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Safety factors in Professional Wrestling

In the sport of professional wrestling most people do not understand the dangers that exist while professional wrestlers compete in their matches. Daniel, an Indy wrestler who goes by the name of Delicious Danny Darling has said, "In professional wrestling we have certain jobs to do. One is to entertain the fans as best as we can and the other is safety. You have to cooperate or someone will get hurt. There are certain guard structures that we have to follow to make sure that a fan is not hurt as well" (Bumgardner). In the sport of professional wrestling today, there are more precautions and safety measures taken in order to ensure that both competitors will be able to walk away from the ring after the bell has rung. These factors vary depending on how one looks at the sport of professional wrestling, there are the obvious factors such as padding, ropes, and support structures and then the not so obvious factors that only the wrestlers themselves are aware of such as cooperation between one another.

Most people consider wrestling to be fake but if one were ask the wrestlers themselves they will tell you otherwise. Just ask Ivan Koloff, his answer would be, "If you stop and think about it, it's like Evil Knievel, the guy that takes a motorcycle and flies over twenty cars. He knows ahead of time what he's going to do and he practices it ahead of time and that's what they do at wrestling shows. We don't dare call Evil Knievel fake because he broke every bone in his body and definitely not wrestling either because of all the injuries and even today how wrestling is more high risk" (Koloff). However that only touches the subject as more explanation is needed in order to fully understand all of the factors that ensure each wrestler is safe during their match.

             Plenty of professional wrestlers can list off the top of their head the main factors that keep them safe while they are doing what they love to do which is wrestle, perform, and entertain the crowd. Ivan Koloff has stated, "Turnbuckle pads, ropes, cooperation between athletes, padding, and support structures. All of those things and the mechanics of it as far as the ring ropes and all of that are definitely important for safety. I've had rings where they collapse on me and where the rope broke before and it can not only be embarrassing but also dangerous to your health as far as injuries are concerned" (Koloff). The only problem in the sport of professional wrestling is that when the wrestlers perform moves they must work together. Though fans may say it is fake due to this cooperation, the wrestlers have a different opinion. In The Professional Wrestlers Workout and Instructional Guide by Harley Race, Lou Thesz, and Ricky Steamboat, they write, "The moves the wrestlers do to each other don't hurt as badly as the wrestlers pretend they do, but they're still no picnic. And the wrestlers really are, to varying degrees, athletes who are performing difficult stunts" (Race et al 116). Not only do the athletes have to know what the other is going to do, they are only informed of what the finish will be. "Though the results are always predetermined, what happens in the match is not always perfectly scripted ahead of time. Good wrestlers can improvise most of what happens during the match. Some matches are choreographed and practiced move by move ahead of time, but most just have the outcome and some of the major happenings decided in advance" (So You Wanna).

Some fans wonder how the factors actually help keep the athletes safe. Ivan Koloff says, "Back in my day you had a couple policeman walking with you because you had so many angry people especially if you're the bad guy and they're hitting you, they're punching you and they even try to fist fight some of the wrestlers because back in those days people took it seriously and if they didn't like you, they'd let you know it" (Koloff). In the sport of professional wrestling there are plenty of dangers and knowing about the business, moves, and of course training is important. In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Professional Wrestling, Lou Albano writes, "How to land punches, how to telegraph, and the way you slam your foot when you 'hit' your opponent, so that it sounds like you did something; how to fall, how to properly execute wrestling moves and make them look real. If you tried to perform a "pile driver" you'd break someone's neck! You have to hold the man higher than your knees, so that the force of the drop is on your knees and not his head" (Albano et al 156). Not only did some of these factors protect the athletes but they also protected the fans. "They had a barrier around the ring that designated the fans not to come over that, because over that and inside the ring was the wrestlers' domain and if you came in there you were either going to be arrested or knocked out by a wrestler. Wrestlers looked for any fans coming between the ropes and it was like open field day for us because we would try and catch them before they got through", stated Ivan Koloff in a recent interview. (Koloff)

