I just read the police report about Chris Benoit, a pro-wrestler, who killed his wife and seven-year-old son. He strangled both of them and left them face down in their rooms. Later, he hanged himself. His wife had filed complaints about his abusive tendencies, verbal and physical.
I can only assume that wrestling had fueled his abusive behavior and provided an outlet for him to release aggression. So that leads me to ask whether or not wrestling is more dangerous than we think it is? Mike Tyson bit off part of a mans ear! Wrestlers are encouraged to gain weight, build muscle, take steroids (some), ultimately creating a strong dangerous person. Some wrestlers have acted out in the ring and outside of the ring. It seems that wrestling promotes abusive behavior? But then I look a Hulk Hogan, the epitome of a family guy who puts his wife and kids first.
So maybe some wrestlers practice aggression in and outside the ring while some don't?
2 comments:
Yes, the whole Chris Benoit ordeal I feel provided some distraction in the newsrooms from all the Paris Hilton jail coverage this summer, but the coverage that I saw in the media really made me angry.
I once was a hardcore wrestling fan and grew up watching Benoit on my TV screen and after getting over the shock that he had killed his own family I was frustrated at how the media jumped on the angle that steroids had provoked "roid rage" and was this huge factor in his actions. I don't want to point fingers but I wanted to strangle Nancy Grace on her coverage of the Benoit story because she was so sure and critical of the role steroids played in what happened. Most media outlets jumped on the bandwagon and came to the immediate conclusion that this was another out of control wrestler who lost the battle against steroids.
Wrestlers live gruling lives and for the media to have said Benoit had steroid problems so soon after the events without evidence was reinforcing this stereotype we have
of athletes and steroids. Which could lead to us having this image of wrestlers as agressive individuals when in reality that may not be the case. In this aspect I feel aggression is like for everyone else dependent on the individual. I think if you are a wrestler that doesn't necessarily make you and agressive person. What a person does for a living shouldn't define their individual character so we could say agression is relative to character and not vocation.
Let me just comment on one aspect of this post: Nancy Grace is not my idea of a good journalis.
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