard push died becuase he broke policy and after that he became a bit of a locker room downer. Not much use keeping him.

 

[Speevy]

Hates lists like this. Most of them are drug/steroid related deaths, but there are a bunch that aren't. And then they threw in people like Joey Marella, who was just a ref and died in a car accident, and Sapphire. FUCKING SAPPHIRE?

Well, you want one from football players, because I'm pretty sure it's not as big.

 

[Weenerz]

At least he died doing the thing he loved, and that thing was probably drugs.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

Wrestling is the most depressing hobby to get into. I've lost count of all the people I've watched since I was a kid that have died. Fuck.

want a sadistic drinking game, watch an old raw or nitro from 96-00 and take a shot every time you see a wrestlers whos dead now.


alcohol poisoning before sting comes off the rafters.

 

[JavyOO7]

He gave John Cena his best match in RR 2006...

RIP Umaga.

 

[R_GILL]

holy cow, i didn't realize so many of the wrestlers i gre wup with (im 28) were dead.... what is the most common cause of death?

The majority seem to die from heart attacks, suicides or drug overdoses in that order.

 

[Joba62x]

He gave John Cena his best match in RR 2006...

RIP Umaga.

That was a good showing for both of them.

I saw him live once at an MLW show in tampa, dove into the crowd on to matt stryer on a table, really gave his all in front of like 200 people.


RIP

 

[Buckethead]

What did he die of?

Bad finisher-itis.

 

[OnPoint]

RIP Umaga.

Regardless of whether this is the fault of the WWE or not, an offseason would be a good thing for the business. They work year round... they make a lot of money, but I really do think it would be a good idea

 

[SoulPlaya]

RIP Umaga.

Regardless of whether this is the fault of the WWE or not, an offseason would be a good thing for the business. They work year round... they make a lot of money, but I really do think it would be a good idea

No, they don't.

 

[smurfx]

don't know why any new guys get into wrestling. it's a shit business and the 99% of them will always be broke. they are better off getting into mma.

 

[Shard]

Well, this is very disheartening to read about, so very sad.

 

[MrHicks]

hows the WWE doing anyway these days popularity wise?
less fans/viewers then during the good old days?

steady decline?
i cannot believe that its still growing these days

 

[wRATH2x]

R.I.P.

The guy was one of the few to actually stand out in these last shitty years of wrestling.

 

[Weenerz]

hows the WWE doing anyway these days popularity wise?
less fans/viewers then during the good old days?

steady decline?
i cannot believe that its still growing these days

kids love violence

 

[baultista]

hows the WWE doing anyway these days popularity wise?
less fans/viewers then during the good old days?

steady decline?
i cannot believe that its still growing these days

The rise of UFC has really hurt pro wrestling. Even the analysts and reporters that once made their money off of getting the scoop on pro wrestling have switched to UFC and started ridiculing the product.

The last I heard, the WWE was struggling in the US (doing well, but not as good as they'd like) but making mad money overseas.

I don't see the WWE hitting the level of popularity it did in the late 90s anytime soon. The stigma around it is that it was a "90s thing", so a lot of the casual viewers are gone.




I used to be way into pro wrestling, but the Chris Benoit death was just one too many for me. I tuned into an episode of Raw the other day, and found everything to be a little PG. I suppose they're trying to target the younger crowd. In fact, I don't think DX (basically Shawn and Hunter as a tag-team) is allowed to do crotch chops anymore.

 

[iamaustrian]

I doubt that only the drugs were the reason for fucking 2 heart attacks at the age of 36.
I bet it was usual wrestling-mix of drugs, pain killers and huge amounts of steroids(which are the worst shit for your heart). way too many wrestler get serious heart problems when they are getting older because of roids

 

[sangreal]

certainly reminds me of the movie

 

[Mr. B]

Sad to see the trend of wrestlers dieing young continue. RIP.

hows the WWE doing anyway these days popularity wise?
less fans/viewers then during the good old days?

steady decline?
i cannot believe that its still growing these days

They must be doing decently if they can support 4 different TV shows. Compared to 80s-90s they're probably doing terribly.

 

[OnPoint]

No, they don't.

Well please excuse my ignorance. It further drives home the theory they could use an offseason, though.

 

[KAP151]

Saw a few of his matches. Far too young to be having heart attacks, let alone dying.

R.I.P

 

[iamaustrian]

they really have to ban steroids from wrestling.
it's the worst thing you can do to your body.
The list of dead young wrestler will certainly grow if they aren't coming up with some roids ban.
fuck those huge amounts of muscles

 

[Coins]

I just have to laugh at the all Vince bashing.

Umaga got fired for his SECOND wellness policy violation and refusal to go to rehab. It wasnt fucking marijuana that gets you in this situation. A marijuana positive is only a fine which is a slap on the wrist for these guys. The fact is while we dont know exactly what drug(s) made him violate the wellness policy, we do know it was a hard drug.

