Pro-Wrestling Bloodbaths Give Way To An Era of Vulgarity Page

Last updated 21 April 2015

The article appeared on the front page of the main section of the 5/31/1999 edition of the Toledo Blade.

Bloodbaths Give Way To An Era of Vulgarity

Ox Baker, a bald, 300-pounder with a bushy black mustache and a perpetual sneer, made the perfect villain--so perfect that he still stands accused of killing two fellow professional wrestlers.

No prosecutor or grand jury ever charged Mr. Baker with the ring deaths of Alberto Torres in 1971 and Ray Gunkel in 1972. Mr. Baker was labeled as a killer by the promoters who hired him.

The wrestlers died of heart attacks. But the fantasy that Mr. Baker had beaten them to death sold tickets, and selling tickets was every promoters first commandment. It still is.

Industry insiders say the recent death from a fall of wrestler Owen Hart will force a few minor changes in the way matches are packaged for public consumption. But they predict that professional wrestling will remain fundamentally the same as always--a business that exploits real-life trends and tragedies to fill seats and spike television ratings.

What's different about wrestling today is that it had become more outrageous and dagerous than ever as it grabs for a bigger share of the entertainment market. Televised shows are rife with cursing, profane gestures, partial nudity, and even a pimp and prostitutes. Actual wrestling in the ring has become less important than high-risk acrobatics and stunts such as the one that killed Mr. Hart.

Old-timers predict that even Mr. Hart's death will be used to lure a new wave of customers to the box office.

"After some time passes and the lawsuits die down, they'll have a memorial match and make some money off what happened to Owen, " said harley Race, who was a professional wrestler fro 36 years.

Mr. Race once ruled Kansas City, Mo., the town where Mr. Hart died a bizarre death May 23 during a World Wrestling Federation show. Mr. Hart fell from a 90-foot-high catwalk while trying an aerial descent into the ring at the Kemper Arena.

Neither WWF owner Vince McMahon nor Kemper Arena's management has talked about what went wrong. Kansas City police and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating. The youngest member of a Canadian wrestling family, Mr. Hart, 34, was preparing to perform at a WWF pay-per-view show. His opponent that night was to be The Godfather, a 320-pound wrestler cast as a pimp, who is escorted to the ring by women portraying prostitutes. The Godfather, whose real name is Charles Wright, calls these ring valets his "ho's," a vulgarity that gets him plenty of air time on the WWF's three cable television shows.

Mr. McMahon's Monday Night Raw, shown weekly on the USA Network, is seen in an average of 5 million households. It regularly beats cable leaders ESPN and Fox Sports Net in that time slot.

Cursing, crotch grabbing, and wrestlers flashing the finger at opponents and spectators are now as much a part of the WWF as a body slam or hammerlock. The league's major rival, Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling, offers similar but less raunchy cable shows.

Mr. Hart's death has done nothing to dampen interest in professional wrestling. The WWF needed just 90 minutes to sell all 17,000 seats to its Aug. 22 SummerSlam show at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Mr. Hart was killed two days later, but not a single refund was requested.

Lou Thesz, the legendary champion who is 83 and as quick as ever, said Mr. Hart's death was caused by unnecessary glitz.

"To gamble with people's lives like this is crazy," said Mr. Thesz, who has declined to lend his name to either of today's major wrestling companies because he disagrees with their programming.

"They would assassinate their mothers if they thought it would give them a better story line," Mr. Thesz said.

Mr. Race, who turned pro at 15 in 1959, said he found almost no wrestling mixed in with the smut and acrobatics of today's shows.

"In our day, anybody who cussed or made an obscene gesture would have been on the air for the last time," he said. "We knew kids were watching."

Mr. Race conceded that the wrestling he starred in during the 1960's and '70s was bloodier than anything on television today.

In Mr. Race's prime, wrestlers intentionally cut themselves with small pieces of razor blades they hid in their tights or wristbands. A nick on the forehead could cause heavy bleeding, especially if it was done 10 or 15 minutes into a match, when the wrestler's heart rate was accelerated.

Were those bloodbaths of old a good thing for young viewers to watch?

"No," Mr. Race said. But he maintained that the manufactured violence served a purpose because "it built the intensity of the match and the rivalry."

In the 65 years that the weird world of professional wrestling has existed, myth and hype have always reigned supreme.

After Alberto Torres died of a heart attack in Omaha, Neb., in the match involving Ox Baker, promoters went to work. They claimed that Mr. Baker had killed Mr. Torres with one wicked punch to the chest. Mr. Baker went along with the script on the small-time television shows that then beamed wrestling to 29 territories around the country. He knew he would make more money by playing the villain then by telling the truth.

Another famous case involved Fritz Von Erich, a legendary Texas wrestler and promoter. Five of his sons followed him into professional wrestling. Three of them killed themselves.

Fritz Von Erich, whose real name was Jack Adkisson, exploited those and other family tragedies. During matches at Reunion Arena in Dallas, where he ran the show, Mr. Adkisson once faked a heart attack on television. Then his staff put out a story that he was dying of grief brought on by the deaths of his sons.

As the fearsome Fritz Von Erich, he had been one of the first great stars of televised wrestling, which grabbed enormous ratings in the 1950's. The performers then did not curse as they do now, but the shows relied on bigotry and behavior that was wild for the times. Fritz Von Erich was a hard-hearted German, the type that had terrified Americans during World War II.

But it was the late Gorgeous George Wagner who emerged as the first great showman of wrestling. Mr. Wagner oozed arrogance and insinuated that he was gay. Promoters billed him variously as the "Toast of the Coast," the "Sensation of the Nation," and the "Human Orchid."

George liked orchid-colored costumes. He also wore brightly polished nails and gold-plated bobby pins in his long, curly locks, which were dyed blond. George's male valet sprayed him with perfume as he disrobed to wrestle.

Along with being foppish, George presented himself as a terrible role model for children of the 1950's. He was such an engaging braggart that he inspired boxing great Muhammed Ali and generations of professional wrestlers to imitate his interview style.

He died at 48 in 1963, a year after retiring. He left an empty bank account, two ex-wives, and his last girlfriend, a stripper.

As Gorgeous George shows, extreme personalities and antics have always been a part of wrestling. But one big change in today's business is the reliance on aerial stunts, such as the one that killed Mr. Hart. And even those are not entirely new.

Mr. Thesz said a 1950's wrestler billed alternately as Jungle Boy and Elephant Boy entered the ring by sailing from the balcony on a rope. The gimmick ended when the wrestler sustained a serious ankle injury.

"Every generation's wrestlers have had the bar raised in terms of danger," said Gary Will author of books on professional wrestling's history and champions.

"There's much more risk now in both the pre-match showmanship and in the actual wrestling."

Jim Raschke spent half his life in wrestling, where he saw illusion triumph over reality every day. He wrestled for 25 years as Baron Von Raschke, a menacing intruder from Germany. Like most older wrestlers, Mr. Raschke is no fan of today's pros, but he still loves the theater they work in.

"It's a very creative profession. I'm a naturally shy, reticent person. It was kind of fun to be somebody else and say and do things that I myself would never do."

Mr. Raschke, who now runs a souvenir shop in Lake George, Minn., performed when bleeders were more in demand than aerial performers. No matter the gimmick, he believes that there's one constant in wrestling.

"All the promoters I knew were for anything that would make money."

Lou Thesz believes that everybody in the business is stretching the limits to absurdity. "It's better to be lucky than smart. My boy Owen was not lucky," Mr. Thesz said. "What a shock it is that it would come to this."