Shining a Spotlight 7.26.07: The Injury Bug

The other book, however, may be less unbiased. Scott Keith was planning a book about the so-called Hart family “curse” and announced on his blog that he’s going to be working Benoit into the book with the statement “Someone has to make money on this so it might as well be me.” There are a few reasons I find a problem with this. For one thing, as much as I have disliked some of Keith’s writing, I thought he had a bit more dignity than to openly cash in on such a tragedy. Even if the comment was in jest, it still comes off pretty crass, especially considering Keith worshipped Benoit for years. It’s true Keith was one of the first to speak a bit badly of Benoit once it happened, with one of his first comments being that it was better for him to kill himself and save wrestling the trouble of being dragged through the mud by a trial. So expecting an unbiased take seems unlikely.

Of course, that depends on how the rest of the book is. I’m hoping that the last few years has mellowed Keith’s worshipping of the Harts, especially Owen but this is still the man who actually published a book with the line that “I hope Vince McMahon burns in Hell forever for taking Owen Hart from me and every other person who called himself a true fan.” To hear Keith tell it, Vince knew for absolute fact that the harness (which he himself tested beforehand) was going to break and forced Owen to go up at gunpoint. I’m reserving total judgment until it comes out but I sincerely hope Keith doesn’t turn this into a “it’s ALL Vince’s fault” 200 page tirade.

So many are already trashing the Great American Bash as a bad show. I do think Cena-Lashley redeemed it and Punk/Morrison was good too. It’s hard to remember when the GAB was an actually good card back under Crockett’s care. Of course, as much as people can grouse about the Bash being bad the last few years, it’s the 1991 version that remains recognized as one of the absolute worst PPVs of all time. This was a card that opened with a bad scaffold match and was marked by constant chants of “WE WANT FLAIR” from fans upset about his being fired from WCW days before. To this day, there are guys who swear that the entire locker room held a meeting beforehand and decided to go out of their way to make the card as bad as possible as protest to Flair’s firing. The idea is that the only way the show could be so bad is by deliberate intent but considering the depths WCW PPVs would sink over the next decade, that sort theory sort of loses its power. Just thought I’d throw out that for the pro-WCW guys.

Well, the Great American Bash is over and the big story is everyone grousing like crazy about the Great Khali now being World Champion. There are several reasons why WWE would give Khali the belt. The most obvious, of course, is that Vince still has this bizarre obsession with big guys with little in-ring talent. Another is that, from what I’ve heard, Khali actually has a pretty good attitude backstage, a rarity for big men and thus seems ready to be rewarded. But the biggest reason is the simple fact that there really aren’t that many able-bodied candidates.

For years, wrestling has had to deal with injuries to big stars at the worst possible time. One of the biggest remains Sting’s tearing out his knee in February of 1990, ruining the planned Sting/Flair matchup at WrestleWar and, in my own personal opinion, the first step in WCW’s long slow collapse. Brian Pillman was hit by a bad knee injury that forced the tag titles off the Hollywood Blondes and led to their split. Another prime example was in 1998 when Shawn Michaels suffered the back injury that would put him out for four years which led not only to the Austin/McMahon feud but also HHH rising as a star and leader of DX, both events that shifted the tide against WCW.

This is the one misconception about wrestling the general mainstream has that has always annoyed me, that there’s no real danger involved. In my opinion, wrestlers deserve more respect than “real” athletes. They are on the road almost 300 days a year, busting their asses night in and night out and, for the majority, get little recognition for it all. I should also mention how we in the IWC can often be a bit too critical of a wrestler’s in-ring performances when the fact is a good 80% of us (at least) couldn’t come close to doing what they do. It’s like that scene in Ratatouille of Peter O’Toole’s critic talking about how easy it is to trash someone’s performance when deep down you know you can’t do what they do. It’s sort of why I dislike the whole “Star rating” system, because it creates the idea that there’s an automatic bar and you can’t reach it, you have no right to be in this business, despite the fact that said reviewers probably couldn’t handle a month in the wrestler’s shoes.

