Ladies and gentlemen, we have found the next evolution of the Chris Benoit tragedy. His name is Kurt Angle.
This all began back when joined TNA. When he left WWE, and said he was going home to spend time with his family, and less than a blink of an eye later, TNA is running promotions for him at No Surrender, it was odd to see how Angle could not stay away from the limelight, from the competition, and from the rush of adrenaline that he probably has each time he steps in to the ring.
Now, we fast forward to today. His family is destroyed. His company lost its founder allegedly because he’s living with your ex-wife, and now, you’re charged with immeasurable counts of breaking the law, all while you are the World Heavyweight Champion of the company you work for. I don’t know about any of you, ladies and gentlemen, but I see this as a cauldron of disaster that has no happy ending.
Not to mention the fact that again, you have a female claiming some form of physical abuse. Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar????
It’s really sad what has transpired in this particular case. I don’t discount anyone’s ability to try and make a living, but at what cost?? When is it too much? Angle appears to me form the outside looking in to be a driven individual whose sole objective is to be the best on the planet at what he does. It’s pretty freakin’ obvious to see that from his resume before pro wrestling, and now while still in the business.
But the amount of physicality that Angle has endured, hell, the amount of physicality ANY of these talents have endured, how much is enough?? When do you know?
Answer, you don’t.
I may not know thing one about the rigors and trials of performing in front of thousands of people and taking bump after bump after bump in a six sided ring. I do know however about mental health, and I do know that when stricken with a mental health problem of any kind, by any cause, it’s something to be taken severely seriously. I don’t think the companies of pro wrestling do that. They look at the physical aspect of their talents for sure, but the mental rigors that these men and women must go through cannot be discounted.
Let’s use this comparison. I work an eight hour day. My job is difficult, as I am sometimes forced to deal with individuals who have mental conditions, and I need to make sure that the employees around me attempting to take care of this individual can do so without being injured or threatened in any way. It’s an impossible job at time with A FULL SLATE of training, and even more difficult when you have limited amount of training experience to fall back on.
You take a sports entertainer or wrestler, however you want to call it. 300 days a year, he or she is on the road, away from their families and their routines. They go from city to city to city to city to endure a 5 to 60 minute work day that could result in numerous ways of their bodies being tramuatized physically. Not to mention that if the match or promo isn’t received well, you’re booed out of the building by a rabid fan base, and at risk of either A) losing the paycheck for the night or B) being released from your contract.
I know its apples and oranges here, but the facts are pretty easy to decipher. It’s stress to the maximum, and if its left untreated and undiagnosed, it’s released in other aspects, sometimes physical, sometimes violent, and sometimes, fatal.
Kurt Angle has been at the top of the wrestling business now for a number of years. The amount of mental damage that this man must have endured by pushing his body to limits that no normal human being could ever dream of achieving has begun to take its toll. This is just the beginning of the fall, unless something is done, and something is done immediately to save this man’s life.
TNA needs to take the stand on this situation, and remove Angle from his position as World Heavyweight Champion. That is the only course of action that should be done, and needs to be done, for the title, for the company, and for the man. Anything else is window dressing, and camouflaging the problem of Kurt Angle himself.
And that could end up being the most tragic mistake of all.
Someone needs to step in and stop Kurt Angle. Save Kurt Angle from himself, before he becomes the next Chris Benoit.
I invite comments and any other replies to this topic. I’ll post some of them in my blog.
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