Luckily, we’re moving out of the era where pro wrestlers were dying in droves, and far too young. It wasn’t that long ago that we had to constantly brace for tragic, unexpected deaths from wrestlers in their 40s or younger. WWE and many other companies have moved to far safer styles of wrestling, have banned things like unnecessary weapons shots to the head, and while the Wellness Policy has its share of detractors, tales of rampant recreational drug use are nothing like we used to hear from stars of the 1980s and 1990s.
Recently, John Cena appeared on The Playback Podcast, and a conversation about the movie The Wrestler understandably led to a conversation about wrestlers dying young. Cena believes that the wrestlers who pass away before their time can owe that to “personal choice,” by which he means lifestyle decisions. (Drugs. He means drugs.)
He also made sure to praise WWE for their current focus on wrestler health and safety, but as always, you can never accuse Cena of not having a well-thought-out answer. Never. (Transcript via Wrestling Inc.)
“I think it all comes down to personal choice. You look at choices in the entertainment industry, there are great entertainers that we lose too soon all because it comes down to personal choice, so it’s not necessarily the life. There are a lot of guys that did all those dates on the road and they’re fine. And there are a lot of guys who lived like there was no tomorrow and guess what: when you do that there’s no tomorrow. Like, that stuff catches up with you plain and simple, so it’s again, not [relegated] to a profession.
“What I admire about the WWE nowadays is that even though the way we are set up, as independent contractors, they take care of us as if we are family. They offer financial assistance, onsite healthcare if you get injured. We get injury pay now. They offer secondary education. They offer a second language program. The depth that they go to make sure we are protected is … they don’t need to do that and they do it anyway. It’s a great testament to how much they care about their current talent and talent of life after the [pro wrestling] business.”
When talking about The Wrestler, Cena talked about how the lifestyle of being on the road so often without a break (particularly in the 1980s) can “institutionalize” someone to that lifestyle, which is also of course a huge factor in those “personal choices” he’s referring to. There’s a whole lot of sense to what he’s saying, even if there’s a lot of company line in there. John Cena: maybe not the realest guy in the room, but always the most measured.
