wrestling / Columns
Column of Honor: 10.29.11: We Don’t Need To Know
Welcome to the Column. So yeah…one column off turned into two columns off, sorry about that folks. There are several reasons for the extended time off aside from the fantastic time that was Comic-Con (where my cousin and I had our picture taken with none other than Stan “The Man” Lee) and for why this week’s column is abbreviated.
For one, some personal health matters involving family and friends (and friends who are my family) came up between then and now, which actually inspired some of what I’ve written below. No details, other than to say it was not my own health situation, but it was very scary for a while but has now righted itself out. However, for a while I was responsible for some things and writing this column fell by the wayside as a result. Combine that with both not really “feeling it” about professional wrestling, in particular the mainstream promotions but also at some points in the past three weeks about ROH and a nasty case of writer’s block in the middle of it all and well, that’s a bad combination.
So as I said, this week’s column is abbreviated-just the main feature (but it should be an intriguing one that hopefully spurs some discussion). I’m going to try and get a “catch-up” column done for later in the week.
The wrestling world received a surprise last week with the announcement that Nigel McGuinness would be returning to the ring, not just one time, but for several matches on what is being billed as a “Nigel McGuinness Retirement Tour” by the no less than the man himself.
McGuinness has not wrestled in a match for the past two years due to unspecified medical reasons, not much of which is known about. His last matches were for TNA / Impact Wrestling under the moniker Desmond Wolfe, as that promotion had set up him and Brutus Magnus as the London Brawling tag team. However, Nigel was put on the shelf by TNA, seemingly disappearing into the ether. Fans constantly asked his whereabouts and when he might return. Finally, Nigel did resurface on TNA programming for their Xplosion show, where he was named to be the commissioner and put in charge of a tournament where the winner received a title shot of his choosing. However, he was dropped from television just as quickly as his return and then given his release from the promotion. The depature opened the door for Nigel’s return to Ring of Honor, the venue of his greatest success, where he spent eighteen months as the ROH Heavyweight Champion from 2007-2008 and dominated the main event scene with a mix of his egotistical heel role and an impressive high impact style that ultimately had too many detrimental physical consequences.
Now several wrestling promotions have announced McGuinness’ in-ring return to professional wrestling action—actual matches, actual physical involvement. He will wrestle for 2CW on November 12th, 2011 against current high profile independent / ROH wrestler Eddie Edwards. He will then wrestle the next night in Hamilton, Ohio for Heartland Championship Wrestling (where he got his start) against Chad Collyer (whom was an early wrestling opponent for Nigel back in 2005 on the independent scene and in his getting started in ROH). Another date was announced for Preston City Wrestling in Preston, England on December 3rd. More announcements are forthcoming on the “Nigel McGuinness Retirement Tour”. There is some humor to that title, considering the perpetual irony of wrestlers and retirements and their never sticking to it. As well, most would have thought Nigel was retired years ago and if anything, this feels more like a new beginning than an ending. However, McGuiness himself has stated that this is his last run and a way to wind up his career full circle.
In addition to those matches, ROH had hinted that Nigel might return to action eventually in 2012 with a recent angle on their television show where he ran in to even the odds in a potential fight between The House of Truth (Roderick Strong, Michael Elgin and manager Truth Martini) and Eddie Edwards. Nigel walked into the ring and chose Edwards’ side, but the situation never became physical and The House of Truth eventually backed down. A follow-up on the ROH website indicated that Nigel, in the role of color commentator (which he was brought back to do for ROH in August) would not be allowed to get physically involved in wrestling action so long as he was under commentator contract. However, that seems more like the “out” to get him back eventually into matches for the company rather than a prohibitive action, though the plan for now seems to be that he will continue to provide color commentary for the Sinclair Broadcast Group television show.
These announcements have once again stirred up the buzz about McGuinness and the questions about his health. The “what” (as in, what was wrong?), the “how” (as in, how can he wrestle now after all this time when he couldn’t before?) and the “why” (as in, why now?) loom large over the news.