            The safety factors in professional wrestling are always a great thing to have but what would happen if the factors were not present? In a recent interview Ivan Koloff said, "In my book I described some of the incidents as far as fighting to and from the ring. I've had riots where they threw chairs at the ring. I've had two shoulders broken, a torn bicep, a torn tricep, surgery on my right knee, my left ankle has been broken at least three times or more, and ruptured disks in my back" (Koloff). Those injuries can heal, but what if they suffer an injury that can't be healed? A good example is professional wrestler Mick Foley. In The Professional Wrestlers Workout and Instructional Guide, Harley Race mentions that, "Ring ropes can cause major injuries if too loose or too tight. An accident led to Mick Foley losing a sizeable portion of his right ear in March 1994 during a match against Leon "Vader" White while both were in World Championship Wrestling. Foley tried to perform a hangman. The ropes had too much tension leading to Foley suffering major damage to both ears. Foley's right ear was torn completely off while his left was badly damaged and needed 12 stitches to repair" (Race et al 33). When wrestlers are hit with a weapon it is an illusion, however if wrestlers don't work together injuries could occur. Lance Evers supports this idea, "Unfortunately guys are expected to take chair shots to the head or dangerous bumps,' said Evers, who wrestled under the name Lance Storm (Dahlberg). "And a lot of guys want to perform and worry about the consequences later.' Mick 'Mankind' Foley, in his infamous Royal Rumble match with The Rock in 1999 was briefly knocked unconscious while being hit 11 times in the head with the business end of a folding chair." (Dahlberg). "Despite being called fake, wrestling is very dangerous and sometimes the wrestlers suffer severe injuries" (Cohen).

            Safety factors have been present for a long time ever since professional wrestling began. In The Buzz on Professional Wrestling, Keith implies that, "There is no point in the history of wrestling where you can nostalgically look back and say that 'it wasn't fake', it was always predetermined, but it used to be much more purely athletic and lacking in story lines, so the illusion of realism was easier to create" (Keith et al 156). In order to find out, people would have to ask a past professional wrestler such as Ivan Koloff, who reveals, "I've wrestled in rings back in the 70s in the WWWF and in the 60s and 70s they were boxing rings and they were 24 ft rings and most rings today are 18 ft. They were real hard and they had 4 ropes instead of 3 and you had to get used to that. The ropes weren't as tight as today where they are made of cable" (Koloff).

            These safety factors have evolved for many different reasons. Ivan Koloff stated, "One of the reasons I quit was because they were changing it from where the match was left up to the wrestlers to more of a 'do this/do that' and I guess I wasn't a good enough actor and I don't like the concept of being told what to do and what to say" (Koloff). Back in the old days of WWWF and other major promotions from the 1900's the wrestlers didn't have to worry about expressing pain because in those days they didn't do as much acting and cooperating in their matches as they do today in the WWE. Oppliger writes, "Expressions of pain, which are not condoned in violent sports such as hockey and football, are accented as part of the spectacle of wrestling. Instead of suppressing pain, wrestlers have the difficult job of selling the audience on the illusion that each and every contact is devastating. Wrestlers' expressions of pain demonstrate their toughness because they can withstand it and still manage to reserve the match and come back to win" (Oppliger 78).

            Safety factors attempt to protect the athletes from injuries. However they are not always present. Oppliger writes, "One of the most notorious displays of pain tolerance occurred during a Hell in a Cell match between Mankind and the Undertaker. In the match, Foley took a 16-foot fall off the top of the cage (Oppliger 77-78). The commentators for the event, Assael and Mooneyham described the action, 'After being attended by medical personnel for 10 minutes, Mankind rolled off the gurney and once again scaled the cage. He left with a bruised kidney, dislocated jaw, his tongue sticking through a hole in his upper lip, and a tooth sticking out of his nose" (Oppliger 77-78). The safety factors have been around for a long time and have evolved with professional wrestling in order to ensure the safety of the athletes. But do not forget about the endurance of the athletes. "I've had many bumps, bruises, contusions, and a lot of soreness. The soreness went away after a while as I've been doing this for 5 years. So, your body tends to get used to all the physical training that you have to endure" (Bumgardner).

            In conclusion, many factors have impacted the evolution of safety standards in professional wrestling whether it is physical, mental, or emotional. The obvious factors like support structures, security, and ropes along with not so obvious factors like the cooperation of athletes all demonstrate the ways they are kept safe throughout the participation in the sport. Throughout the history of this industry, they have worked to improve the safety of the athletes through enforcing stricter guidelines for telegraphing matches, and implementing new knowledge and technology into the past factors. Whether the factors were implemented back in the 1900s when wrestling was just beginning, up until today where wrestling is still as popular, there have always been factors present to protect the athletes.