...and now, the aftermath.

And almost right on cue...the mainstream media is running their mouth about professional wrestling.

This is probably the most high-profile story that wrestling has been a part of since Vince McMahon's steroid trial. Ironically enough, steroids has brought the attention back to wrestling again. In fact, steroids seems to be the only thing that gets mainstream attention for professional wrestling.

And because of this tragedy, everyone is an expert on wrestling. Usually, the only thing you can get out of the average person on wrestling is a dismissive "that's so fake." But now, everyone's a virtual encyclopedia. Why, everyone knows that 63 wrestlers under 45 have died since 1980!

The "sport" that no one cares about and only stupid people with a missing chromosome watch suddenly has all these "caring" eyes on it. There's all this moral outrage about the rampant steroid abuse in wrestling and how the government needs to get involved to clean up this "pseudo-sport" that only "inbred hicks" watch.

So, to the mainstream media and everyone who doesn't watch wrestling, but insists on commenting about all this, I got two words for you...

Only wrestling fans are going to know what the hell I was just talking about.

See, what's wrong here is, the people on the outside don't know the culture of wrestling. They don't understand what these men go through. All they do is write them off as fat guys in tights pretending to hit each other. They don't acknowledge them as professional athletes who work the most brutal schedule in sports.

None of this is justification for what Chris Benoit did, but it is me pointing out the media's hypocrisy. For instance, where was their moral outrage when Brian Pillman died in his hotel room? Where was the concern when Owen Hart fell from the rafters of the Kemper Arena? Where was the slightest mention of John "Earthquake" Tenta's cancer?

But all of these men have been thrown on the list of wrestlers who have died of steroid abuse.

Fact: Wrestlers live a hard life.

Fact: A ton of wrestlers have died young in the last 20 years.

Fact: There are a lot of wrestlers who abuse drugs of all sorts.

Query: Did all of these wrestlers die of using steroids?

Answer: No.

The fact is, Curt Hennig died of a cocaine overdose. The Junkyard Dog died in a car accident. Brian Pillman died from mixing painkillers and alcohol. Eddie Guerrero died of heart failure after years of previous drug abuse. Bruiser Brody was stabbed to death. Owen Hart died from a fatal fall. John Tenta died of cancer. Two of the Von Erichs killed themselves. Crash Holly choked on his own vomit. Chris Candido died of a blood clot becoming lodged in his heart. Yokozuna and Andre the Giant both died from heart failure due to their size. I believe Big John Studd died from the same thing. Dino Bravo was shot to death. Gorilla Monsoon died due to complications from diabetes.

That's a significant amount of deaths, but none of them involved steroids. That's not to say that none of them ever used steroids, that's just to say that steroids didn't kill any of them.

So next time you hear that particular stat come flying out of the mouth from some Bush-loving conservative, consider what the cause of death actually was. Yes, wrestling has it's problems that need to be taken care of. No one's denying that. But what wrestling doesn't need is the bitching and screaming of people who can't be bothered pay any attention to it when people aren't dying.