With the recent suicide of Junior Seau, who at one point was the NFL's Man of the Year and all around respected and nice guy, more high profile deaths like this are being linked to brain injuries and concussions. Dave Duerson was another recent NFL suicide linked to brain injuries, and of course the hockey goons that have committed suicide (Wade Belak, etc.).
This all brings me back to Benoit, and how he and the WWE were just ripped to shreds over his incident even though his case seems to really be similar to these newer sports related suicides. I wonder what the story would have been had the incident happened say two months from now with these other cases shedding light on the problems of brain trauma in sports. It probably would still have been as bad because he took more than his own life, and Vince (and wrestling in general) will always deal with the carny stigma that will forever be attached to the product.
Yeah, if Benoit had just killed himself, it would be a tragedy, but he wouldn't have been erased from history, I'm willing to bet. It's really hard to apply any sort of sympathy given that he cold-bloodedly murdered his wife and child over a relatively long period of time for what was supposedly a temporary rage.
The hockey deaths are already starting to bring changes to the game, with really stiff penalties for headshots (Raffi Torres recently suspended a whopping 25 games, for instance, although Duncan Keith got off very lightly for taking Daniel Sedin out) and concussions are treated extremely seriously when they would have been glossed over in the past. It's been said that if the death rates in the major sports were anywhere even approaching those of wrestling, the government would have no chance but to step in and do something, and sadly we're almost getting to the point where that might have to happen now. Hell, look at how fast the hammer came down in baseball once the drug problems came to light, and baseball doesn't even have 10% of the issues that wrestling and MMA do.
Scary time to be a sports fan in a lot of ways.
To me the strangest thing about the football suicides is that most of them shoot themselves in the chest, almost like a subconscious decision to make sure their brain is left to study.
ReplyDeleteI think hockey has less to worry about than football, for sure. Not only is most of the momentum transferred via being on skates on ice but there are WAY fewer hits in hockey when you consider there's basically eleven chances for a concussion on every single play in football.
Just another reason to encourage kids to stay away from that shitty sport and play something safer like hockey or baseball or basketball or...hell...anything but football really.
RIP MCA of the Beastie Boys
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Dave Duerson, it was on purpose. He wrote in his suicide note that he shot himself in the chest so his brain could be examined. Not sure about Seau.
ReplyDelete1) I think the Benoit thing would have been just as bad because he killed 2 people. In fact, he may have been even worse since Twitter wasn't a thing back then...can only imagine what would happen today with that.
ReplyDelete2) However, the discussion would not have centered on steroids. I remember Chris Nowiztki yelling and screaming that it was head trauma, not steroids, that was the issue and only a few media outlets picked up on that. The talking head TV was all about steroids. From that standpoint, the angle of the news would have been different and more accurate as to the why.
Aside from making headshots illegal in the NFL (which is a good thing), one sure way to cut back on concussions is to make mouthpieces mandatory for every player.
ReplyDeleteI agree about Benoit. Had he just killed himself I doubt he would have been erased and I doubt he would be such a controversial figure. Had he just committed suicide at least he didn't kill anyone else and others who have committed suicide are still talked about. But committing double homicide isn't as forgivable as just taking your own life.
ReplyDelete"Scary time to be a sports fan in a lot of ways."
ReplyDeleteIn sports, we're constantly trading off old problems for new ones that fit the current world. Time was, in baseball it was not uncommon for players to take up their positions while being visibly drunk, physically fighting with umpires and opposing fans was tolerated if not encouraged and guys died young of stupid shit all the time (Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty was 35 when got kicked off a train for threatening other passengers with a straight razor, he proceeded to drunkenly plunge off a bridge into Niagara Falls and drown).Not to try and diminish the current problems or even just flat out equivocate them, but I think it's important to remember that the intense competition of professional sports and the character of people it attracts to be involved in it tends to lend itself to certain dangerous lifestyles.
People are really using their jump to conclusions map on trying to link Seau to this. It may end up his brain was all sorts of messed up, but no one knows yet. The guy got arrested for domestic assault two years ago and drove his car off a cliff hours later, he had shown signs of trouble.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that mouthpieces certainly do help cutting back on concussions, the verbal requirements on the field will make it difficult to convince powers-that-be to do so.
ReplyDeleteMany people don't realize how many of the players on the field are making calls, communicating with each other, having to be heard and understood. Probably close to half the players on the field are calling signals of varying sorts on any given play.
Perhaps if they find a way to make mouthpieces which are able to be spoken through clearly while being as strong (if not stronger). I'd certainly like to find a way to lower concussions.