An awful lot has been speculated about the medical reasons why Nigel had been stopped cold in his tracks as TNA, though the answer has never been revealed publically. No one stepped forward to say specifically what happened that caused Nigel to stop wrestling, that caused WWE to pass on him and that caused TNA (eventually) to make him stop wrestling and eventually release him.
Nigel has suffered serious injuries such as concussions and bicep tears in the past, but these were not the reasons why he was taken off TNA television. The lack of clarity and lack of answers is a shock in a day and age of internet exposure and countless websites devoted to coverage of professional wrestling, where so much of what was once hidden now has the light shining on it so brightly. There are many spoilers about the wrestling shows and few real surprises anymore. Nigel McGuiness’ health situation and what kept him away from the ring is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries.
Those answers are still not forthcoming. However, maybe that is a good thing. Maybe they shouldn’t be revealed to the public.
In a world where private information is so readily available online and everyone knows every little detail about celebrities and even wannabe D-Listers’ professional and personal lives, the one absolute that should hold tight is an individuals’ right to privacy concerning their health and physical well-being.
At the core of medical practice in the United States is the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) Privacy Rule, which is a patient’s right to privacy concerning his or her personal and particular medical diagnoses. It is the very reason why doctor’s cannot disclose or discuss medical information to anyone else besides immediate family or a health proxy (while, the hhs.gov notes that it is “balanced so that it permits the disclosure of personal health information needed for patient care and other important purposes”, i.e. the actual medical treatment process). It is the very reason why wrestling fans should not expect to be able to pry into the very personal details of the wrestlers’ lives. It is a very clear line in the sand where access to information about wrestlers should stop, but very often doesn’t, either through the passing along of rumors and information until it is corroborated or by the patient’s very own choosing (more on that in a moment).
Think about it in the reverse—when wrestling fans buy a ticket to a show, no one gives us a physical examination or takes our health history before entering the building. We are not asked invasive questions about our history of drug use (or abuse), our sex life (lets refrain from the obvious wrestling fan stereotype jokes), or physical or mental / emotional issues. It is not broadcast on the internet that ticket holder 1043 has HIV or cancer or even merely a sprained ankle. The wrestlers have never expressed a desire to know about the health status of wrestling fans in the building—that very notion seems ludicrous.
If anyone did ask those personal questions, the response to the questioner would probably not be so kind. Therefore, why is it that wrestling fans expect to be provided answers about Nigel McGuinness’s situation, or any other wrestlers? Why is it that when we don’t get those answers, we start speculation without foundation about these situations? Maybe the answer to that is simply the same reason why any rumors begin and spread in the first place, but that simply isn’t fair, right or justified to those involved in the situation.
When it comes to medical issues, we, the wrestling fans, don’t need to know and don’t have the explicit right to know about what is going on with the professional wrestlers we watch on a daily basis. We are not entitled to know every detail about a wrestler’s medical health, even if it’s something serious. That we often do find out about both minor injuries and personal but terrible health situations (such as the recent possible heart attack or stroke of Barry Windham and Killer Karl Cox) does not connote that we are guaranteed the inalienable right to find out about every wrestler’s health. If anything, that knowledge is a by-product of being hooked into certain news feeders, whether it is insider websites and newsletters or social media organizations, but it is more of a perk and a privilege than a certain right and guarantee to know.
Think about how the general public knows every move Lindsay Lohan and other celebrities of her ilk make in and out of the courtrooms, in and out of rehab. There is some sickening fascination involved in discovering and vicariously living through every lurid detail as tabloid journalism chases down and reports these stories. Perhaps that extreme kind of sensationalism is not what is happening here within the wrestling industry, but there are flickers of it which are both disturbing and sad.
Think about how many health condition situations that should be private are actually known publically because it’s been reported or exposed—from the minor issues like when wrestlers experience stingers or sprains to major revelations such as “Dr. Death” Steve Williams’ multiple battles with cancer or Scott Hall’s battles with alcoholism.
The former feels like a sideline or injury report for NFL games or other sports-the minutiae of who got hurt when and whether or not it will affect their future in-ring time. In some ways, fans shouldn’t even expect to know that much about the world of professional wrestling, but news and leaks have advanced so far due to the internet exposure, newsletters and social media that more minor issues such as those are bound to become exposed and revealed. The latter, though, is a situation with far more gravity and degree of severity.
