USA Today reported in 2004 that medical examiners say wrestlers have a death rate seven times that of the general US population, and that they are 12 times as likely to die from heart disease as other Americans ages 25-44. (The same numbers popped up following the Benoit case.)

But this isn't necessarily a new thing. From 1931 to 1939, at least nine wrestlers died young from heart attacks, concussions or blood poisoning. Eighteen-year-old Jeanette Wolfe died in the ring in 1951. Stars Yukon Eric and Don Eagle committed suicide in 1965 and '66 respectively. In 1968, the day after defeating Killer Kowalski in ninety seconds, 30-year-old Elmer Gearlds, "The Oklahoma Kid," died of a heart attack. The next year, "Iron" Mike DiBiase, stepfather of "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, died in the ring at 45. Wrestlers continued to die young in the '70s and '80s. The numbers rose in the '90s, likely due to a combination of the increase in the number of wrestlers, the expansion of the travel and the growing popularity of "extreme wrestling."

Chris Lozansky, whose brother Mike died in 2003 (both were wrestlers), told USA Today, "Mike felt he had to keep working. I left the business because I want to see my 11-month-old son grow up."

That's a hell of a decision to have to make.

In the early 1830s two of the top bare-knuckle prizefighters in English boxing were Irishman Simon Bryne and Scotsman Alexander McKay. Though this type of boxing was very popular in Europe at the time, it was also illegal and plagued with corruption, gambling and staged fights.

In a match between the two in 1830, which was only McKay's fourth, he collapsed following a punch to the throat. He regained consciousness after being carried to his corner, but complained of a headache. McKay died at a local inn 30 hours later. When news of his death broke there was rioting in Scotland, and Byrne was arrested and charged with manslaughter. Five others involved in the fight were charged with aiding and abetting manslaughter.

That the fight itself was illegal was never mentioned at the trial, and the jury needed only ten minutes to deliver their verdict of "not guilty." Despite this, one newspaper condemned the "barbarous, filthy and swindling exhibitions called prize fights."

Three years later Byrne faced James Burke in a bloody match that went 99 rounds in over three hours. Despite having his ear bitten through, which was not yet illegal in London Prize Ring rules, Burke knocked Byrne unconscious. Attendants carried an exhausted Byrne from the ring to a nearby inn. He looked to be recovering over the next couple of days, but died on June 2, 1833. Blame was thrown around for the death, and, although Burke was acquitted just a month later, his English boxing career was virtually ruined. Following these deaths, particularly Byrne's, new rules were implemented in English boxing. Yet 174 years later, and with dozens of pro wrestlers dead, there is no sign of regulation in pro wrestling.

In the February 22, 1995 edition of The New York Post, Phil Mushnick wrote a column on the death of wrestler "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert of a heart attack at the age of 33. It was five years after Hank Gathers had died during a basketball game. Mushnick asked why the investigation and extensive news coverage that followed Gathers's death had not been echoed following Gilbert's demise, nor those of any of the other wrestlers Mushnick listed who had died young in prior years? Art Barr, at 28, just three months earlier; Rick McGraw, Gino Hernandez, Buzz Sawyer, Jay Youngblood, Steve Schumann — all younger than Gilbert was. Mushnick also mentioned the Von Erichs.

Within the wrestling industry much has been written about this family alone. From 1984 to 1993 the Texas family saw four of five brothers die young, three from suicides. Mushnick quoted Sammartino, who said that such things didn't happen when he began wrestling in 1959, but had been happening a lot in the last 10 to 12 years. But the rest of the media wasn't interested. After Gilbert things were quiet on this side of the wrestling world for two and a half years. Big John Studd and Dick Murdoch both died from illnesses, and independent wrestler Neil Superior died during a police altercation at the age of 33, but, compared to prior years, it was silent.

Then on October 5, 1997, WWF wrestler Brian Pillman was found dead of a heart attack at age 35. Mushnick wrote another column about pro wrestling's death toll. Few paid attention, but one man who did was the WWF's James E. Cornette, who responded with an editorial on Monday Night Raw, the WWF's weekly television program, complaining that Mushnick was using Pillman's death to attack the WWF. Indeed, Mushnick has had two separate agendas when it comes to pro wrestling. When he isn't bemoaning the tragic aspects of professional wrestling, he's denouncing the "trash" that Vince McMahon has put on television over the last ten years, and has nothing but derogatory things to say about wrestling fans. But both agendas seem equally sincere. And perhaps Cornette should have taken this to heart. For Pillman's death marked the beginning of an era that saw, to quote a headline in London's The Sun newspaper: "104 wrestlers die in a decade."

