General Health & Safety of Wrestlers whilst Wrestling

    114. The absence of any proper governance and oversight in the British independent wrestling circuit, and the failure to designate wrestling as either a sport or theatrical, has particularly serious implications for the mental and physical health, safety and wellbeing of performers and others. This requires immediate attention and remedy.

    119. Fear of concussion was something raised with us by performers too. We were told that especially younger performers, including children aged 15 or 16, were putting themselves in “athletically dangerous situations” which would not be allowed in other disciplines including in the WWE where education is offered, and policies must be followed.

    120. We were given one example of “ a well-known British wrestler in his thirties” who had signed with a major US wrestling company and informed colleagues that “the baseline SCAT5 testing (the medical standard for evaluating and diagnosing concussion in sport) and cognitive assessment that accompanied it had shown “his brain to be “completely destroyed” as a result of his career in British wrestling”.147 This points to the urgent need to get better information and education across the wrestling industry, potentially from other industries with more experience, as witnesses told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in parliament when questioned by APPG Co-chair Alex Davies-Jones MP and joined-up thinking as MP Chris Bryant pointed out in a House of Commons debate. Certainly, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) has a useful guide and the House of Commons Library debate packs are helpful and as Dr Michael J Grey pointed out to us, the Canadian Judo protocols are excellent.

    121. Failure to act immediately is a high-risk strategy for wrestling. It was also pointed out to us that much of the awareness and activity relating to concussion protocols followed a class-action lawsuit a decade ago brought by players against the National Football League (NFL) which resulted in a settlement for hundreds of millions of dollars. The same witness told us the British Wrestling scene’s failure to “autocorrect its culture around concussion is a tragedy waiting to happen”. We concur.

    124. We acknowledge that there is serious risk involved in professional wrestling and that even with trained professionals executing well-practised moves, mistakes can happen. However, there are injuries that once they occurred could and should have been better managed. We discussed with talent some of the injuries they had received and the circumstances surrounding them. This included someone having broken their ankle and carried on regardless because “the show must go on” was the “industry standard” and a well-known case of a broken back in which the individual suggested that a lack of medical knowledge may have led to mistakes being made. This was despite a previous UK example of paralysis from wrestling, which seemingly did not lead to any significant changes.

    125. We are particularly concerned about the lack of proper supervision outlined above, especially where children have been involved in matches. One submission we received referenced a match at Kamikaze Pro Wrestling in the Midlands in which then 15-year-old wrestler took a ‘piledriver’ move from a well-known American star outside of the ring, on top of a car. Whilst reports indicated adults had given their consent, there is a safeguarding element that cannot be ignored or excused, particularly in respect of children’s safety and there, should be additional measures and protocol in place in such cases.

    126. One issue that was not raised during the evidence sessions but of which we are aware is the practice of ‘blading’ in which a wrestler cuts themselves to let blood and increase the intensity of the wrestling spectacle. This, together with the unintentional loss of blood, and mix of bodily fluids sometimes present in a ring have led British wrestling star and WWE talent Nigel McGuinness to campaign for change. Mr McGuinness has spoken out strongly against the practice of blading but also called for regular testing, vaccination for Hepatitis B and to have a protocol that can be implemented inexpensively. We support this position in full.

    128. At present, wrestling (and boxing) rings do not appear to be covered by a United Kingdom designated standard, and so do not need to be UKCA or otherwise marked to be placed in the market of Great Britain. However, some gymnastic equipment does meet the criteria for General Product Safety. We recommend that wrestling rings be specifically recognised by Government as requiring a designated standard and adopted by the British Standards Institution.

    Mental Health

    132. We had a number of witnesses talk to us about mental health. This ranged from a perceived lack of understanding and support for mental health concerns, or the impact of various activities or behaviours on mental health – from abuse outlined in the Speaking Out Movement to the conduct of trainers or promoters. Conversely, the positive impact that wrestling can have on individual’s general wellbeing was raised in several submissions. “Wrestling has played a huge part in my life for as long as I can remember and working on shows has had an enormously positive impact on my mental health and wellbeing”, one witness told us.

    133. We were asked to specifically consider social media bullying and harassment. This is something that the group itself was subjected to online, and which many of the parliamentarians involved in the inquiry have experienced in other areas of our work. Specifically, it was claimed that campaigns of harassment, often without evidence, can lead to significant real-world harms. More than one submission highlighted tragic cases of such behaviours including a 22-year-old Japanese wrestler, who herself had performed in the UK, Hana Kimura and British wrestler Ryan Smile, a talented performer who took his life in late 2020. Smile had spoken publicly about his mental health and had also suffered online abuse. We were also told in painful detail about the impacts on mental health of running promotions that felt under relentless attack, in spite of instituting what they considered industry leading models for addressing problems in an unregulated industry.

