Nov 16, 2009

Professional Wrestling | Introduction

It is 9 P.M. Monday night, and an announcer asks thousands of professional wrestling fans crowded into a local stadium, “Are you ready to rumble?” A television camera pans the audience as screaming fans of all ages leap to their feet, waving signs and sporting T-shirts that honor their favorite pro wrestling stars. Rock and roll music blares while fireworks explode on either side of a wide ramp that leads to a wrestling ring in the center of the stadium. Stone Cold Steve Austin, with shaved head, bulging muscles, and form-fitting latex wrestling shorts, emerges from backstage to stand defiantly before the crowd, scowling. With a microphone in hand, Austin reveals his elaborate plans to defeat his current nemesis and in the process curses, guzzles beer, parodies biblical verses, and pledges allegiance to no one but himself. Of the more than 7 million people watching at home, some laugh at Austin’s bravado, but others, some young children, cheer the man who challenges authority and defies his employer— perhaps secretly wishing that they too could stand up to their boss or the school bully.

What in the 1950s was considered “low brow” entertainment, appealing to a relatively small group of people, has since become big business. Pro wrestling is the most popular programming on cable television—more popular than news, sports, drama, comedy, home shopping, cartoons, and soap operas. The World Wrestling Federation (WWF), developed by controversial wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, has several top-rated cable television wrestling programs seen by more than 7 million viewers each week. On March 23, 2001, the WWF purchased its rival organization, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), now maintaining what some claim is a virtual monopoly over pro wrestling programming. WWF home video sales routinely rank first in sports video, and its action figures outsold Pokemon in 1999. WWF websites consistently rank in the top ten when counted among established sport sites such as ESPN.com, and they are the first nonpornographic sites to turn streaming video into profits.

The stock market values the family-owned WWF at more than $1 billion. The current popularity of pro wrestling is largely the fruit of Mc- Mahon’s labors. During the 1980s McMahon began to consolidate the country’s regional wrestling organizations, which were relatively small and obscure, into a national federation, the WWF. He also began to incorporate elements of popular culture, such as rock and roll music and special effects, into wrestling programs. McMahon officially proclaimed what fans had known for years, wrestling was not “real,” but “sports entertainment.” He developed complex behind-the-scenes sagas that combined action-adventure with soap opera story lines filled with sex and intrigue. The story lines star his own family as well as the larger-than-life wrestlers themselves.

In 1988 media mogul Ted Turner created the WCW and began to compete with McMahon’s WWF. Some argue this competition created a “top this” philosophy in pro wrestling programming that contributed to its increasingly outrageous and controversial content. Between 1996 and 1998, while the WWF was embroiled in a steroid scandal and allegations of sexual misconduct, the WCW overcame the WWF in the ratings. After being acquitted of steroid abuse, however, McMahon and the WWF came back with a vengeance. McMahon hired writers from The Conan O’Brien Show and MTV, who were in touch with wrestling’s target audience— young adult males—and WWF matches further tested the bounds of civility while the audience for pro wrestling continued to grow.

Although pro wrestling programming provides entertainment for millions of fans, tragically, when some young people have imitated the antics of pro wrestlers, the consequences have been lethal. On July 28, 1999, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, twelve-year-old Lionel Tate killed his six-year-old playmate Tiffany Eunick. The 180-pound Tate told police that he grabbed Eunick in a bear hug, then dropped her, causing her to hit her head on a table. He later told police that he swung her around and her head struck a cast-iron railing. The medical examiner said that the injuries of forty-eight-pound Eunick included a fractured skull, a lacerated liver, a broken rib, internal hemorrhaging, and more than thirty other bruises and breaks. Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction for Tate. “This was a continued beating with fists and feet,” said prosecutor Ken Padowitz. “Lionel Tate used his body as a weapon.”

Tate’s attorneys, however, argued that their client was innocent of murder, maintaining that Eunick’s death was a tragic accident. Tate was influenced by the theatrics of pro wrestling, they claimed, and was imitating the stunts executed by WWF star Dwayne Johnson, whose pro wrestling stage name is “The Rock.” To support their defense, Tate’s attorneys subpoenaed The Rock and other pro wrestlers to testify about how they make their televised action appear authentic. The judge, however, limited the testimony to Tate’s love of wrestling, and on January 25, 2001, Tate was convicted of first-degree murder. On March 9, 2001, then fourteen, Tate was sentenced to life in prison without parole. At the sentencing hearing, Tate’s mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate, testified that her son was not aware that he faced life in prison for his actions. “How do you tell a child you’re going to prison for the rest of your life for playing?”