The number of wrestlers who have died under 50 since 1997 varies depending upon whom you speak to. In the years following Pillman's passing, wrestlers Louie Spicolli, Rick Rude, Bobby Duncam Jr, Gary Albright, "The Renegade" Rick Wilson, Russ Haas and Rhonda Singh all perished. The years 2002 and 2003 alone saw the untimely deaths of Davey Boy Smith, Terry Gordy, Rocco Rock, Big Dick Dudley, Billy Joe Travis, Curt Hennig, Road Warrior Hawk, Miss Elizabeth, Jerry "The Wall" Tuite, "Pitbull" Anthony Durante, Crash Holly and Mike Lozansky. And these are just some of the well-known wrestlers. This string of deaths didn't get much media attention. Except for one.

On May 23, 1999 WWF wrestler Owen Hart fell 78 feet to his death from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, smashing his chest on a turnbuckle and landing in the ring. That it happened on pay-per-view television made it the first pro wrestler death to receive national media attention perhaps since the 1963 death from a heart attack of Gorgeous George at age 48.

The controversy and lawsuit that followed would keep this in the headlines for a bit, but the media would soon lose interest. Just three months before, former World Championship Wrestling star Rick Wilson shot himself to death. Just a month before Hart, "Ravishing" Rick Rude, a star in every major American wrestling organization, died of a drug overdose at age 40. Overseas, in the same month, female Japanese wrestler Emiko Kado died after suffering a head injury at the age of 23.

The year before, in 1998, 27-year-old star Louie Spicolli overdosed on Soma and wine just a year after overdosing on the same drug a first time, and choked to death on his own vomit. In his home investigators found an empty vial of testosterone, painkillers and an anxiety-reducing drug. And both Brady Boone and legend The Junkyard Dog died in auto accidents in '98. Accidents happen, but when you're traveling constantly, without sleep and often on drugs, this adds to the epidemic. In fact, Gilbert, Pillman, Lozansky and Kerry Von Erich all suffered serious injuries in car or motorcycle accidents before later dying drug-related deaths.

So when November 2005 came around, and former WWE (McMahon was forced by the World Wildlife Fund to change the name in 2002) champion Eddie Guerrero died, Mushnick wrote, almost pleading with the rest of the media, "We've been writing it for more than 15 years, but we're going to try it one more time. And then we're going to do what the rest of the media does: we're going to ignore it."

He also saw that it isn't merely steroids that plague pro wrestling, writing: "It works like this: The wrestlers know that their bosses want over-the-top muscle. They know that there's an implied, industry-wide directive to be on or to get on the juice. They know that they have to be on the road many weeks at a time, without any medical coverage or sick days. Miss a show due to illness or injury and you miss a payday. Often, one or two misses and you're fired. So the cycle begins. Steroids to get and keep the job, barbiturates to kill the pain and get some sleep, stimulants to get through the next gig. That's why pro wrestlers are found dead in heir hotel rooms."

By this time, 2005 had already seen the deaths of star Chris Candido at 33, and several independent wrestlers. This non-sport, this phony baloney wrestling, men and women are dying from. And it's not all because of steroids.

Retired amateur boxer and pro wrestler Marc Mero, who was a champion in both WWE and WCW in the '90s and now runs the Marc Mero Body Slam Training Institute in Florida, calls it a "wrestler's cocktail."

"It's a lethal combination," he told me by phone from his facility.

While many of the aforementioned wrestlers used steroids, many were also on multiple painkillers. Anthony Durante and his girlfriend both died after overdosing on homemade OxyContin. Michael Lockwood, who wrestled as Crash Holly, choked to death on his own vomit after ingesting 90 painkillers. And medical examiners found alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, valium and the painkiller Fentanyl in Bobby Duncum Jr's system after he died.

