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By: Billy Cullen
2/26/2006 10:17:20 PM

Between 1995 and 2002, over 50 active (at the time) professional wrestlers under the age of 35 died. In most of their obituaries the reason was symptom's related to "heart failure". Being 30, I have abused my body and have ignored routine checkup's. Of any of the things wrong with me, my heart is in perfect shape. Granted I am not in the shape that a pro wrestler is, but to me that is all the more reason why these deaths are so sad and just plain questionable.

I think seeing as we are in the "age of smarter wrestling fans", we all know that the "heart failure" trip is usually a "prescription drug overdose". It is truly amazing how the truth can be so easily manipulated when a person is deceased. One of my best friends was a court officer who took a .38 caliber to his temple and blew his head off. Soon after the incident took place, I read his obituary and it stated that he had "died in his home at age 27". No one just dies in their late 20's /early 30's, especially professional wrestlers who are arguably the most fit athletes in the world.

Is it the environment that we the fans have created? Are we so bloodthirsty that we need these wrestlers to push it so far to the next level that they have to take 20 Vicodin a day just to get by? In an HBO interview last year, Roddy Piper blamed the promoters. Vince McMahon blamed the wrestlers themselves. I'd have to side with Vince on this one, if you can't keep up, get out of the business. That is just the nature of the game. I am sure it is a lot more complex for someone like Brock Lesnar who's whole career choice in life was wrestling, but in the general spectrum, if you can't handle a certain job and the repercussions that come from it, you need to find another means of employment.

Perhaps our fingers into a mirror.

For years, all the wrestling world (and younger wrestling stars) talked about were how older guys like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were taking up the spotlight and holding them down. Now my question to all of you is this....Does Hulk Hogan decide who we pay to go see? No he doesn't. We do. But somehow we can't let the past go. That gives younger wrestlers all the more reason to do crazier things in the ring and raise the bar to prove themselves that much more. As loud as the "pops" for John Cena, Randy Orton, A.J. Styles and Dave Batista are, we would all scream ten times louder if Steve Austin or The Rock came out. Look at the revival of Hulk-a-mania a few years back and tell me I am wrong.

As much as I am not a fan of Mick Foley, the man had to nearly kill himself (on several occasions) to get noticed. This truly was not the case in pro wrestling 20 years ago. We got to see Hulk Hogan on television 3 or 4 times a year and we were satisfied. Nowadays, if HHH misses one week of Raw, his fans will be up in arms and columns around the net will start being put up about how poor of a show Raw was this week.Somehow I have to believe that in the mid-90's, the sport itself pushed the envelope so far that there was nowhere to go but backwards. We, as modern day wrestling fans, are not willing to accept that. We are also not looking at the grand scheme of things.

The injuries that have happened to wrestlers such as Edge, Matt Hardy, HHH and Lita were not as commonplace 25 years ago as they are now. Guys like Hulk Hogan, Dusty Rhodes, Andre The Giant and Ric Flair could keep crowds on their feet for a half an hour straight without so much as even stepping onto a turnbuckle. Now we ask for Shooting Stars through tables and flaming barbed wire matches. I am as guilty as any other wrestling fan, I openly admit that. What I would love to see (at times) and pure logic are 2 totally different things.

Unlike The New York Posts' Phil Mushnick, I am trying to understand the growing drug abuse problem in the world of professional wrestling rather than chuckle, point the finger and shake my head. Perhaps the world of professional wrestling needs an "off season" like every other professional sport. It could serve as a 2 or 3 month period for wrestlers to give their bodies a rest and for wrestling fans to want to watch even more when the new season starts . Or maybe we all need to give wrestlers a chance to prove themselves instead of expecting them to "wow" us from the get go.

Perhaps Vince McMahon is too greedy to let that happen, or perhaps we just couldn't take a week off of watching the sport that has had us all addicted to it much like the drugs that some of our favorite superstars fell victim to.

Be sure to send all thoughts, comments and questions to BillyC4w@yahoo.com and check out all other information on Billy Cullen at http://www.billycullen.com or www.thecasualfan.com

Be sure to check out "The Shooter's Abode" (Billy Cullen's Official Site) at http://www.billycullen.com Also be sure to note that Billy Cullen's wrestling columns can be read exclusively at 1wrestling.com

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