The death of Tiffany Eunick was not an isolated incident. In Hudson County, Georgia, a four-year-old child jumped up and down on a fifteenmonth- old baby and killed him after their babysitter left to buy cigarettes. The babysitter had put on a WWF video to entertain the children while he was gone. According to the prosecutor, the four-year-old was mimicking what he saw on the pro wrestling video and thought he could do so without permanently harming the baby. On January 16, 1999, in Yakima, Washington, twelve-year-old Jason Whala, an avid pro wrestling fan, killed his nineteen-month-old cousin William Sweet with a “Jackknife Power Bomb” when Sweet would not stop crying. Whala picked Sweet up over his head, turned the child toward him, and slammed him to the ground. Whala was convicted of second-degree felony murder.

Is pro wrestling programming responsible for the tragic deaths of these children? Some authorities do not think that small children can effectively tell the difference between the scripted violence in pro wrestling and the real thing. Sports psychology professor Steve Danish says that children under eight cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy when they watch wrestling violence. “If they watch a movie on HBO they understand more quickly that that isn’t real. But this is a ‘sport,’ and they probably don’t see that this isn’t real.”

What about the deaths that came at the hands of Lionel Tate and Jason Whala, who are teenagers and therefore presumably able to understand the consequences of their dangerous acts? Is pro wrestling to blame? According to Whala’s attorney, Adam Moore, “Parents should wake up. This is a wake-up call. Don’t let your little boys watch [professional wrestling] or do so at grave risk.” Critics argue that teenagers exposed to the violence of pro wrestling week after week become desensitized to violence. Pro wrestlers are glamorous, critics claim, and their violent behaviors are therefore perceived to be acceptable. Moreover, pro wrestling “reaches into [teens’] fantasies about being able to put someone down and have that person be begging or hurt,” says Danish. Although Danish does not believe watching pro wrestling will in itself desensitize young people to violence, it may reinforce “what may be happening elsewhere in that child’s life,” including exposure to violence in the home or at school.

Besides perhaps contributing to random acts of youth violence, the popularity of pro wrestling has also led to the phenomena of backyard wrestling. In backyards across North America, young people, often with the support of parents, have constructed makeshift wrestling rings in which they strike each other with steel chairs, trash cans, guitars, ladders, mattress frames, and two-by-fours, often permanently maiming or killing themselves. Although the WWF officially discourages these backyard leagues and refuses to watch or recruit from homemade wrestling videos, many participants aspire to be “discovered” by the professional leagues. Twenty-one-year-old Luke Hadley of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has had ten concussions, a broken arm, and a broken tailbone and sports hundreds of scars and a few soft spots in his brain.“Sometimes I want to say stuff, and no words come out,” says Hadley, but “in twenty years, after I hit it big, I’ll be able to afford all the surgeries I need.” Unfortunately for Hadley, backyard wrestlers face near impossible odds as the professional federations generally recruit only professional and collegiate athletes.

Pro wrestling promoters acknowledge that the deaths of these children are tragic and that backyard wrestling is a horrifying, dangerous trend. However, promoters claim they have issued numerous public service announcements warning against the practice of duplicating the pro wrestling stunts seen on television. They agree that pro wrestlers are seen as role models for young children, but they insist that pro wrestlers should be held no more accountable for children’s injuries than other professional athletes. Supporters ask why pro wrestlers should be blamed for the injuries caused by those who imitate them when no one blames professional football players when young people are hurt emulating them. According to Mick Foley, a veteran professional wrestler and author, “Calling pro wrestling violent and football family entertainment is an incredible double standard.”

Supporters suggest that if parents allow their children to watch wrestling programs, they have the responsibility to explain that the wrestling is fake and to teach their children appropriate values and provide alternatives to violence. Editor Eric E. Jenkins writes, “The job of supervising children who desire to imitate wrestlers falls on the parents or the guardians of these children. As often as professional wrestlers tell the world that what they do is scripted, choreographed, and well rehearsed but they still get injured, someone else has to make sure that the message is received by the children.” Pro wrestling, supporters argue, should not be blamed for the unfortunate deaths of unsupervised children who fail to heed the warnings or have these warnings interpreted for them. Jenkins writes, “If a man walks into a bar, utters the words, ‘Go ahead, make my day,’ and then shoots the bartender, you are not going to hold Clint Eastwood responsible. You also cannot blame wrestling if a child kills another child pretending to be a wrestler.”

The debate over the influence of pro wrestling programming is far from over. Some critics claim the content of pro wrestling programming is not only too violent, but also too vulgar and overtly sexual for the children who watch these programs. Others argue that for adults and children alike, pro wrestling encourages a culture of confrontation and disrespect. Those who support pro wrestling counter that the matches are obviously “fake” and less violent than other prime-time programs. Promoters, they claim, are simply providing adult entertainment to meet the demand of millions of fans who enjoy pro wrestling. Parents, they insist, not pro wrestling’s self-appointed censors, must determine what programs children watch. These and other perspectives are presented in At Issue: Professional Wrestling.