Today Was An Interesting Day

So before I get started I'd like to welcome everyone to the relaunch of my blog, now going as Thoughts From My Mom's Basement. I thought about what Professor Steiner said, and after thinking about letting my geek flag fly and reading Emily's critique where she said that my pizza theme was lost, I decided to go with what I know, being so far outside the mainstream in my own little corner of geekdom! Remember folks, geek is the new cool, so this place is for the cool kids!

So, onto today. It was a very sad and yet interesting day. As you now know, I am a wrestling fan and today the world of wrestling lost a great bright young star in Larry Sweeney. Sweeney (real name Alex Whybrow) hung himself at a wrestling school sometime last night or early this morning. He battled depression and bipolar disorder for his entire life after having a documented breakdown in 2009. He was 29 years old, and I almost feel bad using the term old here.

Also today, Edge (real name Adam Copeland), a wrestler with the WWE for 15 years was forced into retirement at the age of 37. Copeland was suffering from symptoms of nueropraxia, a disorder in the nervous tissue causing loss of motor skills. Had Copeland continued to wrestle he would be risking paralysis or even death.

Of course, this summer marks the 4 year mark since the infamous Chris Benoit murder suicides, a case so horrifying that it caused pro wrestling to look itself in the mirrior and make some big changes in a big way. I feel as if today's news of the eaath of LArry Sweeney may be another one of those wake-up messages.

So, you may be asking what these two stories have to do with anything? Well, it's actually quite simple. The fact of the matter is that these entertainers go out nearly 300 days a year and put life and limb on the line and don't even have any kind of unionizing body to grant equal rights to all wrestlers. Now, at the highest levels, like the WWE, this is not a problem. The company is large enough to get the help and services their employees need to stay in good shape.

The people a lack of a union hurts is those 'weekend warriors' the wrestlers on the independent scene trying to make a living and possibly get discovered by the bigger companies. The money is just not there to allow them to get some of the help that they may need. More often it is the coverage they get through whatever their 'dayjob' is that gets them the health benefits that they use and even some will not cover some wrestlers due to the amount of pre-existing conditions in their life.

Therefore what I suggest is this, a move toward some kind of independent wrestlers union. I don't know the logistics of the move, I don't know the cost, but I know the benefits. Less lives like Larry Sweeney lost at a young age.