I love hockey, but the NHL's bush league. This head shots and concussions were happening for a couple of years before they got around to deciding that illegal hits that cause serious injury might be a bad thing that they may want to remove from the game. And even then, they only kind of remove them. Possibly the worst one, the one that kick started this outcry to remove headshots was the Matt Cooke on Marc Savard hit, which ended his career, but wasn't punished because there was no rule against it. Elbowing a player who isn't looking in the head doesn't break any rules?
ReplyDeleteEven now, in the playoffs, penalties and suspensions don't make sense. Weber takes Zetterberg's head and smashes it into the glass, WWE-style. That's not a "hockey play", and it clearly targets the head. But Zetterberg wasn't hurt so it's just a $2500 fine. To put that into perspective, John Tortorella said Sidney Crosby was a whiner and was fined $10,000 for it. James Neal went out and targeted two Flyers heads in the span of two minutes. He had a hearing with the NHL for each of them and was suspended for one game. How can you be suspended for two incidents for one game? That doesn't even make sense. At least one of them was similar to the Duncan Keith hit on Sedin, which got 5 games. Of course the NHL is run by a bunch of old guys who think the best way to curb head shots is to allow fighting.
The NHL will say they're trying to eliminate headshots, but they pick and chose when they take it seriously, depending on who they'd have to suspend. I don't know if it's money driven or not, but the NHL rules have always been a grey area. In football, it's black and white. A false start is a false start. In the NHL there's all these "well we can't call a penalty because that wouldn't be fair" theories and it pretty much carries over from letting tripping go because it's late in the game to a short suspension because it's the playoffs. The reason guys are intentionally, or just carelessly hitting one another in the head is because they know there's a reasonable chance they won't be punished at all. I bet if James Neal got 20 games for his headshots he'd be more careful in the future.
Sorry, but I refute the idea that Benoit did what he did to his family in pure cold blood. He wasn't Charles Manson or the Ramirez nightstalker guy. Something was going on there that while inexcusable was symptomatic of his injuries, yet in his mind made sense. Had Benoit not killed himself I imagine his defense could have a case for insanity/lack of ability to reason/etc.
ReplyDeleteI think the term "cold-blooded" is pitch-perfect for the crime Chris Benoit committed. He doesn't deserve the benefit of any doubt.
ReplyDeletePlus they continue to allow fighting...
ReplyDeleteI....what?
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct. However, the overwhelming evidence collected over the last few years suggests that anyone playing a football position that necessitates an impact on nearly every down will have CTE. And brain trauma may very well have contributed to the car crash and domestic assault. But we won't really know until after the autopsy (if there is one).
ReplyDeleteI don't think Benoit was all like, "Hey, I'm gonna kill them. I know it's wrong, I know it's murder, but I'm gonna do it anyway just because!" I think he was so fried that somehow in his mind he had justification once he started down whatever path. Again, I am *not* excusing him, but I don't think it was all "time to die, bitch!!!!"
ReplyDeleteEncouraging hockey may be questionable as well. Plus, the cumulative effects of headers in soccer aren't really known well yet either. Baseball and basketball look like the safest bets, at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe steroids thing is mind-boggling at this point. I'm not going to get up on a soap box or anything but anyone who still believes 'roids are the biggest problem for wrestlers and NFLers should read the most up to date concussion research, and then watch the documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster (a biased movie, but still presents valid data). Then tell me if you still believe that steroids are the problem and that "ROID RAGE" is really a thing.
ReplyDeleteI was with you until you said the NFL's calls were black and white. Your position is that they call head shots better and then your example is a false start? An icing call is pretty black and white too...
ReplyDeleteI'd take my kid getting into a fist fight every game (on skates of all things) over getting hit in the head every single play for 60 or so plays, but that's just me. And that's the biggest problem really, concussions are sort of an extracurricular activity in hockey whereas for the majority of the players on the field at any given time, getting a concussion is standard op.
I don't think the NFL has anything to worry about at this point though. We forget this is the same organization that was able to swing a Congressional exemption from monopoly law, lol. They're kinda powerful.
And mandate the use of the most advanced concussion preventing helmets available.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there's only so much policy and equipment can do to prevent CTE. A collision is still going to cause an acceleration of the brain into the cranium. No amount of kevlar in a helmet can prevent that.
Even with the documented history of abuse on Nancy?
ReplyDeleteI dunno man, maybe. When you're tying up your wife, strangling her, waiting a few hours while you make a bunch of calls to excuse your absence from a fucking house show, then drugging your kid up with Xanax, hiding a knife under his bed, followed by saying fuck it and strangling him anyway...
