Mero makes a Point
Posted on July 08, 2007 by John Philapavage
John Philapavage, Pro Wrestling, Steroids, WWE, Wrestling Media, Youtube
I never liked Mark Mero, the wrestler. But Mero, the man, is on my short list with Konnan, for guys who every wrestler owes a thank you. Blackmen, well, he would be best served teaching high school gym class.
July 8th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
1.) They are both right at times- Mero is correct in that they need to give guys time off and regulate the sport better. Blackman is right that no one forces wrestlers to take pain pills and drugs and such. And people need to stop throwing out the “Oh well they want to stay on top.” If the business is that bad pushing you into doign drugs and stuff then find a new profession or just leave it. When these kinds of things happen everyone wants to point at the WWE for creating the culture, or fans for wanting to see big monsters but no one ever asks the wrestlers to take accountability for their own actions. Their needs to be some personal accountability.
2.) There is no correlation between domestic abuse and wrestling. The leap that Debra Marshall made and Mero and the host readily follow is an illogical argument. Couple things- not everyone that drinks and does drugs beats their wife, not every wife that gets beat is a wrestling wife, not every wrestler gets in trouble for domestic abuse. However they want to say the road and travel cause these actions. No, asshole guys cause that action to happen- nothing more, nothing less. Roid rage is a misnomer- steroids much like alcohol just enhances your natural personality.. If you’re a jerkoff sober, you’re gonna be a bigger jerkoff hopped up on stuff.
3.) The host tries to say it is just the WWE while Mero is trying to point to the industry. Mero is correct- all wrestling promotions from WWE down to whatever is running at the local armory needs to work to get guys to stop taking the shit.
July 9th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Olbermann and Patrick…Kornheiser and Wilbon…and now Hansley and Philapavage return, it would seem.
Alright Hansley, here we go. Personal responsibility is a good point, and I do think some of these men who have overcome problems, but are still prone to them, should find something else to do. But I also think it’s hard to find another job when you’ve got 10 years of specialized skills experience in what amounts to fake fighting in a circus/high school atmosphere.
My point would be that certain people are weak and needs others to help them. I won’t go so far as to call it a handicap, but the people who go into wrestling tend to be emotionally and mentally deficient in certain areas to begin with. What normal person would want to be in wrestling after experiencing the industry for just 3 months? Honestly, if you’ve ever spent time w/ wrestlers in locker rooms or after shows and you aren’t hero worshipping them, then you’ll realize quickly how sad and dysfunctional the whole industry can be. It’s also all consuming. My fear is for the “great silent majority” who are to weak and afraid not to form a union or get off of drugs, or better yet, as we both wish, just quit!
Blackman is an alright guy. He wasn’t all wrong. But he was being a good soldier, as I feel you continue to be, in just wanting wrestling to continue as usual. I Think McMahon sets the standard for the look of a wrestler who makes money in America, and we can debate that forever, but he ultimately has 70% of the power to help this cause by making changes, and that’s why he’s focused on.
Honestly, nothing will change anyway. No one cares. More people will die. And slowly 25 year olds become 30 and forget about wrestling, while a new crop of 12-18 year old kids are discovering wrestling for the first time. And it’s not TNA, ROH, or any other promotion that they find.
Having said all this:
-Hansley is right about persona accountability. Lets see some guys. i think it goes hand in hand with standing up for your rights, you fake independent contractors! I’m proud of Blackman, Mero, and others for being more honest on these issues.
-There is NO connection between wrestling and domestic violence. If your gonna beat your wife, your gonna, and your an a-hole for doing that. I think wrestling life doesn’t always help things out, but alot of wrestlers are wonderful people with loving families and no violence.
-as I stated before last time we had one of our comment convos. on the site, it’s EVERYONE. Not WWE reform… WRESTLING INDUSTRY REFORM!
Thanks for the comments Brian. Love the articles.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
But the thing is you kind of drift away again to saying the WWE needs to protect guys from themselves and there is some truth in that.
The WWE doesn’t do a good job of giving guys time off when they need it, but again there are a lot of guys who even with time off would fall apart becasue they are mentally weak. At that point it doesn’t matter how muhc someone wants to help you- you won’t get helped.
The reason I don’t necessarily blame McMahon is because wrestling was always populated by guys who were larger than life and many never worked for McMahon. In the olden days it may have come more naturally but still the guys were massive looking.
Also people need to understand the WWE steroid policy isn’t bad. It’s T/E ratio is stricter than the Olympics and the Tour de France. The problem is in how they have all these loopholes they created within the system. What they need to do (or TNA should do to beat them to the punch and score a major PR coup) is this
1.) Develop and issue press releases touting the 4:1 (or lower it to 3:1) T/E ratio. Also include along with the wellness policy- regular psychiatric check-ups and regular cardiovascular tests. Bring in a team that specializes in that and keep tabs on how guys hearts are.
2.) Offer help and rehab to anyone who needs help coming off the pain pills or whatever steroids they are taking so they can be properly eased off the stuff.
3.) Give all guys a 6 weeks vacation that is mandatory to be used every year. For all time not used it will be deducted from your pay.
4.) Once the policy is finished hold a locker room meeting, broadcast on WWE.com, and tape it so it can be made available later to news outlets. Make it very clear to the talent that this is the new policy and that any person who fails the policy will be terminated on the spot. This meeting serves as your verbal warning.
