After last month’s Superstar Billy Graham story in the Courant that was highly critical of former WWE CEO Linda McMahon and her husband Vince, it seems that more former wrestlers are starting to go public with their grievances about the WWE’s business practices.
Former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura made headlines last week by saying that the WWE violated the law by paying wrestlers as independent contractors instead of as employees:
“How can you be an independent contractor when you’re told when to wrestle, who to wrestle, and you can’t wrestle for another promotion?” Ventura said. He added that he believes WWE CEO Vince McMahon classifies wrestlers this way to avoid paying social security.
Yesterday the Living Legend Bruno Sammartino put in his two cents with the Miami Herald in comments that sounded remarkably familiar to Graham’s in the Courant:
I was appalled with the drugs going on and the steroids. I became very disillusioned. Then I started seeing other changes. The language started getting loose and had all this vulgarity. There was the beautiful looking girls but always wearing these skimpy things. I just became angered and saddened to see the business I spent 22 years in take this direction.
These types of stories have seemed to follow the WWE for years, but it remains to be seen what, if any, impact these allegations will have on the McMahon for Senate campaign.
It is true that most people aren’t paying attention to the Senate race yet. But every time the WWE hires a new wrestler from the pages of Playboy or another wrestler comes out of the woodwork, it gives Mrs. McMahon’s political opponents another talking point.
3 responses so far ↓
“I just became angered and saddened to see the business I spent 22 years in take this direction.”
Right. Because until then pro wrestling had always had a certain — oh, I don’t know, gravitas, maybe? A kind of academic, even Solomonic quality to it that attracted the finer qualities in a man.
It’s always a shame to see a cornerstone of the business and social network — the local pimp, the pawnbroker, Vinny the loan shark — somehow start down the wrong path.
I feel deeply for these intellectual heavyweights who were — despite being polymaths — somehow hoodwinked by these nefarious McMahons.
I just don’t see how the general public is going to hear there was “steroid use” in wrestling and suddenly be enraged by such things.
The razor blades are news to me – and do sound bad – but I recall (maybe a decade ago) hearing the news that WWF had to “admit” to the courts (or maybe the insurance companies??) that it was all acting. All I recall of my reaction upon reading of the “admission” was a chuckle… “oh, really… shocking!”
Funny how Ventura had no problem collecting a paycheck from WWE last month when he needed to promote his new TV show…
http://www.wrestleview.com/news2009/1258442760.php
Sammartino and Graham are from very different generations. It’s no surprise that they take issue with the racy nature of pro wrestling. In their day, they could wrestle the same match with the same guy in 15 different territories and there was no internet to spoil the action. They made a living in a very simple business in a very simple era.
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