ReplyDeleteWhat is cold-blooded if that isn't?
Not with Ron Metta World Artest Peace running around.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that there would be many more premature deaths involving baseball players. Other than Ken Caminiti, I can't think of a prominent player who died young who was linked to steroids, though I'm sure there are lesser known players that have. It's definitely more than the roids.
ReplyDeleteI was actually going to bring this up with Scott as well. What irks me is that this would have gotten a lot more attention from the usual circles if this had been another wrestler (see especially Phil Mushnick). I read a tweet that said that Seau is now the 8th member of the Chargers Super Bowl team to die - that's 8 players out of 47 on a team that played not even 20 years ago. Somehow we're not seeing all the outrage.
I think people just fundamentally have a skewed image of what steroids really are and how users take them. In people's minds they just constantly shoot themselves up to gain instant muscle, when that's not what happens and wouldn't even work.
ReplyDeleteDementia isn't temporary rage, though.
ReplyDeleteActually, all of those "signs of trouble" point to post-concussion syndrome.
ReplyDeleteFor sure, it's definitely not safe, but to me it's miles safer than football, with baseball/basketball/wrestling being down around 0% dangerous (outside of like...an ACL tear or something).
ReplyDeleteI just read something about heading in soccer and was shocked, I had never considered that possibility, soccer has always seemed safe to the point of boring to me.
The NFL example was more because rules are rules in the NFL, while in the NHL there's rules, but there's more of a thought process that goes into calling them, mainly in the playoffs. They try to keep the calls even for both sides. If the game is close they try not to call anything unless it's blatant and can't be ignored, but then try to make up for that call by calling something on the other team. Missed calls are going to happen in every sport, especially one as fast as hockey, I understand that. It's the mentality that sometimes you call it sometimes you don't that I always hated about hockey. I think that attitude carries over to handing out suspensions as well. If they want to eliminate head shots they have to be consistent when handing out suspensions for them. If you target the head, it's a significant suspension. It shouldn't matter if the other player wasn't hurt, or if he moved at the last minute, if they want head shots gone, zero tolerance, no exceptions. But they use this theory that playoff games are more important, so a 1 game suspension in the playoffs is like missing 3 regular games, and so far nobody seems to really be getting the message.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how the NFL handles concussions, but I find it strange that guys can get rocked and suffer concussions, or at least take a hit that in all likely hood would cause one, and they're playing a week later...if not a quarter later. At least the NHL seems to take concussions serious when they happen, they just don't seem to do enough to prevent them from happening.
A lot of people in the game seem to think more fighting is the answer - if they drop the instigator rule than a guy can freely start a fight with someone he feels deserves to get beat up. Punches to the head to crack down on concussions? Only in the NHL.
ReplyDeleteIt's the shooting himself in the chest part that's interesting. Paramedics found him unconscience but alive, bleeding to death. Not the quickest, most pain free way to go. Shooting himself in the head would have been quicker, painless, unless there was a reason he wanted his brain intact.
ReplyDeleteGotcha. Yeah the way they do suspensions has always been weird and arbitrary. It would seem like the call would dictate how long you were out, not the call plus a committee deciding the severity the next morning.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Benoit was just the perfect storm of a lot of different things involving TBI, painkillers, alcohol abuse (remember that many stories have Benoit as being one of the hardest drinkers in wrestling) and depression and mental issues, coupled with a lot of stress. People tend to forget, or possibly didn't know, that just a few weeks before the incident there was a strong rumor that Benoit had been offered the position as head trainer for developmental. This was near the time when he had been traded to ECW, which was together likely seen as the company trying to push Benoit into early retirement. I think that the idea of his best days being over, coupled with the fact that so many of his friends kept dying, probably caused Benoit to go into a cycle of depression.
ReplyDeleteThis new insight into depression caused from TBI has had me changing my tune about Benoit a little bit. I always kind of didn't buy it because, in most peoples perspectives, he was outside of regular mental function and just "snapped", which isn't what happens in a cumulative injury like multiple concussions. But, that along with all the other stress factors I mentioned coupled with alcohol and painkillers plus probably a history of depression (from the stories Jericho has shared about Benoit, he sounded like a guy who was not fully well anyway). Benoit was a powder keg.
