Dying young a sad chapter in wrestling's scripts

PAUL NEWBERRY, AP National Writer Saturday, June 30 ATLANTA — Everything is planned. The high-flying moves. The outlandish story lines, The crackpot characters.

One thing isn't in the script: the staggering number of pro wrestlers who die young.

Chris Benoit was the latest, taking his own life at age 40 after killing his wife and son in a grisly case that might be the blackest eye yet for the pseudo-sport already ridiculed as nothing more than comic books come to life, a cult-like outlet for testosterone-ragin' young males to cheer on their freakishly bulked-up heroes.

But the tenacious, grim-faced grappler known as the "Canadian Crippler" was hardly alone in heading to an early grave.

The very same weekend Benoit killed his family, the body of old tag-team partner Biff Wellington (real name: Shayne Bower) was found in his bed, dead at 42. A couple of weeks ago, former women's champion "Sensational" Sherri Martel passed away at her mother's home in Alabama. She was 49.

And on it goes.

Mike Awesome (Michael Lee Alfonso in real life) was found hanged in his Florida home in February, the apparent victim of a suicide at 42. "Bam Bam" Bigelow was 45 when a lethal tail of cocaine and benzodiazepine, an anti-anxiety drug, stopped his already ailing heart in January.

And on it goes, dozens and dozens of wrestlers meeting a similar fate over the past two decades. Some died with drugs flowing through their veins. Others tried to clean up but belatedly paid the price for their long-term abuse of steroids, painkillers, alcohol, cocaine and other illicit substances.

How many more must pass through the morgue before everyone stands up and shouts: Enough's enough?

"From my 17 years in the business, I know probably 40 to 45 wrestlers who dropped dead before they were 50," said Lance Evers, a semiretired wrestler who goes by "Lance Storm" when he's in the ring. "It's an astronomical number."

Then, he added in a voice tinged with anger and sadness, "I'm sick and tired of it."

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Over the years, there are been numerous proposals to put wrestling under some sort of oversight, be it at the state or federal level. Those ideas usually have fallen on deaf ears, largely because the powers-that-be, be it the old-time regional promoters or WWE owner Vince McMahon, the guy who largely controls the sport today, don't want the government telling them how to run their business.