How much do you believe in coincidences?
Days after 38-year-old main-eventer Eddy Guerrero’s November death, World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McMahon called his wrestlers together for a meeting that was later broadcast on
WWE: Homepage. In the meeting, McMahon announced the company would be launching a “wellness policy,” in which drug tests and heart exams would (one hoped) limit the chances of a repeat of the beloved Guerrero’s tragic, drug-fueled demise.
McMahon asked for questions, and few came. Most of them came from a very nervous-sounding Kurt Angle. Angle, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist who had been one of the company’s top performers almost from his 1999 debut with the company, wanted to know how thorough the tests would be and the likely consequences for failing.
Nearly nine months later, Angle is out of WWE. The company’s Web site announced Friday, “Due to personal issues, Kurt Angle has been granted an early release from his contract. WWE looks forward to establishing a new relationship with Kurt in the near future.”
Coincidence? I don’t know.
Angle sat out 30 days, starting in late June, for reasons the company never disclosed. This was shortly after he had been pegged as one of the focal points of WWE’s new ECW venture. The wellness policy calls for suspensions for positive drug test or other evidence of drug use.
Coincidence? You decide.
After his national debut, Angle wasted no time making a name for himself as one of the most athletic and spectacular wrestlers in the industry, pulling off risky moves and subjecting himself to inhuman punishment to entertain wrestling fans. With the same determination that earned him the gold, by 2001, Angle had established himself as one of the top pro wrestlers on the planet.
His physical style was matched only by his physical problems. In 2003, Angle underwent neck surgery that put him out for months. He returned to action that summer, but the next year, took several months off of wrestling to heal the neck, appearing only as the program “Smackdown’s” general manager. He has since been beset by injury, most recently a groin injury that took him out of planned ECW matches.
Coincidence? You’d have to be high enough to flunk a WWE drug test to think so.
WWE saying it looks forward to working with Angle again, as opposed to the familiar brush-off “we wish him the best in his future endeavors,” suggests the two parted on decent terms. Also, considering that WWE released Angle voluntarily, TNA fans (or fans of Ring of Honor or other independent groups) are wasting their brainwaves by anticipating Angle showing up somewhere else. Surely, the industry leader sewed up Angle by getting him to abide by his contract’s existing no-compete clause.
And if you’re a true fan, your desire to see Angle recover from injury and from any demons that might be plaguing him should outweigh your desire to see him battle whatever hardcore hero you hold dear.
Believe it or not, within hours of WWE’s announcement, the Internet was alight with sweaty man-boys salivating over the chance to see Kurt Angle in the ring with one independent star or another. In addition to having little grasp on reality, these people apparently their personal entertainment over another person’s physical well being.
Many of these are the same fans who wring their hands and cry, “How does this happen?” whenever the latest under-50 wrestler turns up dead in a hotel room.
Well, guess what, geniuses? It happens because guys jack up their physiques to inhuman levels to satisfy a business that’s educated its fans to expect no less. It happens because talented wrestlers halfway kill themselves in the ring to entertain an audience with expectations that have reached impossible levels. It happens because many fans will pay to see a “star,” even when they know the best thing for that star is to stay as far away from a wrestling ring as possible.
In short, it happens because fans allow and tacitly encourage it to happen.
Oddly, many hardcore wrestling fans for whom Kurt Angle versus, say, Samoa Joe (no offense to Joe, who’s a fantastic performer and the antithesis of a lot of wrestling’s problem children) is a more fervent desire than the safe return of our troops from Iraq have few friends.
Coincidence? Not even close.