As for Junior Seau and the others, I think there is certainly some validity to the idea that multiple concussions can cause severe depression. As I've mentioned on here before, I work in a day-hab for adults with developmental disabilities. We have a few TBI patients, and one in my classroom. He copes articles onto a computer during the day, and a while ago I had him open up a blank document and just start writing on his own, to see what he came up with. Immediately he started with "I have had a bad life. I only have half a brain." He can be very moody and he usually seems very dejected and unwilling to socialize with his peers. It stands to reason that he probably suffers from severe depression, but unfortunately, people with developmental disabilities are often placed in a "separate" category of diagnoses from neurotypical people, and he'd likely not be considered capable of being depressed or treatable for it from a psychologist. It's sad, and I can only hope that, with TBI becoming a more common occurrence with the two most typical examples of "heroes" in our culture, professional athletes and military personnel, that our government gets serious about providing more funding to TBI research and treatment so we don't have any more Junior Seaus and Chris Benoits.
I find that most fans feel "their" sport (as in favorite) is the worst when it comes to inconsistency with their officiating. But hockey fans are the worst for it. They trash the NHL and often praise the other leagues (especially the NFL).
ReplyDeleteChin is right, a false start is akin to icing. Football has pass interference and blocking as 2 calls that are subjective and they get ripped a lot for the calling (or non-calling). Basketball fans can't stand how the standard for fouls changes depending on the player/team. And in baseball different umps have different strike zones (which is nutty when you think about it).
But those with dementia are known to be physically violent:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21815849
An example closer to wrestling would be Vern Gagne killing another Alzheimer's disease patient in a nursing home.
Twisted logic at best. If that were actually true then fighting would be legal in college hockey and the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteWe don't know that the found him alive. We know that they attempted life saving procedures, presumably CPR. In some states it is mandatory the paramedics try that before declaring someone dead, so he may well have been gone when they arrived, but not "officially" dead until the paramedics went through their procedure. Not sure if that's true for California though.
ReplyDeleteThat stat is a *TINY* bit misleading. Three of those deaths were from completely freaking random occurrences (e.g. plane crashes and getting struck by lightning). That being said, five of the deaths were likely related to cardiac issues and/or head trauma. That's still a ton for one team.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are NBA players with multiple diagnosed concussions, Gerald Wallace being a good example. It's possible that concussions in NBA players were undiagnosed until the last season or two due to a lack of awareness. Basically, any time gigantic humans are running around at full speeds in a confined space somebody's going to get whacked in the head. That being said, baseball and basketball still seem safer to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that info. But you're right, even 5/48 is still way high.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the average life span for an NFL player is something like 55 years (although this guy questions the number and thinks it might have more to do with weight). As time goes on and we learn more and more about the effects of brain injuries, I think we'll see that a lot of the premature deaths of both football players and wrestlers is related at least partially to that. Although, I would suggest we shouldn't completely discount steroids - there's a whole cocktail of reasons (no pun intended) these men die so much younger than the general population.
Your assessment of Benoit's situation seems to be the most fair and reasonable, to me. An unfortunate and terrible event, some of it due to his reckless behavior earlier in life, and some of it due to unrealized effects of his profession.
ReplyDeleteYour point about military personnel is extremely important, I think. Studies are only now being published linking CTE to military service and the results do not look good for our soldiers. Another hazard of warfare. There also may be a link between CTE and PTSD.
It's interesting to hear that your student is somewhat cognizant of his plight. I'm not sure what kind of TBI he has, but that is also common among CTE sufferers, apparently. Hence, football players shooting themselves in the chest and asking for their brain to be examined. With other forms of dementia, the patient is often less aware of his/her declining mental state.
Yeah, the weight gain thing is another aspect that doesn't get talked about too often. Apparently, a lot of players, especially offensive linemen, are pressured to stay as heavy as possible without compromising effectiveness. If they don't comply they risk losing their spot to someone else who will put on the weight. Can't be too good for these guys in the long run. Add that to brain trauma, steroid use, playing through pain/abusing painkillers, etc. and it shouldn't be a surprise these guys aren't living to 60.
ReplyDeleteThis person had a brain tumor removed at a very young age, and has had several strokes since then. He probably doesn't have any clear memory of his life before his brain injury, just due to how young he was, but I think a lot of what he's retained from it has been taught to him after the fact. In a way he's lucky, because some of the other clients with TBI in our agency had very full lives beforehand: one guy was an engineer for Lockheed Martin, one guy was a published author, a few of the women have kids and grandkids. In some cases they remember certain details about their lives but they are generally fuzzy on the specifics. Very sad all around. A few of them get together once a month or so for a TBI support group, and at one point they wanted to bring in a soldier who had recently returned from Iraq with TBI, not so he could talk about his own experiences with TBI but so the group could tell him some examples of how they've been able to live their lives since their injuries. I think that fell through but it's really uplifting, to me, to think of a group of people who've had so much taken away from them to want to reach out and help others that are new to their situation. That kind of thing really makes me proud of what I do.
