Into the Indies 04.12.11: Goodbye, Larry Sweeney

This really hasn’t been a great thirty days.

It started off with the historically destructive earthquake and tsunami that left many people dead and countless more homeless in Japan. Then, this past Saturday night, Scott Hall showed up at a pro wrestling show in such a state that he had to be literally carried out to the ring in order to perform, after which he was quickly hospitalized. Also hospitalized over the weekend was lucha libre star Perro Aguayo, Jr., who at age 31 was reportedly placed in the ICU on Friday evening with abdominal pain, after which a malignant tumor was discovered in his stomach.

Of course, we wish the best to Hall, to Aguyao, and to everybody who has been affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Unfortunately, one other person has met with some ill fortune, but it’s a little bit too late for him.

The vast majority of you reading this are probably already aware that, just yesterday, it was announced that independent pro wrestler/manager “Sweet n Sour” Larry Sweeney had been found dead. Sweeney, who was twenty-nine years of age, was found dead at a wrestling school in Louisiana, where he had apparently hung himself on a ring post.

I’m not going to pretend that I knew Larry Sweeney personally or that I was his best friend, because I didn’t and I wasn’t. However, even after having seen numerous professional wrestling deaths over the years, there was something about this one that hit me particularly hard.

A big part of it has to do with the fact that this man was ridiculously talented and his talent never quite got showcased on a stage big enough to have allowed him to live up to his full potential. There’s a lot of hyperbole out there about independent wrestlers. There is a sub-set of wrestling fans who claim that men like Davey Richards or Eddie Edwards could be millionaires or the biggest stars in the professional wrestling industry if only they were given the right television exposure. As much as I respect what Richards and Edwards do on their level, I think that anybody who looks at such a claim objectively would realize it’s a load of B.S. But, if there was anybody on the independent circuit who legitimately did have the ability to take what he was doing on the indies and make a significant wad of cash off of it on the national stage, it was Sweeney. The man could talk like few other wrestlers in the U.S. these days, and, though he may not have necessarily had the flashiest wrestling style, his fundamentals were beyond sound and he was more charismatic than all but the biggest stars that currently reside on the WWE roster.

However, that’s not the biggest thing that bothers me about Sweeney’s passing. The biggest thing that bothers me about Sweeney’s passing is that, unfortunately, because of the manner in which he passed away, people are going to minimize his accomplishments and his talent and will also claim that he is less deserving of our sympathy. I’ve already read some of it. “Suicide is the act of a coward,” they say. “Suicide is the most selfish thing that a person can do.” “He’s burning in hell because the Bible says that you should not take your own life.” People are actually saying these things, less than twenty-four hours after Sweeney’s body was found, as opposed to wishing his friends and family well, as opposed to remembering the entertaining moments that he gave us, as opposed to taking just one moment to do something other than judging.

To those individuals, I would like to offer a simple message: As has been widely reported in the wake of his death, Sweeney suffered from bi-polar disorder. Bi-polar disorder is a disease. A real, legitimate, verifiable disease, diagnosed and treated by medical professionals who know far more about the human mind and body than you and I ever will. If somebody were in his or her right mind and took his or her own life, I would understand you passing judgment. However, when an individual suffers from this disease and takes his or her life as a consequence of this disease, that person is not in his or her right mind. Blaming an individual for committing suicide because he or she is bi-polar is like blaming a cancer patient for succumbing from cancer. You don’t blame the individual. You blame the disease.

I feel horrible that there are people who exist that require me to say the above, especially those who purport to take the moral high ground by hiding behind their supposed religious beliefs. This shouldn’t be their time.

This should be a time where everybody takes a minute, hugs the people who are close to them, thanks their lucky stars that they are both physically and mentally healthy, and takes a moment to remember the entertaining moments that Larry Sweeney gave to us as wrestling fans.

Twelve large, brother.