WWE: Death grip – The dark side of pro-wrestling

We as professional wrestling fans, have our own set of wants and desires from the performers. Often, we criticize them about how sloppy they are, or how they’re not cut for the business. We fail to understand the sacrifices these superstars make just to perform in front of the crowds, so that they can earn their living. Performers are just like us; they would’ve grown up watching the product, and would’ve fallen in love with it. As it is the case with us, growing up, all they ever wanted to do was to perform, to become one of those ‘larger than life’ characters they were huge fans of. Whether it is CM Punk or Edge, all the superstars are wrestling fans first, and performers second. That is what separates them from athletes in any other sport. All the pain and being away from your loved ones isn’t worth it if you don’t love what you do. Sadly, there are high risks of these performers not seeing their families ever again, much more than any other sport. In an instant, everything can change, and everything can go wrong.

 

 

Whether it is those unknown performers in the independent scene who fail to make it to the ‘big league’, or those who find themselves to be small fish in a big pond, at one point or the other, the professional wrestlers resort to extreme measures to make sure that they at least succeed in this business, and if they’re lucky enough, they might just make it big in one of the top organizations in the world. In doing so, they lead a life of stress, drugs, alcohol and virtually live on the very edge. In a sport that is unforgiving, often we forget that things can go wrong in an instant, and how these are mere mortals who can crumble down. In this article, I take a look at five such promising performers, who lost their lives to their personal demons, those who were the most unfortunate, and succumbed to their past.

Mike Awesome

Mike Awesome is known to be one of the saddest stories in professional wrestling. As a man who was destined for greatness with his size, strength and agility, Awesome made huge waves in the North American wrestling circuit, at a time when wrestling was at its peak. Awesome was ECW’s answer to Bill Goldberg, and was similar to Brock Lesnar, who’d later debut in the WWE. Awesome won the ECW Heavyweight championship, only to jump ships to WCW, and although he was over with the crowd early on, the backstage politics and nonsensical storylines ended his hot streak, and he was relegated to the mid card. Awesome was briefly signed to the WWF, but was released soon afterwards. Awesome made an appearance during the ECW: One Night Stand PPV in ’05, which happened to be the last time he was seen on prime time wrestling circuit. It is sad to see a performer not reaching his potential, but it gets worse to see him giving up on life. Awesome hung himself in ’07, leaving behind his wife and two children.