ReplyDeleteI think this issue is way too big to be discussed in black-and-whites (and there really is no benefit to trying to simplify what happened with Benoit), but I guess I am just unsure of what "cold-blooded" murder entails. Does it imply that he was emotionally indifferent to the act? If so, why kill himself? Why the bibles? Does it imply it was pre-meditated and thus not a crime of passion? That is a tougher one, and may call for a disaggregation in the analysis of the murders (e.g. maybe Nancy was a crime of passion and the rest was a calculated response to an emotional downward spiral). Either way, the category of "cold-blooded murder" is highly ambiguous and is rather an attempt to dehumanize the party involved - it is more connected to the sensationalization of an event than an effective analysis of an action.
ReplyDeleteThe Benoit murders are going to be controversial discussion for years to follow, mostly because we lack any certain insights into the rationale. Nothing can make the actions "forgiveable" (as if it is our role to "forgive" such actions...), but depending on the approach we take, different results will follow. Sure, the domestic abuse angle surely tarnished the very positive image that many fans had of pre-murder Benoit. As do many of the stories that circulated. Still, he was highly respected in the industry in somewhat of his unpredictable private life. I am also unsure as to whether there is a strong correlation between spousal abuse and the kind of, almost-ritualized, murder-suicide scenario we found with the Benoit case. I can't imagine anyone denying the evidence of his severe brain damage and intense depression.
Overall, I prefer to focus on these more psychological/sociological factors than an endless debate over whether Benoit is in "hell" or his erasure was justified (it was a political, not moral move). The latter can leave the impression that Benoit was just an isolated psychopath. But, if the long-term mental trajectories of guys like Flair, Hogan, Savage, etc. are any indication, there are big problems to be solved (and, luckily, the WWE has tried to initiate some solutions). That doesn't mean everyone is a potential murderer, only that the murder itself might not be the most significant long-term effect of the incident.
There was a knife under the bed? I always thought it was a combination of things. I think he probably snapped and killed Nancy in the head of the moment and then decided the best thing to do from there was kill Daniel and himself. Did he really tie her up? If so, that probably shoots down my theory, although I guess you can't say for sure how long a rage like that would last.
ReplyDeleteI love Olympic hockey. I'm not opposed to fight if tempers get out of hand, but I'd rather it be like a brawl in baseball. It can happen, but it's rare, and it doesn't happen just because it's part of the game. But in the Olympics they just play hockey, and the rules are more strictly enforced.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to figure out how Shea Weber avoided suspension. Apparently, an illegal check in the heat of the moment is more suspension-worthy than making the non-hockey play of taking an opponent's head and doing the turnbuckle head smash against the Plexiglass (I mean, Torres def. deserved 25 games, but still, Weber should've been tossed for a game or two).
ReplyDeleteNo to this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to various reports, he killed his wife, and the very next day he was outside playing with his son and lying to neighbors about his wife being sick. He even lied to his employers about being at the hospital with his wife for their son (and at this point, she was dead and he may have been too, I don't recall).
Nancy may have been a heat of the moment murder, but his murder of Daniel seemed thought out. And the fact that he sent texts to numerous co-workers about how they can get into his home before killing himself sounds like a guy who was strangely clear of the situation.
And doesn't the fact that he killed himself verify that he recognized that what he did was wrong?
Sounds like a great potential support group for vet(s), hopefully it will work out in the future.
ReplyDeleteIf dementia causes a break with reality, and the sufferer has paranoia issues, or chemical dependency issues, then "rage" is perfectly within reality. Also, Benoit's body was trained to fight, or at least simulate fighting, and if the checks in your head go, that might become your reality.
ReplyDeleteTemporary rage is kind of a deceptive phrasing. From what I understand, Benoit had been having violent episodes, and had terrified his wife to the point of her planning a restraining order. It is entirely possible that Benoit was experiencing waves of violent paranoid episodes that seemed temporary, but were really a progressive loss of sanity.
Speaking as someone who has experienced paranoia (I have pretty bad OCD that used to manifest in paranoid thoughts) it flares up when things become unstable. Minor mistakes by people close to you can be perceived as patterns of threatening behavior, and you aren't thinking rationally, but cyclically. When you get stuck in these cyclical thought patterns, they are sometimes major and sometimes minor, but in both cases, you aren't perceiving reality in a proper fashion. So on the surface, you may seem ok, and the flare ups may seem "temporary" but really it is a consistent push and pull of thinking rationally vs thinking irrationally.