Chris Adams and Terry Gordy both overdosed on various drugs just a year before their actual deaths, Adams of murder, Gordy of a heart attack. Scott Levy, who is still with us, and has wrestled in numerous major organizations as Raven, told USA Today in 2004 that he used steroids and took over 200 pills a day before finally quitting drugs a few years ago. "It's part of the job," he said. The same article quoted the late Michael Hegstrand as saying, "I'd put just about everything in me that was humanly possible during my wrestling career."

In his book Cheating Death, Stealing Life, which was published just before he passed away, Eddie Guerrero wrote that the painkillers he was taking were not for the physical pain, but the mental pain. "If I took a pill, then I wouldn't feel sad that I wasn't near my family, that my marriage was falling apart, that my kids barely know me. Having an injury just allowed me to justify my addiction." And it's not like companies other than the WWE have frowned upon drug use. When Jeff Hardy was released from the WWE in 2003 for refusing drug rehab, several other organizations were champing at the bit to hire him. Then there's one of the living tragedies, Thomas Billington, a retired English pro wrestler. Billington wrestled as The Dynamite Kid and was half of a very successful tag team in the mid-80s with his cousin, deceased wrestler Davey Boy Smith, called The British Bulldogs. Billington began taking speed and the muscle-producing drug Dianabol in the late '70s. He continued using steroids (including horse steroids on at least one occasion) and cocaine throughout the '80s.

In the late '80s and early '90s, Billington had two seizures and, on a separate occasion, "died" twice in one day after doing LSD. Paramedics revived him both times with adrenaline shots. Since 1997, he has been wheelchair-bound with a paralyzed left leg.

Then in June 2007, former WCW and WWE champion Chris Benoit killed his son Daniel and wife Nancy (herself a former wrestling valet) and then himself, and all media hell broke loose. Every major news organization reported on the Benoit tragedy. Wrestlers of every generation appeared on talk shows to discuss steroids and "'roid rage," said to be the cause of the deaths. It later came out that perhaps the many concussions that Benoit suffered during his career caused the tragedy. Many wrestlers say they've never seen 'roid rage, but others say the rise in testosterone from steroids causes an inability to control anger. Debra Marshall, ex-wife of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, claimed she saw 'roid rage firsthand, and that her ex-husband did steroids and used to beat her. Men from The Ultimate Warrior to "Leaping" Lanny Poffo appeared on Hannity and Colmes admitting to steroid use. Warrior and Kevin Nash each claimed steroids aren't all that bad.

Other wrestlers called for regulation. Joseph Laurinaitis, or Road Warrior Animal (whose former partner Hegstrand died in 2003), tiptoed around MSNBC's Dan Abrahams' steroid questions, but said a "governing body is needed" in pro wrestling. Mero himself appeared with Abrahams a couple of times to say, "It's time to regulate." And former NWA-TNA star Charles Ashenoff, who wrestles as Konnan, admitted to using steroids on Nancy Grace and claimed that tests are meaningless because management just makes an example of a couple of people. Ashenoff may have a point.

In August of this year Vince McMahon suspended ten WWE wrestlers for testing positive for steroids. The list of wrestlers was not released, but it did not include Batista, John Cena or Randy Orton, all top guys with ridiculous physiques. Lex Luger, once one of wrestling's biggest stars, now a born-again Christian, said steroids are "our entire culture," and that he, "could have been the next Chris Benoit." Luger saw his girlfriend Elizabeth Hulette (Miss Elizabeth) die from a prescription drug overdose in 2003, and was hospitalized with an infection that caused a nerve impingement in his central nervous system in October.

Steroids has been talked about consistently as the problem in the Benoit case, and the term "'roid rage" sounds great in a news story, but another study reported by USA Today in the 2004 story showed that of 25 wrestler deaths, medical examiners said that steroids may have been involved in five. The coroners cited painkillers, cocaine and other drugs in 12 of the deaths. The 15 wrestlers interviewed by the newspaper all said they took steroids to bulk up and painkillers and recreational drugs to continue performing.

When the Benoit story broke, Mushnick wrote, "Look what it has taken for the news media to finally begin to report that Vince McMahon has been operating a death mill the past 25 years." Again, it's very easy to blame McMahon. He's a culprit, but not the only one. McMahon has said that only two (now three — Pillman, Guerrero and Benoit — he must not be including Owen Hart) of these wrestlers died while working for him.