Vince and Umaga are both grown men. Vince isnt going to beg and plead to go to rehab, he is going to offer it and if you refuse, youre gone. Its probably close to what any employer would do.

 

[smurfx]

the worst thing about wrestling is the schedule and the hurting you put on your body. plus a lot of those wrestlers are also drug addicts which makes things worse. steroids is probably the least of their problems.

 

[iamaustrian]

the worst thing about wrestling is the schedule and the hurting you put on your body. plus a lot of those wrestlers are also drug addicts which makes things worse. steroids is probably the least of their problems.

you crazy?
3/4 of the heart failures(so about 70% of the deaths in general) in wrestling are because of massive steroid abuse. It makes your heart grow to the size of a melon and then it fails

 

[smurfx]

you crazy?
3/4 of the heart failures(so about 70% of the deaths in general) in wrestling are because of massive steroid abuse. It makes your heart grow to the size of a melon and then it fails

a bunch of those wrestlers are also huge drug addicts. you don't think that has a huge impact on their bodies? many body builders do steroids and there isn't many stories of them dropping like flies like these wrestlers.

 

[Mr. Sam]

Sad to see the trend of wrestlers dieing young continue. RIP.

They must be doing decently if they can support 4 different TV shows. Compared to 80s-90s they're probably doing terribly.

Revenue's up, popularity's down.

 

[iamaustrian]

a bunch of those wrestlers are also huge drug addicts. you don't that has a huge impact on their bodies? many body builders do steroids and there isn't many stories of them dropping like flies like these wrestlers.

this is because wrestling is way more popular than bodybuilding.
you don't have bodybuliding channels on TV. there are magazines and that was it.
in fact many (extreme) bodybuilders don't get older than 50-60 years.
hell, even schwarzenegger had to do heart surgery after they discovered he had a heart failure. of course, arnie denied that it was because of roids but doctors confirmed it happend because of hormone abuse

 

[Burai]

I just have to laugh at the all Vince bashing.

No. Just no.

It's his company, it's his culture.

Imagine you worked for a company where you had 4 weeks of paid vacation, but, if you were to take it, the company would put someone else in your place and not be able to guarantee you'd get that place back. So you come back from your break to find you've effectively been demoted. Or you could come back to find yourself made redundant because another guy has been promoted to your position because he doesn't take his vacation time and works for 52 weeks a year.

So what do you do? You don't take your vacation and work yourself to exhaustion and get sick. But you can't afford to take time off sick, because there are guys waiting to take your job. So you just keep dosing yourself up with medication and keep on working. But it all catches up with you in the end, your work suffers, you end up seriously ill and the company lets you go.

That's what WWE is. That's what it does to it's talent. For the main eventers and upper-card stars, there's a safety net. John Cena can afford to take a vacation or let his injuries heal naturally and Jeff Hardy can afford to take sabbaticals.

But for the undercard, the guys who don't sell copious amounts of merchandise, the guys who don't sell Pay-Per-Views and earn main event money... They don't get that luxury. You're either out there, keeping your spot and earning money, or you're at home, watching some other guy wrestling your matches and earning your money.

It's all very easy to turn around and say "This is Eddie Fatu's fault. He was dependent on growth hormones." But the only reason he was dependent on banned substances was because of the system he worked under. Wrestling was his life. He'd made it, earned his spot and he sure as hell wasn't going to just let that go.

But Fatu is just the tip of the iceberg. There are too many guys out there who've spent far too long living on steroid and painkillers just to guarantee their careers.

And this is why Vince has to shoulder the majority of the blame. He controls pro wrestling in the USA and most of the western world. He is the one that's going to have to make the sweeping changes that this industry desperately needs. If the WWE truly cares about the wellness of it's talent, it needs to put safeguards in place that truly protect them, not name a shame a few people every now and again so it can look good in front of the feds.

 

[British Monsoon]

Regardless of whether Vince is in any way to blame for Umaga's death, you can't deny that his weird fetish with muscle bound freaks puts an unrealistic expectation on anyone attempting to gain main-event status within the WWE and probably pushes more than a few guys towards steroid use - just look at the rest of the wrestling world, guys who main event for promotions all over the globe would be deemed "too small" to cut it as a WWE main eventer, look at how much someone like CM Punk has had to bulk up just to get a sniff of the main-event, and even so he's still dwarfed by WWE's main-event mainstays.

 

[Alex Anderson]

I was surprised to hear he died, but not incredibly so, sadly.

Morbidly obese guy whose heart would be working hard even if he wasn't an athlete, using PEDs to maintain a trim look (just guessing here, but he had almost zero flab hanging off of him and he was over 300 pounds) and subjecting himself to the WWE travel/performance schedule.

