“The Shawn Michaels of back then was an asshole.” – Shawn Michaels
Over here in the UK at the moment, there is a lot of paper talk about Liverpool FC player Luis Suarez, who has received a 10 match suspension for biting an opposition player. Quite apart from the thought that with actions like that he’d make an excellent WWE heel, it got me thinking about Wrestling’s long history of people who were said to be not so nice backstage and away from the ring and Outside the Ropes.
There are a lot of discussions about whether or not Suarez’s personality and actions matter more than his on the pitch abilities. It may seem strange to compare this to wrestling but some immediate comparisons could be made. By his admission above, Shawn Michaels was not a pleasant person to be around in the mid-1990 outside the ropes but not only did he clean up his act upon returning to the WWE in 2002, but he’s also now widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers to ever enter the ring by many fans. Alternatively, John Cena unquestionably does a lot of charitable work, most notably for the Make-A-Wish foundation, and yet most, but not all, internet talk is about how he is killing the WWE, is a terrible wrestler and how the WWE would be a much better place if he left it.
The question I pose is, does it matter what a wrestling personality is like outside of the ring? Does whether or not a wrestler is a “nice” person Outside the Ropes make any difference to how we should see them?
Now, of course, there are varying degrees of “incident”. As much as I previously respected Chris Benoit the wrestler (and indeed came away from a brief meeting with him in 2002 thinking he was a nice guy), I have the WWE released DVD of him on my shelf, untouched since the tragic incidents that left his wife and child dead at his own hands. Whilst I can watch a match of his in isolation, I cannot bring myself to enjoy a full presentation on him. Some, however, can do that without any feelings of guilt.
But if that is an extreme case, what of other, more minor incidents Outside the Ropes? Are there any Attitude Era fans out there that refuse to buy Stone Cold Steve Austin DVDs and Blu-Rays because he beat up his wife? Is Jeff Hardy any less popular despite very serious drug charges brought against him? Do people respect the likes of Kurt Angle and Eddy Guerrero any less for the fact that they were arrested on drink (or drug) driving charges? Of course, singling out any particular wrestler for taking drugs is a little unfair. It seems as if it would be easier and quicker to list the “clean” wrestlers rather than those who indulge, even in this era of the “Wellness Programme.”
Then we have the likes of Booker T who spent 19 months in prison for robbery in his early 20s. Was that a reason not to support his wrestling career or was the fact that he turned his life around something to be celebrated? Similarly, former WWE star MVP spent eight years in prison for armed robbery and kidnapping.
Scott Hall has had years of serious legal issues, not to mention health issues by his use of illegal drugs, yet wrestling fans rallied around to pledge thousands of dollars towards surgery to support his quest for sobriety, despite the fact he was making MILLIONS of dollars a year at his career peak. I saw someone online commenting on a similar campaign to help Marty Jannetty say that “Hall deserved the help more”. Hall was the more popular wrestler, but undoubtedly threw away more money than Jannetty ever earned from his sport.
At times in the aftermath of the Benoit incident, I did question whether it was “worth” continuing to watch wrestling when pushing so hard for the entertainment of the fans surely led to the issues that caused Benoit to “snap”. That feeling passed and I’m still watching to this day.
These questions above are not ones that I have an outright answer to. It’s perhaps up to each individual to decide for themselves. Of course, I’m as guilty as the next person of “favouritism”. I label some of the rants against my all-time favourite Shawn Michaels from the mid-’90s as the product of bitter wrestlers who never reached his level (yes, Gregory Helms – I’m talking to you) and try to forget some of the more reasoned arguments against his behaviour and believe that he truly saw the error of his ways by the new century. I laugh off his “dalliance” with Tammy “Sunny” Sytch (despite some disturbing tales from Bam Bam Bigelow of the effect it was having on her then-fiancé Chris Candido) and yet find Bret Hart a hypocrite for being upset at Shawn’s “Sunny Days” comment and then admitting in his biography that he spent years on the road cheating on his wife at every given opportunity.
And perhaps that makes me the biggest hypocrite of all. But perhaps we should all remember that however, they appear on our screens, there are human beings behind all the characters we see on the shows, whether we rate or appreciate their work or not.
– By Matthew Roberts