Professional Wrestling
Watching a well-built young man take a death-defying fifteen foot leap through a wooden table onto another man's prone body can be a thrilling experience. The fact is if you are a fan of professional wrestling today you have grown used to these stunts as if they weren't as spectacular as they sound.
Professional wrestling's recent boom in popularity began in the late 90's, but unlike it's past success it is not as safe as once was. While all theatrics the stunts have continued to push the limits to levels that have never been seen before. The results of this constant risktaking can be seen in the early retirements of many of pro-wrestling's brightest stars and rookies who never had their chance to shine.
In previous years wrestling was dominated by giant masses of muscle who were not very athletic, but had the looks of Greek gods. To achieve these looks steroid abuse was rampant from the mid 70's to the early 90's. World Wrestling Federation promoter Vince McMahon's infamous steroid trial did little to help wrestli...
Rodrigo Villagomez, in the essay, “The Designer Player,” has an opposite view of steroids in professional sports as Peter F. Martin in the essay, “Destroyed.” He argues that the status of athletes is to be entertainers; therefore, they should use steroids. “Baseball is a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry” (Villagomez 586). Baseball is not just America’s pastime, it is more than that. Players are under pressure to be their best. To achieve their goals, they try out steroids. “Because of this pressure, more professional baseball players are turning to performance-enhancing drugs, specifically steroids, to aid them in their quest for greatness” (Villagomez 587). Athletes play a sport to win even if it means winning by using steroids.
Anabolic steroids have become an epidemic amongst athletes since the 1950's when a Swiss company by the name of Ciba Pharmaceuticals introduced what was to become the most popular anabolic drug for athletes called methandrostenolone. “By this time, the era of the steroid athlete was well underway and world records were being shattered and re-shattered with remarkable regularity.” (Oklobdzija & Weyrauch, 1989, para 3) From then on, there have been many cases throughout professional sports where athletes are reported or caught using anabolic steroids.
Performance enhancing drugs have been a longstanding problem in sports. It not only deteriorates the honesty of the game, but also can have broader social affects that one may not even realize. The use of performance enhancing drugs is especially apparent in Major League Baseball. This problem can be traced back to the 1980’s when baseball was facing one of its first “dark periods”. During the 1980’s Major League Baseball was experiencing a home run drought. Home run totals were down as far as they had been since Babe Ruth, and fans were seemingly becoming bored with the sport. The lack of home runs was a growing concern for players whose salary relied on home run totals. Players needed to find a quick way to boost their power and performance in order to keep the sport alive and to keep bringing in their paychecks. This desire for fame and fortune introduced steroids into Major League Baseball in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Home run totals jumped tremendously during these decades and players were willing to risk being caught using illegal substances in order to shine above the rest. New idols and role models started to sprout up from these outstanding home run statistics and young children started to take notice. This all came tumbling down when these new idols and role models who were making the big bucks and hitting the ball out of the park tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Here lie the affects of a growing social problem in sports. These famed athletes become walking advertisements and promotions for the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports. The influence professional athletes have over aspiring young athletes is very powerful and these roles models make it seem acceptable to use performance ...
The more deaths that were taken place within the industry, the more the industry kept being looked at by the media. The media began to get ahold of medical reports from doctors stating the cause of deaths and how many wrestlers have died from it. Swartz stated “ at least 65 wrestlers died in that time, 25 from heart attacks or other coronary problems -- an extraordinarily high rate for people that young, medical officials say”(Behind fun façade…). Once this all became public to the world wrestling promoters and those who were in high position of power began to take action. It took a high number of tragedies for the company to realize the difference between right from wrong and to understand that the wrestlers are human being as well and do also have a health
Professional athletes, throughout history, have been exalted for their outstanding abilities and achievements in sports. Unfortunately, many athletes have turned to anabolic steroids in order to give them an edge, a boost their athletic performance. Starting with the 1954 World Weightlifting Championships, where the Soviets unexpectedly dominated their lifting classes with the use of steroids, it has become increasingly popular among athletes to cheat with the help of this drug. Although the appeal to steroid use is evident when observing how it increases someone’s athletic abilities, many users fail to consider the detrimental side effects of the drug. Also, in my opinion, athletes should be expected to perform based upon their natural abilities, opposed to abilities enhanced by anabolic steroids. Ultimately, anabolic steroids should continue to be illegal in professional sports due to their major health risks and the unfair advantage they serve players.
In conclusion, wrestlers should not cut weight rapidly or starve themselves. It can lead to psychological damage, damage to the wrestler’s current body, and their future health. They are willing to risk their lives, but we all should want them to rethink before they do such a thing. We need to show our care and compassion for saving a life. Coaches could take the next step and punish a wrestler for loosing weight too fast and make them sit out. Coaches should also educate the team on how to eat nutritiously and safely. All in all, the behavior of wrestlers has improved in the past twenty years, but there is more that everyone can do to help stop the cutting of weight.
