Marc Mero Speaks - WCW Contract, His 'Death' List, More
Marc Mero recently spoke with WorldWrestlingInsanity.com about speaking out against wrestling, the misconceptions about his death list and more. Here are some highlights:
Why Mero spoke out against wrestling following the Chris Benoit murder/suicide: "I broke the code of silence, so to speak. So obviously there were people not happy with me because I spoke out against wrestling. It wasn't about pointing my finger at somebody else. It was really saying also what I did and what I was involved in. Here's the thing with professional wrestling.
"There's maybe 25 spots on television and you are doing everything you can to keep your spot. But there is a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand people behind you who want that spot so bad who'll do whatever it takes. You find yourself wrestling injured. You find yourself doing things that you shouldn't be doing health wise – keeping your body strong through anabolic steroids, taking pain medication way beyond the doses you should be taking just to get through a wrestling match without looking like you're limping or hurt. And I realize that many of those wrestlers that I wrestled against didn't all die from steroids or drug overdose. But a lot did die because of their bad choices."
Mero's "death list": "Some of them died in car accidents. A lot of them, the cause of death was listed as 'heart attack.' Well, many of these guys were under 50, under 40, under 30 years old and died from heart attacks. Pretty unusual to die of a heart attack that young unless there were things you've done in life over a period of time that cause that to happen. But like I said in my presentation, most of them died of bad choices – not all of them. The reason I list all of these guys is because these are all guys I wrestled against."
On not having a lawyer read his WCW contract: "I go upstairs to Dusty's office and Dusty's on the phone. I'm waiting for him to get off the phone and he just puts the phone down for a second and goes, 'Here. Take this contract and have your attorney look it over and then get back to me.' And that was it. Now I'm standing in the office, looking at the contract, and it says $75,000 your first year. $150,000 your second year. So I go, 'Dusty, excuse me. Do you mind if I sign this right now?' He goes, 'Sure. Do whatever you want.' I go, 'I don't even have an attorney, man.' (laughs) I signed the contract, you know, and I was just so excited that I was now a member of WCW and that's how my whole career started. It was a dream come true."