Why are the 80's Wrestlers dying?

Dino Bravo was murdered by organized crime

I was recently moved by the passing of a ring legend, Randy "Mach Man" Savage, who suffered from a heart attack and joined the long listing of other fallen wrestling super stars. I found a great article by Shawn O'Rourke called When Superheroes Die on Pop Matters. The article does a great job explaining some of the secretive life behind professional wrestling, but what really grabbed my attention was how the article also mentioned wrestlers that have been dying off like Freddy Kreuger victims.

The article mentions another site, Dead Wrestlers, which is one of the most up to date resources for a recently departed wrestling superstar. I utilized this site for the majority of my research, as they have a nice sleek layout and a brief cause of death. I am not too sure where they got their results from; some of it seems to come from another great source that I used, Obsessed with Wrestling. So as I discuss some of my findings, they may be a bit skewed here and there due to some deaths of a heart failure may have also been related to a drug abuse problem.

So I had to question myself, "Do certain wrestling promotions have more dead wrestlers ?" Could there be factors with giant billionaire dollar promotions like WWF or WCW, or is it all because of the hardcore lifestyle as originated by ECW? Are wrestlers self medicating themselves with drugs and pain killers so that they can continue to put their bodies on the line for just one more evening of punishment? What is a common cause of death amongst the wrestlers between promotions? Why is suicide prevalent amongst these deaths along with heart disease and drug abuse?

If you like to see the spreadsheet of my results, you can view it HERE in Google Docs


If you would like to read more about my research project, CHECK OUT THE LINK HERE to my Yahoo Contributor page