concussions and pro wrestling: a devastating maneuver

7/24/2019 Concussions and Pro Wrestling: A Devastating Maneuver

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John Cena, D.Thug

Thugonomics 101

28 Feb 2016

Concussions and Pro Wrestling: A Devastating Maneuver

Bryan Danielson was a professional wrestler for 16 years. He started wrestling when he

was 18 years old, and within the first 3 months of his career, he had already sustained 5

concussions. For the rest of his career, he’d receive several more, eventually forcing his

retirement, as he stated in his retirement speech:

It gets to a point where they tell you that you can’t wrestle anymore. And for a long time

I fought that because I had gotten EEGs and brain MRIs and neuro-psychological

evaluations and all of them said this: that I was fine and that I could come back and I

could wrestle. […] But, a week and a half ago, I took a test that said that maybe my brain

isn’t as ok as I thought it was. (Danielson)

A cerebral concussion is the result of an impact on the head or torso that results in a

secondary impact of a person’s brain against the inside of their skull, causing trauma. This may

involve a loss of consciousness, commonly known as being “knocked out,” but it doesn’t have

to. Some short term side effects of a cerebral concussion may be confusion, dizziness, nausea,

tinnitus and drowsiness. However, the long term effects, particularly with multiple concussions,

are an order of magnitude more severe. Concussive brain injuries and the resulting mental and

psychological illnesses have been detrimental to the quality of life for many professional

wrestlers, or even fatal, and our ignorance and demand for more as fans further perpetuates the

problem.



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I have had 3 mild concussions, and 1 severe. As a result, I often lose focus or

concentration on what I am doing, or I forget something that I am supposed to do, my vision

blurs and doubles from time to time, and about once every couple weeks I get a very strong,

nausea inducing migraine headache, all of which I did not get before the concussions. Now

consider Daniel Bryan, quoted above. He received 10 confirmed concussions over the course of

his 16 year career, and it is likely that he received several more that went unnoticed and

untreated. He has gone on record post retirement stating that he had post-concussion seizures that

he had hid from WWE that were caused by the amount of trauma he received while wrestling

(Coachman). These concussions were caused in part by a very strenuous schedule. Bryan and

much of the WWE roster travel around the world and wrestle 3 to 4 times a week, all year long.

During the 5 years he wrestled for WWE, he wrestled at least 700 matches, according to Pro

Fight Database (“Daniel Bryan”). Seven hundred matches full of slams, falls, diving through the

ropes to the floor, and diving headbutts from the top rope.

Another WWE performer who infamously used the diving headbutt as a regular

maneuver was the late Chris Benoit. He wrestled for 20 years, 7 of which in WWE. From his

debut in WWE in 2000 to his death in 2007, he wrestled approximately 500 matches,

significantly fewer than Daniel Bryan, largely due to there being fewer live house shows (“Chris

Benoit”). It is unknown how many concussions Benoit suffered, but when tests were performed

on Benoit’s brain post-mortem, Dr. Julian Bailes, head of neurosurgery at West Virginia

University, said that it resembled the brain of an 85 year old Alzheimer’s patient. It was likely

this heavy trauma that led to tragedy. Over a three day period from June 22 to June 25, 2007,

Chris Benoit killed Nancy Benoit, his wife of 7 years, and their 7 year old son Daniel before

hanging himself in his weight room (Goodman).



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The Benoit tragedy led to WWE creating a Wellness Policy, where wrestlers are regularly

tested for drugs, and examined by doctors and brain specialists on a frequent basis (“Talent”). It

was this Wellness Policy that may have saved Daniel Bryan from suffering the same fate as

Benoit. However, the Wellness Policy does not address the true stem of the problem: Concussion

testing, no matter how stringent, will not prevent concussions. The only surefire way to prevent

concussions is to not do activities that may cause them, and the only surefire way to treat

concussions is to wait for recovery. Professional wrestling may be intended as sports

entertainment, where the punches are pulled and the slams are cooperative, but there is no faking

gravity. Every time someone jumps off the top rope, every time someone gets slammed, every

time someone falls on the mat, there is a risk of concussion. And when wrestlers are falling on

the mat, or on the outside, or through a table upwards of 50 times a match when they have 2 or 3

other matches to wrestle that week, the risk adds up. As talented as these performers are,

accidents can and will happen.

Wrestling is a beautiful medium. It twists and turns and leaves the actions of its

participants open for interpretation. It’s a fake sport with real athletes. Athletes that are acting

and playing a character, yet at their core are still themselves. There is a certain connection that

these performers make with their audience that other forms of entertainment just don’t. Boos

from the audience are often signs of gratitude, showing that the bad guys are doing their jobs.

The audience throwing garbage and chanting expletives is sometimes the goal. In the movies,

actors are remembered for the characters they play. In wrestling, the characters are remembered

for the actors that portray them. Sports entertainment is more than a movie, more than a TV

show. It’s a serial of consecutive and concurring narratives that intertwine, going on ad

infinitum, being played out on stage. Characters come and go, but each one leaves its mark on



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another. It is impossible to tell the complete story of one without telling the story of another,

making wrestling as a whole as a beautiful, complex, ever-changing weave of people. You can’t

tell the story of Hulk Hogan without Andre the Giant. You can’t tell the story of “Stone Cold”

Steve Austin without Dwayne “The Rock ” Johnson. You can’t tell the story of Daniel Bryan

without Chris Benoit. And, unfortunately, you can’t tell the story of wrestling without

concussions.

concussions and pro wrestling: a devastating maneuver

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