    136. There are a number of resources which exist and which we recommend should be made available to talent, including for example the Centre for Countering Digital Hate’s ‘Don’t Feed the Trolls’ report. There are sessions freely available online concerning mindfulness but so too, promotions instituting social media policies would be a helpful step forward, and possibly relieve the mental toll both they and talent undergo on social media platforms. Examples of such policies and related considerations are available online.

    140. There are a number of actions or processes in place across the UK which we believed might constitute good practice. For example, having identified that relevant briefing materials were restricted to subscription-based services, Riptide Wrestling (through Dr Bevan) produced a magnificent resource: https://www.riptidewrestling.com/medical-resource.

    This free material constitutes an excellent guide to what any promotion should be thinking about when it comes to instituting safety standards in wrestling and we know that, for example, Wrestling Resurgence has already drawn on this guidance. Similarly, the wrestling safely group website: https://www.wrestlingsafely.co.uk/ which we have already highlighted, contains numerous helpful resources, including details on first aid training, for example.

    142. Pro-Wrestling: Eve had taken it upon itself to discuss concussion protocols with referees and instructed them that should they suspect a concussion to have occurred, to stop the match irrespective of a talent’s wishes. Similarly, the Eve academy held sessions on empowerment and aspects of mental health.

    143. Progress Wrestling explained that for everything it did to expand the professionalism and safeguarding aspects of the company, the costs and scrutiny it was under increased, which has led to other organisations seeking to avoid this route. The company “is happy to” be paying for the mental health counselling for talent who have competed for it in the past and promised to offer this service to incoming talent in the future too, albeit there was concern that failure to adopt good practices on an industry-wide basis would lend itself to a greater burden on particular companies. This would be deeply unfair on those already trying to show industry leadership. Positive actions should not result in punishment.

    147. We recommend therefore that any promotion operating in the UK immediately adopts the following measures:
    i)
    All promoters, trainers and referees be physical and mental health first-aid qualified and trained in concussion awareness and protocols.
    ii) Any pre-show address must make clear who trained first aiders are, what the signal for injury is and the process for reacting to it, including the authority to stop a match, and where the local hospital is. Incident report books should be maintained as standard.
    iii) Talent and promoters should familiarise themselves with and adopt protocols where free resources are available including the aforementioned Riptide open resource and the rugby or Football Association concussion measures, for example.
    iv) Rings should be safe to use, only set up by qualified individuals, checked regularly and renewed after a set period.
    v) All shows should be risk-assessed.
    vi) A fully stocked first-aid kit should be maintained.
    vii) Medical professionals should be in attendance at any show.

    Any promotion without such measures in place should be, in our view, considered disreputable and to be failing its fans, talent and the industry as a whole. However, there are further measures that can be implemented with haste that can make a significant difference in enhancing health and safety, these include:
    i) Hiring individuals with expert knowledge of Health and Safety Protocols.
    ii) Provision of or access to counsellors.
    iii) Introduction of waivers or disclaimers.

    Finally, there are measures that might be more difficult to implement but would exemplify excellent practice, including:
    i) Offering vaccinations to talent for Hep B and other Hepatitis
    ii) Requiring or providing facilities for regular blood testing for talent.

    148. We further recommend that changes to insurance arrangements be sought whereby liability should transfer to a promotion or promoter should it be proven they prevented medical professionals from intervening appropriately on safety matters if ring equipment was not fit for purpose or to performers if they do not declare a serious injury. We believe insurance companies should review their schedules to include further requirements on promotions or promoters in respect of health and safety in general. However, we also recommend that specialised insurance should be more readily available to UK wrestling talent and will be engaging the insurance industry about both aspects of this recommendation.

    152. For any sized promotion, having even limited safety measures in place should be part of the key requirement for running an event, either through requirements to use council property, the TENs licence or governing body and in the absence of the latter, we recommend that the Home Office brings forward proposals to broaden TENs licence guidance to include health and safety and other minimum standards protocols for wrestling suppliers. We recognise that the legislation is different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but we request that both devolved administrations assess whether their current licencing rules adequately cover wrestling promotions.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/705588/Revised_guidance_issued_under_section_182_of_the_Licensing_Act_2003__April_2018_.pdf

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