Still, 36 is way young even for one of those type guys, goddamn.

 

[HisshouBuraiKen]

The scariest thing is, how many of us held childhood dreams of being wrestlers? Imagine if we'd followed through?

The way so many of these poor guys end up, I'd have less than 10 years to live.

So for the second time in recent memory, I say RIP Eddie.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

they really have to ban steroids from wrestling.
it's the worst thing you can do to your body.
The list of dead young wrestler will certainly grow if they aren't coming up with some roids ban.
fuck those huge amounts of muscles

they do ban steroids from wrestling, but thats not gonna stop guys from taking them. Wrestling takes a huge toll on your body, most of these guys need roids and pain killers just to get by. I bet tons of baseball and football players would be dropping dead of they played 300 days out of the year and had no offseason. They'd all be hooked on shit too.

 

[GoutPatrol]

Well, you want one from football players, because I'm pretty sure it's not as big.

Actually, I think it would be just as big or bigger just because of the numbers game: there are thousands more football players than wrestlers out there.

 

[Master Thespian]

I got back into to wrestling when Stone Cold and the Rock were on top. Then Owen, Eddie G and Benoit died (not to mention Bulldog, Perfect, Rude, the list just goes on and on and on...). I had to stop watching because I got tired of all my favorites dying (combined with SCSA and Rock bowing out). I was a WWE/UFC guy, but I've gone all the way into the UFC because of this kind of thing.

 

[super-heated plasma]

My Grandfather survived FOUR heart attacks, and three or more strokes,and had diabetes to boot. He lived to 84. Now that was one tough SOB.

The only thing that finally did him in was when my Grandma died, and he didn't want to be without her. So he just gave up, and died six months after her. The funny thing is, everyone in the family knew it was going to be my Grandpa to die first because of all the heart attacks and strokes he had. We were totally throw for a loop when it was my Grandma who died first, never having a heart attack or stroke and was relatively healthy except for some diabetes.

 

[JavyOO7]

Wrestling would have an off season in America if Vince knew he can make the same amount of money in 8 months instead of 12 months. But since the creative direction of the company is really bad these days, he'll use his wrestlers to work those 12 months without a break so they could earn money. Until their creative direction improves then there won't be an off season and more of these deaths might end up happening.

...kind of retarded that Batista, who is a walking HGH advertisement, hasn't been suspended yet by the WWE. Though according to some dirt sheets, the "injury" that put him on the shelf for a while wasn't actually an injury but that he was actually punished by their steroid policy. But that's WWE protecting their main eventers. But thats how all jobs are, anyway.

 

[Sanjuro]

....

Many of the topics stated here can apply to a majority of sports and events. Ultimately it is the player/wrestler/person/etc. choice to make the final decisions. This pertains to their entire career as a wrestler, the physical and mental stress the body must endure, and in many of the cases the illegal drugs that they choose to enter into their bodies.

Vince did not tell the individuals to become professional wrestlers. There is more than enough education on the entire industry out there for anyone aspiring to enter the business.

 

[Joates]

Wrestling would have an off season in America if Vince knew he can make the same amount of money in 8 months instead of 12 months. But since the creative direction of the company is really bad these days, he'll use his wrestlers to work those 12 months without a break so they could earn money. Until their creative direction improves then there won't be an off season and more of these deaths might end up happening.

What makes you think it has anything to do with creative direction?? Its simply business, he wants to make as much money as he can, period. No amount of creative direction is going to change that, you would need a major policy shift within the company. And remember this is a TV show, its not sport. You are made or broken by the writers ultimately, not yourself.

 

[Y2Kev]

That list is a little misleading. Nancy Benoit is on the list.

 

[DKehoe]

That list is a little misleading. Nancy Benoit is on the list.

She wasn't just Benoits wife. She was actually in the wrestling business.

 

[Parl]

RIP Yumanga.

 

[Coins]

Imagine you worked for a company where you had 4 weeks of paid vacation, but, if you were to take it, the company would put someone else in your place and not be able to guarantee you'd get that place back.

You do know that wrestling is fake, right? If someone has the belt and loses it, its not a demotion. Its part of a storyline. lol. These guys have contracts and they dont make or lose money based on them having the belt.

Oh, and anyone who complains that you have to be a muscled freak to be successful in the WWE, take a look at Shawn Michaels. Success in the WWE is how well you work a crowd.

 

[RBH]

You do know that wrestling is fake, right? If someone has the belt and loses it, its not a demotion. Its part of a storyline. lol. These guys have contracts and they dont make or lose money based on them having the belt.

*sigh*

You do know that wrestlers get bonuses based on pay-per-view appearances, right?

 

[Coins]

*sigh*

You do know that wrestlers get bonuses based on pay-per-view appearances, right?

What does that have to do with anyone taking steroids?