Hero is … um

Welcome to the first of what I intend to be a regular feature here at Hero Is … Um, called “Heroes and Zeroes.” Because my funny little comic strip deals with superheroes — or at least people who consider themselves heroes, and some who are more like zeroes, I thought it made sense to add a feature where I call out the good and the not-so-good in the real world. Now, I’ll admit sometimes it’ll be hard to find heroes that fit the definition we all have in our heads, so be forewarned not everyone will seem terribly “heroic.” Case in point:

HERO: Peter Gammons, for reportedly leaving ESPN in favor of the MLB Network. I’ll admit there’s a part of me that isn’t happy about a real journalist leaving an “independent” network for one that’s the mouthpiece of the a sports league (hello, NFL Network and your bunch of sellouts), but I’m frankly tired of ESPN’s over-hyped, too-glossy-for-their-own-good, catchphrase-centric, constantly cross-promoting, every-segment sponsored by a beer company, aren’t-we-cool cheapening of my sports-watching experience. Now, if I want to learn what Peter Gammons has found out about the Yankees and Red Sox the big leagues, I can just turn to the MLB Network. And I won’t have to be force-fed soccer.

ZERO: The bloodsuckers that run World Wrestling Entertainment. Edward Fatu, who most recently wrestled under the stage name Umaga, recently died of a heart attack. CNN reports that he had lots of issues with substance abuse and was kicked out of the WWE in June for flunking out of its wellness program. And at 6’4″ he didn’t really carry his 350 lbs. all that well. Clearly if anyone was at fault for his health problems, it was Fatu; we’re all responsible for ourselves before anyone else is. That said (and that’s enough criticism of someone who’s no longer living, anyway), my view is that for all the lip service the WWE pays to its wellness programs, drug testing, and “running a clean ship,” it’s clear to all but the dumbest of us that there’s a certain lifestyle that wrestlers live outside the ring, and even if they try to stay clean, I’m guessing there’s plenty of opportunity for falling off the sturdiest of wagons. Just look at the body count over the years.

I think the WWE owes some amount of guaranteed lifetime health coverage to anyone who ever makes it to the company’s big stage. The fact is, even though the “fighting” is choreographed, you don’t fake the jumps and falls and crashes through tables. If playing in the NFL does the physical damage of multiple car crashes, what does performing in a WWE ring three and four nights a week do?

After Fatu was cast aside last summer, he had no health insurance. Who would cover him? And with the damage done to his body, the bad habits he picked up while on the circuit and giant face tattoos that served him well in the ring  but don’t exactly allow for easy crossover into the rest of American life, what, exactly, was this guy going to do but spiral downward? And the WWE says, “Thanks for posing for those posters, helping us sell t-shirts and boost ratings, but now we’re washing our hands of you completely.” That may be legal and even defensible on a “we tried everything our policy manual calls for,” but it’s not right.

WWE, you get a zero.