The era in sports from the late 90s and into the 2000s has often been nicknamed “The Steroid Age” due to the raging use of anabolic steroids and other PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) by professional athletes. The usage of drugs in sports has never been more prevalent during this time, and many people are making it their goal to put an end to the abuse. Influential athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Clemens, who were once held as the highest role models to the American people, now watch as their legacies are tarnished by accusations of drug use. The American population, and lovers of sports everywhere, have followed in astonishment through recent years as many beloved athletes reveal their dark secrets. As organizations such as the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) and BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) attempt to halt the use of PEDs, both the drug users and their high-end suppliers work diligently to avoid detection. The use of performance enhancing drugs in recent years has proven to be cancerous to the honesty and competition of modern sports. Although some strides have been made over the past few decades, the use of steroids is in full swing in Major League Baseball, The dangerous side effects of the drugs are often overlooked and many do not realize the message this sends to the youth. The support for halting the usage of PEDs is in need of attention or professional sports will face the loss of all progress made through the past two decades in its war on steroids.
A long time ago, back in the olden days, Bruno Sammartino was a superhero who sold out Madison Square Garden countless times. Back in those times, wrestling strictly adhered to kayfabe, so many of the fans believed
Anabolic steroids are a group of muscle building chemicals, which are synthetic versions of the male hormone, testosterone. Developed in the 1930’s, they were prescribed to aid in muscle tissue repair by those who had undergone surgery or had degenerative diseases. Now the patients do not only use them but also athletes. Starting in the 1940’s steroids were introduced into sports. Steroids were one of the main reasons that Russia’s 1952 Olympic weightlifting team came out with pile of medals. With these results other nations thought their competitors should have the same advantage, and the use of steroids spread like wildfire.(NIDA pg 2) But now steroids are illegal to use if not prescribed by a physician, and have been banned by nearly all-athletic organizations, both professional and amateur.
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of an edge over their competitors. They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster. Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition. Athletes found that with anabolic steroids one could become a better athlete twice as fast. Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the sports world did not allow anabolic steroids as well. With the use of steroids no longer permitted athletes began to look for other alternatives. On the rise is two substances called creatine and androstenedione, both of which are sold over the counter. These two performance enhancers have only had minimal testing done on them, excluding the long-term effects, simply because they haven't been around long enough. Creatine and androstenedione have been said to produce results like steroids without the side effects. The truth is they do produce side effects and irregular muscle growth. By banning the use of performance enhancing drugs, just like steroids, sports competition will have a much healthier and fairer environment to participate in.
In the first 20 seconds of the match, I had the first take-down. I was working crossfaces, cheap tilts, and everything else I knew after my takedown. Then, I did what I do best and gave him a swift, hard crossface and cradeled him up. Squeezing with all my strength and might it took about 7 seconds of him being on his back and he was pinned! It took a total of 55 seconds to pin my first opponent at state.
Until the break of 1980, wrestling was primarily a big man's game. Sheer strength and intensity ruled the ring, forcing smaller wrestlers to take the extra leap to make a name for them. The real main-eventers were the Bruno Sammartinos, and the Bob Backlunds, and Killer Kowalskis. Men like Bret"Hitman"Hart, Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat, and the "Macho King"Randy Savage had to add more excitement to their style due to the lack of strength. What they would devise became the most popular ring structure for over 15 years. Technical wrestling is best characterized by faster, moving confrontations with endurance to the end. A good technical wrestler, such as Bret Hart, will use a series of fast-paced moves that don't take much strength but rather his opponents' momentum. He will use the ropes to give him more speed but he isn't clumsy on the rebound. He's quick to counter just about anything and he definitely isn't afraid of taking his attack to the next level, such as ascending the turnbuckles. He will take risks but he can usually access second and third winds when endurance becomes an issue. The technical wrestler has a keen sense of his surrounding environment, and because he is always alert he usually finds himself controlling the situation.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has always been negligent when it came to wrestling in the past, but in 1997 when three college athletes died due to cutting weight in extreme conditions enough was enough. N.C.A.A set forth weight loss rules the following year. Each wrestler had to take a urinary test to see how much water they were drinking and they also did body fat test. After all that they calculated your minimum healthy weight and that 's as low as you could go without getting disqualified. On top of that you were only aloud to lose two pounds a week, so for ex...
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.
Overall it is clear that the need to use performance enhancing drugs is outweighed by the consequences and issues caused by performance enhancing drugs. Sporting events such as the world cup, the Olympics or the World Series make young children feel inspired and encouraged about what they could achieve through dedication and hard work. I feel it is important for the sporting industry as well as the athletes to return respectability to the sport. By