My paranoia never led to violence but it did make me a walking zombie for a bit.
Personally, I can't wait until a former UFC champion kills somebody. You know it's coming. Drive that reprehensible 'sport' back underground with dogfighting where it belongs.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Seau's family is donating his brain to SLI. With 20 years in the NFL, on top of 8-10 years of football before that, I'd be shocked if his brain didn't have major issues.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/05/04/junior-seau-family-donating-brain-to-researchers-studying-impact-nfl/
I could not agree more. To me, football, wrestling and hockey are salvageable because, unlike in UFC or boxing, the goal is not to harm your opponent/cause brain damage. Theoretically, a game of football or a wrestling could happen without anyone getting hurt. UFC cannot make the same claim.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, the info, and the intelligent post.
ReplyDeleteWow. Tremendous post. Just had to say as much for such an intellectual message that really made me think.
ReplyDeleteNo problem, I was lucky, my father was a neurologist and my mom was a therapist, so they never made me feel like asking for help was a sign of weakness. Not enough people get that message and it can turn serious very quickly.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I appreciate your positive feedback and, in general, mature way of interacting on the forum.
ReplyDeleteAnother recent case was LeBron James after a pretty scary collision with Grant Hill in a Suns game. He cleared all of the tests, but he said he doesn't even have any recollection of the collision other than that one second he was gunning for a steal and the next he was laid out. And he clearly wasn't himself for the next few games, too.
ReplyDelete"It is entirely possible that Benoit was experiencing waves of violent paranoid episodes that seemed temporary, but were really a progressive loss of sanity...
ReplyDeleteWhen you get stuck in these cyclical thought patterns, they are sometimes major and sometimes minor, but in both cases, you aren't perceiving reality in a proper fashion."
This is my point. According to some of the stories that leaked, his mental state was deteriorating over a long period of time, including thinking he was being followed to the airport and having a fear of demons (the literal kind, not drugs/alcohol). This sounds exactly like many of the articles about NFL players - paranoia, fear of some "other" closing in on you.
Scott said it was difficult to have sympathy for Chris Benoit because he killed over a long period of time. I'm just saying the length of time doesn't really have anything to do with whether he was in the right state of mind or not.
That's exactly my point. See above.
ReplyDeleteMy brother-in-law is schizophrenic. He's apparently been violent in the past, but I've only seen him remembering things that never happened to him and him suffering from paranoia. Having talked to him during one of his episodes, I can't really say I could hold him responsible for his actions if he were to do something.
Damn, dude. Hoping someone gets killed just to prove your point?
ReplyDeleteI think a big problem football may run into in the not too distant future is that parents are going to be very hesitant about letting their kids start playing young. I've got 2 girls, but if I had a son, I would have to think long and hard about allowing him to step onto a football field.
ReplyDeleteWhat a really stupid comment. The majority of UFC champions are either world-class wrestlers or jiu-jitsu masters. Even with sparring, they aren't experiencing hundreds of high-impact collisions on a weekly basis like football players, nor are they hard-partying, pill-popping rock stars like pro wrestlers.
ReplyDeleteJ.D. Dunn! Cool! I am a big fan of your work. And, coincidentally, agree with your point completely.
ReplyDeleteI don't have anything relevant to add to this tread but I just want to say this was the most informative, intelligent and least stereotypical pro wrestling thread I have ever read. Thanks to those involved.
ReplyDeleteSorry, misread your statement.
ReplyDeleteSpot on
ReplyDeleteA few years ago my mother started experiencing depression. Her whole personality changed, she became aggressive and short tempered, had trouble understanding basic concepts and began forgetting to do things (such as not eating for days at a time).
With some further investigation we discovered that it was actually a brain tumour causing this. We got very lucky and they were able to whip it out and my mum is now 90% her old self, but before we got to that point things got a lot worse with my mum pushing family members away, self harming to get away from demons coming to get her and experiencing déjà vu time loops where everything felt like it had happened before.
The thing is now she's recovered she has absolutely zero memory of any of this. There is a whole 6 month period in her life which is blank.
The point i'm making is that it is quite possible to be out of your mind for extended periods of time and commit acts which are utterly out of your normal character. It's clear in hindsight that Benoit hadn't been well for some time, or of a state of mind that he would recognise as his own.