Many WWE wrestlers echoed this sentiment after Benoit's death, including Ken Kennedy and Dave Finlay. Finlay debated Mero on Nancy Grace in July about the need for regulation in wrestling, saying Mero "has nothing to do with the business," and blaming doctors for the tragedy. "One of our guys went wrong. It's never happened before."

Mero, however, says he has wrestled 27 men during his career that are no longer with us. Kennedy has called Mero a "goof" and a "silly bastard," and has claimed that most of the wrestlers on this list had nothing to do with WWE, and that Pillman and Guerrero has wrestled for WCW and started using drugs before they got to WWE.

What does Mero think of shots taken at him by Finlay and Kenendy? "I don't take it personally," he said. "They can't speak up.... It's ironic that the same guys that came out against me are the guys who got suspended."

And, as stated earlier, many of these wrestlers had worked for McMahon. When I was a child I rode the Spider ride at Six Flags and got sick. I didn't throw up until I was on the Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel might have moved it along, but don't you think the Spider was more than a little to blame? McMahon is certainly at least as much to blame as any other promoter past or present, whether Fritz Von Erich, Stu Hart or whoever.

What McMahon and WWE did do in September was send letters to former WWE wrestlers offering to pay for any drug and alcohol rehab they may need. "I think it's because of guys like me," Mero said. "I'd like to see them fund an independent study to find out why these wrestlers are dying."

For years wrestlers have tried and failed to organize a wrestlers union. It is believed that when McMahon fired Sgt. Slaughter in 1984 it was for trying to start a union; though, in the WWE DVD McMahon, Slaughter says he was fired after no-showing an event in protest of McMahon's refusal to give him six weeks of paid vacation.

Jesse "the Body" Ventura tried to unionize WWF wrestlers in the mid-80s, but that attempt was quickly squashed. McMahon later said that Hulk Hogan ratted Ventura out, ruining the friendship between Hogan and the former Minnesota governor. In what is arguably the greatest book written by a former pro wrestler, Chokehold: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring, authors Jim Wilson and Weldon T. Johnson go into detail about the blackmail and manipulation of wrestlers that occurs, as well as the drug problem and high death rate. Several wrestlers are quoted, including Ventura, who said, "Wrestlers have never been allowed to unionize. There's no pension, no health benefits.... You're a piece of meat. Wrestling evolved from the carnivals. They've tried to keep us back in those carnival days. It doesn't behoove promoters to have wrestlers who know what their rights are."

Longtime wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer sums it up in Chokehold by saying: "The human costs have escalated totally out of control. The rehab visits, the near fatal car crashes, the overdoses and the flukes are way out of hand... the wrestlers, more than ever before, are pawns of an ugly system with no insurance, no collective bargaining and unsafe working conditions."

I asked Northeast independent wrestler Lenn Oddity about promoters. "You really wanna know?" he said. "Ninety percent of them are scumbags trying to get ever penny they can without paying their wrestlers, and most wrestlers won't step up and say something 'cause there is always someone under them ready to take that spot. So it's hard to deal with promoters."

Oddity's friend Lee Estabrook, who wrestled as Core and helped train Lenn, committed suicide in 2003. "[Lee] was one of my first real friends in the business, and was just a great person," he said.

The two formed a tag team, but Oddity took a brief break after suffering his first concussion. "I wanted to go home and relax," he said. "Two days later I get a call at 6 am, being told that Lee was dead, hung himself at 3 am at his job."

Oddity left wrestling for a year after this. "I guess it was shock," he said. "After that I cut all my hair off and stopped wrestling for a long time. I would get panic attacks going near the ring, and, at the time, it just didn't feel right." He returned in 2004, using one of Estabrook's moves, the "Core-a-nation," as a tribute to his friend.

For years, another very outspoken voice within the wrestling industry has been "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, who wears a shirt with the word "FRATS" on the front (Piper calls his fellow wrestlers his "frat brothers), and the name of ten of his friends in the business who have died on the back. In his book, published in 2002 and titled In the Pit with Piper, Piper introduced a term called "The Sickness," something he says everyone involved in the sport gets, from wrestlers like Rick Rude and the Von Erichs to the fans themselves. "The wrestlers themselves aren't aware of it," he writes, "Even though their bodies and minds are being destroyed by it."

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