That would be the best place to start- not shutting down the industry, or waiting for Congress to step in. Take control while you have it and make a policy that is more than just lip service to the health of your employers.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Bless Your heart Hansley, I really do respect some of your points and intellect on many things, not just wrestling, but I think we’re doomed to go in circles on this one. I just find alot of these points naive.
I was going to type out a whole rebuttal and keep going, because I always enjoy our debates on these things. But the truth is, we can talk all day about this. Nothing is going to change. Some of us are holding out hope that something will happen, but it won’t. A good friend of mine called me last night after Larry King Live, where WWE wrestlers appeared. I just watched it on DVR an hour ago myself. He, after being a fan for 20 years, has just thrown his hands up and quit. I feel the same way. I’m sick of trying to hope against hope these pathetic wrestlers with daddy issues will ever help themselves or that McMahon and his cronies will ever care about human lives. I don’t care anymore. I’ve been trying to follow from a business standpoint, but everyone I know, myself included, is giving up once the Benoit situation wraps up. Honestly, it won’t even be by the end. It’ll get drawn out, and we’ll lose interest. and more wrestlers will die. But I, like many, will have completely moved to MMA by that point. I feel bad, and have an odd “fan obligation” feel like I see in what you write (and I know you’d probably disagree w/ that statement. It isn’t meant as a strike against you. You are a good fan and observer that means well.) I don’t have the heart for this anymore past watching old tapes and an occasional ROH show here and there. But in many ways, this has completely tainted the business for me. It’s sad. The artform appears lost.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:21 am
I’m not real sure what you find naive about the points. I’ve been around people that are dependent on drugs and alochol- if they don’t want help- they won’t be helped. Even forcing them into a situation where they need to get help doesn’t work because there heart isn’t in it.
Are you saying that there weren’t larger than life people in wrestling before McMahon?
The T/E ratio in the Wellness Policy is good. That isn’t the problem with the policy. The Olympics is 6:1, the Tour de France tests at 4:1- same as WWE. The problem is in the loopholes that are there were you can test up to a certain point and above that point you just need a “prescription” for it. That is what makes the policy a problem. The initial testing step is good, and the doctor who conceived it per Bryan Alvarez, isn’t a mark doctor so he actually has some reputation riding on this. I don’t know how muhc of the policy he concieved himself or whether he didn’t understand the lengths wrestlers can go to in working around it but someone being objective has to see that part of the policy isn’t bad.
I’m not sure what you and your friend thought a bunch of guys who were walking company line were going to say on the issue. DiBiase by himself probably would’ve said some interesting things but he wasn’t on enough and Larry King is a softball thrower so they never delved into anything.
And really- don’t think MMA is clean either- becasue it isn’t.
July 11th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Okay. Here we go. Unfortunately, we had a phone conversation after this, so there is a bit of a gap that was cleared because we talked about this personally. Sorry for those reading, we don’t have audio tape.
- naive comment, if not made clear when we talked, was reference to what I feared in writing that you did not want to see any action taken, be it unionizing, congressional hearings, or McMahon, under heat from investors, taking a much tougher approach to his entire drug and business model. The idea of McMahon not being nearly as culpable was a big source of me thinking the comments you made read as naive as well. From talking, I don’t feel as much that you “just want to watch Smackdown on Fridays no matter what happens to these guys”, but we do different on weak people needing help vs the persona responsibility argument (if that is even really the root). I think most of these guys should just get some balls and walk off the job, but I fear if they do, like you dare them to, we might see suicides, divorces, unpaid child support, more drug deaths. We are IN the cycle, it’s already here, and we’ve gotta look into fixing the business for 10 years from now. Alot of these guys are still gonna die.
-You are right about forcing people to get help in a friend situation. But theres a difference between a job mandating someone to go to rehab and paying for it to keep their job w/o fear of losing a “spot”, and you or I telling a friend to get help or we’re walking away.
-There were larger then life people, yes, most of them working for his father:) Seriously, that doesn’t matter. He didn’t create Andre the Giants disease, but he chose where to make money with it or not. His choices today effect what a wrestler will look like to the public in five to ten years to the public, but maybe more importantly, to the wrestlers.
-the T/E ratio isn’t 4:1, it’s 10:1. 4;1 you get flagged and have time before a retest where you have to test lower. 10:1 is complete failure. regardless (and we really worked this out on the phone last night, ratio-wise) the problem is that it won’t matter if EVERYONE has a prescription from a mark doctor. Benoit did. Eddie G. did. The doctor who made the test is actually the same doc who does the NFL testing as well. You’re right on that one. NOT a mark, but really risking his rep not going to McMahon and asking if his employees are making a mockery of his system and testing.
-I didn’t turn on my TV EXPECTING or KNOWING everyone would walk a company line, nor is it my job to ACCEPT a bunch of guys walking it. Everyone one of them is a pathetic person, and Dibiase, as we spoke about, has two sons going into developmental. He should really consider revising his stance.Softballs. More like beachballs! God, what is the point of him not dropping dead (okay, just retiring).
But regardless of what we expected, what we got was unacceptable, and I don’t want to support this w/ my money anymore (not that I have much since 2001 to begin with). My point is alot of us are done w/ WWE, and being regular day-to-day wrestling fans.
-Yes, no one said MMA was/is completely clean. Drugs are in every sport. Come on, i didn’t call myself niave, Hansley. I said that about you:) Seriously though, in MMA you get punished for drugs by state athletic commissions. you get comprehensive cardio and drug tests. That’s enough for me. People are trying. UFC or any other brand can not control EVERYTHING. And that allows me to get excited about it.