What happened to his family shouldn't be viewed as a normal man losing it in an isolated moment of rage, your typical crime of passion. Rather as someone who was pretty divorced from sanity (those texts he sent Chavo have always felt very indicative of this for me).
Hypothetical question: had Benoit not killed himself would they have been able to put him on trial or would his diminished mental state prevent that?
You seem really well-informed. I mean, when was the last time you saw an mma match where one man punched another man in the head? That can't happen more than once every five years or so. And everybody knows that taking a pill will give you a cocussion. That's why you need a prescription!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, how many times have you been concussed? Because your post was chock full of ignorance.
Sometimes one must suffer for the good of the masses.
ReplyDeleteBut you wouldnt hesitate for a second to put him in cage fighting.
ReplyDeleteI could see UFC banning kicks to the head (which, in the opinions of some fighters, are ineffective and risky and are usually just done for show anyway) or maybe instituting head gear, but I doubt that concussions or anything would kill the sport. People are still going to want to compete, regardless of the danger.
ReplyDeleteThey would stop competing if people stopped paying to see it.
ReplyDeletei would have no problem with him going into varsity wrestling or studying martial arts, the two main pipelines into mma. I'm not saying that i would WANT him to become a professional cage fighter; but that wasn't my point. My point was that if parents stop encouraging their kids to get into football at a young age, eventually the best athletes in our country will be playing basketball or soccer, which would spell big trouble for the NFL.
ReplyDeleteHave you even watched the UFC recently? This isn't bingo-hall cage fighting or 2 sluggers with no skills going out and throwing haymakers.
ReplyDeletemost of the damage done in the octagon is superficial...cuts and bruises. The guys are wearing very light gloves, so there isn't the blunt brain trauma that boxers experience. They aren't running full speed and crashing into each other 40 or 50 plays a game like football players. 12-6 elbows are illegal, punches to the back of the head are illegal, kicking a guy while he's kneeling is illegal. Most of the fighters are smart and disciplined enough to tap out if they know they are in an impossible situation so you don't get a lot of guys getting choked unconscious or having bones broken. Is MMA violent? Absolutely, and I never said it wasn't. However, the long-term potential for brain damage isn't even close to boxing, football, hockey or even pro wrestling. Plus, most professionals (at least the high level ones) are fighting a handful of times per year, not every week for 6 months like NFL'ers or every week for their entire career, like pro wrestlers.
I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. The nfl doesn't actually get most of its talent from families where the parents do a lot of encouraging one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteI love you guys. Anything it takes to convince yourselves that what you're supporting isn't just human cock fighting. Just wait till the deaths start.
ReplyDeleteI am not going to deny the dangers of the sport, or that there could be a pick up in the death toll as the years pass, so this isn't an unconditional defence of MMA, but I have never understood the "human cock-fighting" trope. Cock fights are: a) unregulated; b) involve animals with whom we can communicate and thus discern whether or not they want to fight; c) involve the forcing of animals into combat with no proper compensation (they need a union. C'mon chickens, get your act together!); d) little concern for the safety of said animals. The only thing the two have in common is: a) fighting; and b) gambling. Now, if the fighters were slaves, or people without the necessary cognitive ability to choose whether or not they wish to fight, then I would see a bit more in common between.
ReplyDeleteSimply put, it is hard for me to see the homology between cock fighting and a sport that involves highly trained athletes, who have highly regulated diets, medical care, and decent (sometimes VERY decent) compensation for their work. No one is forced to fight and many fighters - Chuck Liddell, Ken Shamrock, etc. - have been pushed to retirement by promoters in the interest of their health (if they don't retire, it is usually the choice of the fighter). MMA is very violent, sometimes brutal, and arguments against that violence and its commendation in popular culture are valid - if debatable. I just wish critics of the sport could come up with a better way of presenting those criticisms than an analogy that is extremely tenuous. I mean, if "violence" + "gambling" = "cock-fighting" then EVERY major contact sport is human cock fighting. The label is far more obscuring than it is illuminating.
..............that's racist? I think? If you're getting at what I think you're getting at.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the goal in football? To get in the end zone and score points. What is the goal in soccer? To put the ball in the goal. What is the goal in mma? To incapacitate your opponent. What is the goal in cockfighting? To incapacitate your opponent. It's not that complicated. Mma fans just keep turning a blind eye to it because they don't want to admit that they're depraved.
ReplyDeleteHere's where your argument loses some of its strength. You say the goal of cockfighting is to "incapacitate your opponent," but you completely ignore any notion of agency in that process. Does a chicken have a conception of an "opponent"? Does it view the act as a form of respectable competition? Is it trying to incapacitate the "opponent" or kill it or merely attempting to survive in a situation of impending danger? We don't know, and we have no ways to discern the answer. Thus, it is being *forced* into an extremely dangerous situation against its will, with no discernible self-interest or potential benefits.