To get off the introspective rant, as I mentioned, injuries are quite common in WWE, particularly ones that shift overall plans for the year. Still, it does seem like more and more of them are occurring. SmackDown, especially, is on a rather crazy cycle. JBL is up-front over the fact that the reason he was given his title push in 2004 was because of injuries to the roster. Then you had Batista ready to drop the belt to Eddie to take time off but Eddie died that very day so Batista was forced to defend it for a few more months and ended up aggravating his injuries. So it got to Angle, then to Mysterio and then, in an interesting bit of irony, JBL was going to beat Mysterio for the title but ended up suffering the injuries that ended his in-ring career, allowing Booker T to become champion. Then this year, the Undertaker surprises everyone by winning the belt but rather than be the long-term champion WWE wanted, gets injured so they have Edge win it, which was good. But now Edge is out and Khali is apparently a transition champ for Batista at SummerSlam.

RAW hasn’t been quite as bad but has also suffered shake-up injuries. The biggest is HHH, which robbed us of the planned HHH/Michaels/Cena main event at Mania and a long-term character. Now Michaels himself is out for a bit so they’re positioning Cena/Orton for SummerSlam. I know some are grousing about that but sad fact is, Orton is the only healthy major heel they have at the moment so it looks like he’ll go over. In fact, that’s one of the key reasons Cena has been holding the belt so long, because the guy manages to keep on going without serious injury and thus can be counted on.

What’s troubling is that while this has happened a lot over the years, it does seem to have increased in the last year or so. More and more main event guys are getting put out, which causes massive shuffling to the rosters and angles. WWE is already reeling from having to dump the entire “Death of McMahon” plot in the wake of the Benoit mess, now they lose a few of their top guys for several months. Of course, this is going to have a severe effect on buy rates as without these guys and the big feuds promised, SummerSlam loses its luster.

Why is this happening? Why are these injuries suddenly seeming to compile up more and more lately? Naturally, a lot will point to how steroid use weakens bodies and leaves them prone to such severe injuries. This leads to the whole “it’s all Vince’s fault” excuse that so many love to go for, regardless of the circumstances. Granted, sometimes stuff just…happens. We’ve all had that one freak accident that was unavoidable and we never saw coming at all. Vince himself suffered one of the oddest injuries in history at the 2005 Royal Rumble when, just by getting in the ring, he blew out both his knees yet was back on his feet within months. Sometimes, guys are able to heal much better than expected, sometimes they can’t.

It does seem different than it once was. Mock the late 1980’s/early ‘90’s WWF all you want but you have to admit, the risk of injury was a lot lighter back then. Even WCW, more hard-hitting and athletic, wasn’t struck by severe that much (aside from that Sting example). But, as with so much else having to do with wrestling, ECW changed things drastically. The style they introduced of hard-hitting action with multiple ladders, chairs, tables and more involved, brought a new level of in-ring style that the other promotions decided to emulate. This, of course, led to an increase of injuries, the majority of which were covered up with painkillers and other drugs.

That’s another point I wanted to touch on. Some have mocked Ken Kennedy’s blog about how wrestling is different today than it was 20 years ago but he’s right. Talk to almost any superstar of the 1980’s and they’ll be open about the wild partying that went on back then, drugs, drink, women and more. It was the ‘80s, before people really cared about sexually transmitted diseases or the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Most of the guys were taking the attitude of Road Warrior Hawk, which was “we get one shot at a ride like this, why waste it?” Sadly, that long-term abuse had consequences as the long list of wrestlers dead before their times can attest to.

Point is, a lot of guys today are a bit more clean-cut than they were then, smarter and more willing to play ball with promoters rather than screw up their shots. Khali is a good example because, as noted, he’s got a good attitude backstage, has been willing to put up with a lot of crap and now has been rewarded with a title run. Sure, he stinks in the ring but his backstage attitude is certainly better than, say, Orton. Yes, there is painkiller and steroid use still, but most guys are smart enough to try and avoid going too far with it. However, they are still doing their best to be flashy in the ring, to get the fans’ approval and that leads them to injuries. So, in a way, one can blame the fanbase for some stars going too far, that we want more action, more excitement and when they do, that leaves them open for bodily harm. Add in doing it almost every night of the year and the risk increases massively.