Of course, sometimes wrestlers bring the attention non themselves, even choosing to go forward and revealing these issues to the public. Some wrestlers do it for the attention and to bring some knowledge to light about a particular medical issue; some do it for the sympathy; some just want the knowledge out there to help inform their brother wrestlers. “Dr. Death” made his battle with cancer very public and even wrote a book about the experience. Jeff and Matt Hardy’s downward spirals over the past two years became perverse entertainment, but then dwindled into sympathy, then sadness, then comedy and then finally apathy among the wrestling fan base. In particular, Hardy’s career suicide has been awful to watch, but not surprising giving the history of wrestling downfalls and celebrity falls from grace in the past in general. In this case it was mostly his doing with the usage of YouTube videos and Twitter posts that brought fans close, perhaps too close, to knowing their “real selves” and what they were like off-screen.
Of course, in the case of physical, mental and emotional fitness to perform, it is fair for the wrestling company itself to know the particulars. These companies have to know if one of their employees has a bum ticker, a torn MCL or perhaps a blood disease. They need to provide a safe working environment for the others in their employ and ensure as much as possible that it is safe to perform in their rings, both for the wrestler with the medical condition and their possible in-ring partners / opponents. At the core of that matter lays the responsibility of the wrestler to disclose and the employer to discover the issue at-hand and work with their men to ensure proper treatment both medically and professionally. If one thinks about it that is probably the reason why WWE released McGuinness from his contract in the first place back in 2009 and why TNA did the same even though they picked him up and used him for a while before eventually putting him on the shelf and then releasing him.
However, Nigel McGuinness obviously chose to keep the reasons and the information about these situations private and that should have been respected. Instead, every yahoo on the internet threw in their two cents about what mystery illness it was that kept him away from the ring.
Now Nigel McGuiness is back wrestling, at least a few matches. Is it safe for him to wrestle again? Well, it’s not up to anyone else but McGuinness, his doctors and the wrestling companies that hire him to decide that much. It should be enough that McGuinness has chosen, with whatever information and doctor’s advice he had been given, that it is okay to wrestle in the ring once again. It should be enough that the wrestlers who have been chosen to participate in these matches have accepted the booking and have decided they want to wrestle against Nigel. It should be enough to celebrate the fact that we get the privilege of watching one of the better independent wrestlers of the past ten years step back in the ring and perform. It should be enough that we don’t question the health status, but rather just hope for his continued health and safety in the ring when he does wrestle these matches. It should be enough to hope that Nigel gets out of this return whatever fulfillment he is looking for, whether it’s a catharsis of the past several years of his life or even just to have some fun.
It doesn’t take a public revelation about the circumstances surrounding Nigel’s return to accept or celebrate that he is returning. Whether short-term or for a longer stay, this is something most of his fans and most followers of professional wrestling did not think could or would ever happen, but it is happening. It should be enough—but for some, it won’t be.
Twitter me at: http://twitter.com/AriBerenstein.
-Jack Stevenson reviews Glory By Honor VI Night One with the debut of Mitsuhara Misawa on U.S. soil for ROH.
-T.J. Hawke wrote about this past week’s ROH Sinclair TV featuring TV Champion Jay Lethal defending against Mike Bennett. Jeremy Thomas brings you The Wrestling 4R’s about that show.
-T.J. has been a workhorse at 411Mania. Check out his (kayfabe-centric) interview with Dasher Hatfield, part one of an epic sit-down with Kevin Steen, Nigel McGuinness and he also has reviews of Driven 2007 with Nigel McGuinness vs. Bryan Danielson for the number one contendership to the ROH World Title (and my 2007 Match of the Year choice) and KENTA / Danielson as a bonus on the DVD, along with The ROH Best in the World Koch Compilation DVD (which if you can find it is absolutely worth the purchase).
Thanks for reading everyone. I’ll be making an appearance soon for Pro Wrestling Ponderings and the “Podcast of Honor” with Chris GST and Matt Waters, which I’ll link to on my Twitter when it drops. See you next time.
–Ari–