ReplyDeleteFor example, did people view Michael Vick's activities as "depraved" because there was violence or fighting involved? Do we view children as depraved for that reason? What made Vick's behavior so deplorable to so many people, I think, was the fact that he was taking living creatures, breeding them - through abuse - for combat, forcing them into that combative setting for his own amusement (likely against the will of the creature) and continuously abusing the dogs outside of the fight setting. What horrified people - again, my opinion - is that Vick had shown such disregard for the life and safety of a living creature, and had shown such indifference to its rights as a living creature. It was bordering on sociopathic.
I am just incapable how seeing the equivalence with MMA. MMA fighters choose to pursue that vocation, they fight as many times a year as they see fit (at the higher levels, 2-4 times/year), the train extensively for each fight and are able to back out of fights in the case of injury. They are compensated and most promoters show a concern for the long-term well being of the fighters. If, 20 years from now, the evidence extensively pointed to the overwhelming danger of the sport in comparison to other professional sports, then I might condone a banning of it - until then, the relative dangers vs. boxing, hockey, football or pro wrestling is speculative.
Instead of focusing on the "goal" of the sport, try also taking into account the values it embraces. Like any other sport, MMA nominally promotes values of hard work, dedicated, fair play, concern over safety, and the promotion of individual talent. Fighters have an underlying respect for each other and only in rare cases do they exhibit legitimate intent to inflict serious harm on an opponent (and in those cases, they are heavily criticized by the fanbase).
Your comparison is flawed, and I am rambling.
Because there are no shitty white parents?
ReplyDeleteI agree with second part of your last statement.
ReplyDeleteYou're clearly just confusing the issue. If your goal as an athlete is to incapacitate your opponent, that's a blood sport. And I find that immoral and disgusting. You can take the violence out of football and it's still a sport. Mma, boxing, kickboxing etc are just violence as spectacle. Just like cockfighting.
lol @ The UFC making its fighters wear head gear! It'd look pathetic, bro.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Anderson knock out Vitor with a head kick?
And you watch wrestling. What does that say about you? You like to watch fake cockfighting?
ReplyDeleteIs there a point in that statement? I watch people pretend to try and hurt each other. I don't watch people really trying to hurt each other. It's like comparing watching a war movie to watching actual war footage. One is entertainment. One is actual suffering. I'm not entertained by suffering.
ReplyDeleteThe fighting in hockey is the most contrived thing I've ever seen in a sport.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. Either or, you're obviously extremely wrong. Professional athletes are very often groomed from childhood by parents, I'm sure the majority of the NFL started out in football by having their dads push them into it. So your point is, then, that a huge number of NFL players came from broken homes and just stumbled into playing professionally? How would you have come by this information? Or are you just saying that, if you had to guess, most NFL players come from broken homes? Because, I dunno if you've noticed the demographics of a lot of NFL teams, but.....
ReplyDeleteYou're joking right? You can't actually believe that most professional athletes come from middle class two parent families. This must be a joke. You got me on that one Ryan t Murphy. I fell for your ruse. Now let's get back to reality.
ReplyDeleteWhat basis do you have for assuming they don't? Because the majority of NFL players are African American? Or do you have some other reasoning? Because that's racist, only you think you're being fucking cute by dancing around it and using semantics rather than just out and admitting that.
ReplyDeleteI take it you didn't go to a lot of football games in high school. How do you think all these players made their way up through the ranks? Schools don't always provide gear for athletes, it stands to reason that most guys who played in high school had parents who bought their gear, and probably encouraged them to keep performing on the football field. Like the concept of a "football dad" that pushes his sons into competing in sports is strictly a white providence.
This is really how you entertain yourself? You go onto a wrestling board, and from all evidence I'm not entirely sure you even like wrestling because I've NEVER once heard you claim to like anything or speak positively about anything, and you fucking nay say everyone elses arguments and then you can't even man up and defend your bullshit for its own merit, you just try to use semantics and appeal to ridicule to undermine what everyone else says. I can only imagine how many wonderful friends you must have who enjoy your winning personality so much if this is how you are in real life. You really don't fucking get people, do you? In the words of Patton Oswalt "You're gonna miss everything cool and die angry." Gah.
Why do you get so angry when proven wrong? Love that you equate high school football to the nfl. Pull the other one now.
ReplyDelete