It’s easy to put this on Vince and his pushing of guys on the road but this has been a problem for promoters for years. When the NWA was first formed, there was a proposal to set up a system to give wrestlers benefits and time off for injuries but it was shot down by unanimous vote. For the vast majority of promoters, money comes first, wrestler’s good health second and compared to many smaller promoters, Vince is downright generous. Already forgotten in the Benoit craziness is that Vince allowed Benoit several months off last year to heal from injuries and be with his family and when he got back, he was immediately given the US title and a good push. He does also seem willing to shake things up rather than risk health of guys like Undertaker or Edge by making them wrestle more. It’s better than WCW who were infamous for firing guys like Austin, Waltman, Davey Boy Smith and Bret Hart, usually by FedEx, while they were recuperating from injuries.

But business is business for Vince and everyone working for him knows it. They know that their livelihoods depend on being able to perform so many are willing to ignore the pain, even not report injuries at all, and keep on working. This leads to more the problems I listed above that risks more serious injury and thus shaking up the long-term plans. I know the writers must be as upset about this, if not more so, than we fans but that just shows how they may need to spread the main event stuff past the usual suspects (Cena, Batista, Lashely, etc). But it’s a Catch-22 as they can’t make long-term plans if they don’t know if they’ll have long-term workers.

TNA hasn’t hit that problem because they’re so much smaller. Indeed, that’s one of the strongest selling points TNA has for wrestlers, a much lighter schedule and not as much traveling. True, it’s for less money and smaller profile but you can get why someone like Angle would be tempted by it. Of course, you can argue that TNA could do a bit more with the in-ring work but I suppose it balances out. Of course, if they do start touring more and get bigger, TNA does run a bit of risk with such things but at the moment, they’re better at keeping their roster healthy than WWE is. (Properly using said roster is a totally different story but I don’t want to get on that tangent again).

As I mentioned above, wrestlers don’t get the respect of mainstream athletes despite the fact their schedule is a hell of a lot harder. Baseball players come close but even pitchers get a few days rest between games and it’s only for six or seven months out of the year. I suppose we should be lucky the injury rate isn’t higher but it does say a lot about the current WWE roster that the loss of a few guys can drastically change their main event scenes. I know it’s been harped on a lot but WWE does need to push a few newer guys, whether ready or not because they need to fill the gaps up. It can be rough at first, as JBL showed but he eventually turned to a great heel worker so one can hope others can continue. While I’m not a “time to end the brand extension” guy, I do admit that having three different rosters does take away the ability to mix the upper card up. I mean, just by getting rid of ECW, you’d have Nitro and Punk able to take off in RAW or SmackDown and get some good matches going.

Fact is, this problem is going to continue as long as wrestling is around. But the ratio of injuries as of late is quite troubling. It speaks out to the problems of conditioning and possible steroid abuse that continue to plaque WWE and their failure to properly make new stars. But, as I try to be positive whenever I can, there is one possible benefit. As I said at the start, Michaels’ being put on the shelf for four years led to the rise of Austin, HHH and the Rock and that awesome period of wrestling. I’m not saying we’re going to see renaissance of that of course but all it takes is being at the right place at the right time to get a big push. Khali has proven that currently and for all we know, there’s a guy on the mid-card (Shelton Benjamin, Punk, Nitro/Morrison, Carlito, etc) who’s just ready to take off if he’s given the chance.

But that doesn’t solve the main problem, which is trying to limit such things. It does seem impossible to stop injuries from happening totally without returning WWE to the cartoonish action of the ‘80’s, which no one wants. I think we can also agree we’d prefer seeing Edge, Taker and others off-camera healing rather than continue to risk themselves further injury rather than cede their spots. But in the wake of the Benoit tragedy, WWE should consider the long-term effects of injuries on workers not to mention fans. They may not be able to stop them from happening but they can at least ensure it’s not as hugely damaging to the company bottom line not to mention the health of their workers. At least that’s how it is in a perfect world but wrestling’s never been perfect. At least we can hope the damage isn’t too severe.

Also around 411mania:

Julian counts down the Top 10 Great American Bash matches.

That Was Then flashes back to Curt Henning at SummerSlam 91.

Column of Honor is so big, it’s split in two.

Why I Love Wrestling does a mid-year review.

The Shimmy looks back at 2001.

The Fink continues to book Rey’s return.

Piledriver Report examines the problems facing WWE’s title roster as well.