Raw Is Not War

Posted by Steve Cook on 10.29.2009

I seem to have struck some nerves with comments in my recent wrestling news column. Allow me to explain myself further.

It's been a long time since I set foot over here, but I've always believed that you should only open your mouth if you have something of importance to say. Failing that, sometimes you need a chance to clarify something you previously said. My news column in the Wrestling Zone this week falls into that category. Recent events have caused political matters to be topics of discussion for wrestling writers, and since I'm well-studied in both wrestling & politics, I can get going on quite the rant when the situation merits. Sometimes people get really unhappy when I do that, but I feel that if I explain my statement in Wednesday's column in greater detail, it will be more easily understood.

Allow me to set the stage for those of you who might not read about the pro wrestling…former WWE CEO Linda McMahon is running for one of Connecticut's seats in the U.S. Senate. The election is to be held next year, but the fallout of her decision is already being felt on the WWE product. In an attempt to not reflect badly on their former CEO and hurt her chances for election, WWE has made several changes to their television presentation. The one change that has most dramatically altered their wrestling matches and has generated the most discussion amongst wrestling fans has been their forbidding their wrestlers to bleed during their matches.

Now, I can get behind the idea that grown men cutting themselves on the forehead with a razorblade is something that should be phased out of professional wrestling. WWE has taken it to extreme levels though…on Sunday's Bragging Rights pay-per-view telecast, John Cena was busted open during a match with Randy Orton. Knowing Cena to be one of WWE's most reliable people in and out of the ring, I can say that it didn't happen on purpose. Vince McMahon sent people down to ringside to rub Vaseline on the cut so nobody could get offended by the blood and use it against Linda in her campaign. Yes, that was actually the reason. So several minutes later, Randy Orton decided that he wanted to incinerate John Cena with pyrotechnics. It didn't happen, but the intent was there. Now, I could be completely insane on this point, but wouldn't somebody getting blown up with explosives be a lot more offensive than somebody getting cut open?

Granted, I'm the wrong person to ask because I don't get easily offended. Some people were offended by how I discussed the incident in my column, which I will re-create below:

So John Cena got busted open during the Iron Man match at Bragging Rights, right? Apparently they went all UFC with it and had people put some Vaseline on Cena's face to stop the bleeding, which is somewhat bizarre by wrestling standards. The reason they did this, I'm told, is that certain people thought that people would use Cena's bleeding against Linda McMahon in her upcoming Senate election. OK…um, wouldn't people be more offended by Randy Orton trying to blow Cena up with explosives coming up through the stage? That would be a hell of a lot more dangerous than a little blood from where I sit."

So far, so good. But then I decided I wanted to take a shot at Linda's political opposition within her party, who I feel would be completely hypocritical if they were to attack her based on violence in WWE because…well, they've created a lot of violence themselves.

"Then again, Linda's running as a Republican, and Republicans have no problems with blowing people up if the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan are any indication. As long as they don't have to see it, they really don't give a damn. But a little blood…oh my goodness, oh my gracious! That damn WWE woman's gotta be stopped! Please."

The problems people had with this statement were two-fold: Some thought it was bashing the Republicans, and they didn't like it because they're Republicans. Well, if it makes them feel any better. I'm not too thrilled with the fact that our Nobel Peace Prize winning President is probably going to send more troops into Afghanistan, endanger more American lives and create more violence in an already dangerous part of the world. I'm opposed to how the Democrats have handled the issue as well, but didn't mention them in the statement because Linda hasn't made it past the primary election and isn't yet running against a Democratic opponent. Frankly, I'll be surprised if she makes it that far.

Some people thought it was bashing the troops. It wasn't. I respect the troops and appreciate that they serve so others won't have to. Nothing in my statement was directly attacking the troops…my opposition to the wars in which they fight doesn't mean that I want them to fail. I want them to come home safely to their families and not have their lives cut short before they even come close to reaching their prime. I know that this is a sensitive topic for people in our military, and I don't mean to degrade their

I'm anti-war. Like many young boys I grew up all interested in wars and fighting and other things of that nature. My bookshelf is full with more American History & Civil War books than you can shake a stick at. I love the history of war…it fascinates me to read about it to this day. But reading about it is all I want to do. I want war to be a thing of the past, something we read about in history books and learn about so we don't repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. Yes, I'm aware that there are a lot of dangerous people out there, people who hate America and want to see us fail. I don't think attacking their countries and killing many of their fellow countrymen is going to make that go away. I think there are better ways to conduct foreign policy than, as I put in the column, blowing people up.

And I think it's hypocritical for people to bash WWE for the stimulated violence they produce on their television shows while advocating that the United States go to war with other countries…preferably somewhere where we won't have to see it. I think it's hypocritical for politicians to go after mixed martial-arts, boxing and other forms of sporting violence for the product they display and condemn their sport as "human cockfighting" when they're always among the first in line to support going to war for almost any reason. The reason I made the comparison between WWE violence and war is because I think it's fairly obvious that the violence that has gone on in Afghanistan, Iraq and countless other places is a lot more brutal and offensive than the pre-determined violence we watch on television for a laugh.

I am not opposing the troops. I oppose the people who send them into wars. I did a term paper back in 2002 while I was in college on whether I felt there was a just cause for going into war with Iraq. I didn't think there was, but obviously people much more powerful than me felt otherwise. (To be fair, they had access to much more information than I did.) I didn't sit in front of my television cursing these people and hoping that the military would come up short in Iraq. I hoped that the troops would win, the war would be short, and they would come home sooner rather than later. When the war wasn't short, people were saying that we would never really win, and troops weren't coming home sooner rather than later…I wasn't happy about it.

And I'm still not happy about it.

So to those who feel that my comments may have been directed towards our military and didn't appreciate it, I apologize and say that it was not my intent. I will always respect the people who serve in our military, even if I myself do not have the stomach for war and do not agree with the reasons our government conducts it. I could have probably used better words to express my viewpoint, and Rush Limbaugh Jr. will probably use them against me someday decades from now, but I'll have to deal with that later.

To those who were more concerned about my bashing Republican politicians than anything concerning the troops and the war…I don't really apologize, but I will say that Democrats aren't doing much better on that front.

Now let's hope that politics stays out of wrestling, and vice-versa.