I just heard about the death of Roddy Piper. It seems like many, if not most, of the wrestlers from the 80s are already dead. Compared even to other violent sports like football and boxing, it seems that an inordinate number of wrestlers die young. Is that correct, and if so why do wrestlers die young, even compared to players of other violent sports?
Maybe. A lifestyle of drinking and drug abuse has cursed the sport for many years. It has changed in recent years but there hasn’t been enough time to see if it makes a difference. Other sports have had those problems but there are couple of issues not common in other sports; enormous size is a killer, either from the effects of acromegaly or severe obesity, and wrestlers are on the road a lot, frequently driving long distances from show to show increasing their chances of dying in a car accident.
Steroid abuse has killed many a wrestler too early as well.
I hope I’m not being a stick in the mud by suggesting that we should compare wrestlers to other actors, not to athletes. I think if you make that comparison, you’ll see a more comparable number of early deaths.
Stuntmen and daredevils might be a better comparison. A lot of the drugs they take are prescribed treatments for injuries.
Seems to me that based on what I’ve seen, it’s either heart problems or suicide, so my guess is that steroid abuse is pretty prevalent, and there’s probably a lot of illicit drug use as well. People just don’t die of heart disease in their 40s and 50s anymore, unless there’s some other serious risk factors in play. I mean, my father’s 70, 6’3" at his peak, and has been obese for as long as I can remember, and has had (treated) high blood pressure for 30+ years as well. He’s also diabetic and has Parkinsons… and he’s not dead yet.
And these wrestlers are dying decades earlier; something HAS to be up.
The daily life of a wrestler in the 80s (roughly)
Wake up from last night’s party.
Take handful of painkillers to deal with the daily aches and pains of wrestling over 300 days a year.
Drive to where the day’s event is.
Possibly take a dose of steroids in the locker room, depending on where they are in the cycle. 80’s-quality steroids from dubious sources.
Work your match. Note that “fake” or not, they are being bodyslammed into canvas-covered plywood several times every night. You’re pretty much expected to tough it out and work through any injury short of a torn ACL or something. (thus the painkillers)
After the show, head off with the rest of the boys to party on the town, with booze, cocaine and various other party favors.
It’s more of a wonder anyone at all is still around, Flair has to have roughly the same genes as Keith Richards.
Nowadays, things are better, though it remains to be seen if it’s “good enough.”
Actors bodies do not have the same stressors - both physical and lifestyle - that tend to contribute to wrestlers’ early mortality. Tripolar’s stuntmen comparison is closer - and even there, the producers can do more to reduce the chances of a stunt going wrong, because you can better hide safety equipment…
Take the sort of thing that typically kills an actor young - irresponsible use of recreational drugs, depression issues, and so forth - then add in almost obligatory abuse of steroids, and a job that means you’ll be injured a lot (therefor causing issues from the injury itself, and the likelihood of painkiller addiction)…yeah, wrestlers are going to die young more often, even if something doesn’t go fatally wrong in the ring (vis Perro Aguayo, jr).
Whereas my father died of congestive heart failure at the age of 50 after suffering 3 heart attacks in four days, with no prior heart history.
God, you just made me realize I’m only 9 years younger than my paternal grandfather was when he died. He had quit smoking years earlier, and only rarely had a beer, and had a heart attack at 58 while he was out hunting. He died in the hospital a few days later. He was a hard-working man who owned his own logging company with one of his brothers.
Meanwhile, my maternal grandfather, a chain-smoking alcoholic, who was chronically unemployed (my grandmother effectively supported her family) made it to 83. Weird how that works.
I wonder sometimes especially in the 80’s a lot of these guys must have been doing huge amounts of cocaine, which must have done some silent but long-term damage to their heart. Throw in steroids, red meat, alcohol and it doesn’t seem too healthy. Then after a lot of these guys retire they don’t have to do all that physical exercise anymore to maintain that insane physique I’m guessing a lot of them ( probably the less famous ones that don’t remain in any limelight after their career is over) gain massive amounts of weight.
1/3 of Wrestlemania VI (1990) wrestlers are dead.
Pretty much. And when you say painkillers, its not 1 or 2 pills. Some pro wres fighters were taking double digit number of pills. A day, yes.
As for driving, take it one step further. To save gas, you piled as many big sweaty bodies as you could in a clown car. Except the next booking was 600 miles away. So you got 3-4 cases of beer and a cooler, and headed right out of the arena to the next shot, taking turns at the wheel.
No, there was no designated driver. You got at the hotel late in the morning, then you crashed.
Because you cant risk missing the booking by driving during the day.
“…what - and give up show business?”
Many of them keep wrestling deep into middle age: I am wondering if Undertaker’s dead ,an gimmick is not fake now.
LOL Undertaker is 50 and suffers from high blood pressure but other than that has maintained himself and has avoided a lot of the road pitfalls of the business. Doesn’t hurt his character is so over he doesn’t have to do a lot of the things the boys do to keep up and make money. This is a guy who could easily wrestle into his 60s and still be over, and healthy.
While wrestling is obviously not a competitive sport, this is obviously wrong. Professional wrestling is an inherently athletic activity, and death is a physical thing. Pro wrestlers look much more like NFL players than they do like George Clooney, and take as much physical damage.
Many an ex-football player has commented that wrestling is harder on the body. Bill Goldberg suffered more injuries wrestling than in football. He not the only to say so, but he the one I remember right now. So the football analogy is easily more accurate than the actor one.
It isn’t just the physical activity, it’s the endless hours, lack of sleep and stress.
WWE operates an absolutely ludicrous schedule, because the boss is 100% into what he does and expects everyone who works for him to work it too. Just watch how quickly the authority figures jump all over anyone who suggests otherwise.
There are so many ways wrestling differs from conventional sports. Many wrestlers work year round, in the past wrestling almost everyday. Only very serious injuries stop them from working, they are in a performance and not a real competition so broken bones, muscular tears, and many other injuries won’t stop them from performing. Recent wellness policies have cut this down to a degree, but unlike a football player who would be a liability to the team from such injuries wrestlers can act like they are still competing. The drug situation is not that much different than for football players when it comes to PEDs, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories and the like, but then add those to the drinking, coke, meth, and whatever and you’ve got a dangerous combo. The life of the wrestlers on the road was a big factor, heading from town to town every night, either alone in a hotel room downing beer or taking other drugs, or out on the town all night with wrestling fans paying the tab the whole way.
Anyway, I don’t know of any statistics that would accurately answer the OP, but it’s clear that wrestlers for a long time had a lifestyle very different from other pro athletes, actors, and other performers. But it’s not all of them. Some wrestlers lived very healthy lifestyles, and despite injuries lived, and still live to a ripe old age.