EDITORIALS

A better suggestion

No extra ambulances needed

IN THE last few years, according to those who keep count of these things, three people in Arkansas have died during or after “professional” wrestling events. That is, not real wrestling. The real kind of wrestling you can find on high school and college campuses, where young people take to the mat and try to pin each other-with a referee or coach keeping things in line. It’s a fine sport that combines speed, agility, strength and smarts. And sportsmanship. It’s so well-respected a sport that colleges offer wrestling scholarships and the Olympics include a wrestling competition.

(Oh, but the howling when the International Olympic Committee tried to do away with wrestling in the summer Olympics! That “idea,” batted about in 2012, lasted about as long as it deserved.Which wasn’t very.)

The story in Arkansas’ Newspaper last Thursday had nothing to do with wrestling. It was about “professional” wrestling. And the scare quotes are fair warning. Because the only professional thing about those spectacles is that the stars get paid. Just as in the rest of showbiz.

You’ve seen the commercials on all-too-frequent occasion. Usually the ads run on TV late at night, when folks with any sense, or at least their kids, are in bed. Grown men in tights or costumes growl, howl and throw chairs at one another. Sometimes they’ll hurl each other out of the ring and onto various objects or people. Or pretend to. That is, if they’re even allowed out of the ring. Sometimes they’re put in a cage for show purposes only, like any other wild animal.The high-decibel commercials for this “sport” are usually accompanied by a synthetic-sounding voice-over delivered by a narrator/instigator/ringmaster:

YOU’LL PAY FOR THE WHOLE SEAT BUT YOU’LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!

Here we thought that when these shows came to Arkansas, they were limited to Verizon Arena in downtown North Little Rock. You know, Smackdown or IMPACT or whatever’s the next name some promoter comes up with. Imagine our surprise to learn that these things go on all over.

Thursday’s paper said the state’s Athletic Commission is proposing new rules that would require an ambulance be present at any of these freak shows. One wrestler who called himself “Real Deal” Adrian Steel died en route to a hospital in 2011. He collapsed in Harrison, Ark., even before the show started. Two others died at Alma and West Memphis, but officials said details were lacking because the events were “unsanctioned.”

Which brings up at least a couple of questions:

(1) Arkansas sanctions off-(East) Broadway professional wrestling?

(2) And when the state does, there hasn’t been a requirement that ambulances be in attendance before now?

Here’s an idea. And it doesn’t require a single additional ambulance: Get rid of this nonsense.

JUST BECAUSE other states allow great big men to jump 10 or more feet in the air onto an opponent’s neck doesn’t mean Arkansas has to. It’s a lesson most of us learn from our mothers early on: If Joey jumps off a bridge, are you going to do the same thing?

The authority in this matter and in this state, the Arkansas State Athletic Commission, is supposed to regulate what are called Combative Sports. That is, those non-high school or college sports that involve “contact between at least two competitors where the outcome is likely to be injury.”

Think boxing, kick-boxing, cage fighting, mixed martial arts. Boxing-aka the Sweet Science-has been around long enough to have acquired some standing, however suspect, and however close it comes to the line separating competition from mayhem. Other so-called sports not only approach that line, they step all over it, spill blood on it, and then ignore it completely. Let’s do away with all of them.

Yes, some will argue that this dangerous foolishness is part of Arkansas’ culture. The talented Bob Lancaster once wrote a hilarious book about it in Buddy Portis style; it’s called Going Down for Gum Wrappers. And still worth reading. But art can only do so much to justify barbarism. Cockfighting was once part of Arkansas’ culture, too. But sometimes people do evolve.

Now’s a good time to do just that.

Editorial, Pages 10 on 02/10/2014

Upcoming Events