Time to Stop Making Excuses for WWE’s Criminal Choreography
April 5, 2011WWE’s Secret Weapon: The Public Hits ITSELF Over the Head With a Proverbial Chair and Forgets Everything!
April 6, 2011
World Wrestling Entertainment announced on its corporate website that the two wrestlers involved in the cranial chair-shot spot in Sunday’s WrestleMania were fined. The complete statement:
Superstars Fined for Chair Shot
Pursuant to WWE’s Concussion policy, the stunt of using a folded metal chair shot to the head is prohibited. Triple H and The Undertaker have both been fined for violating this policy at WrestleMania XXVII. WWE penalizes through fine and/or suspension for violation of this policy, which is unchanged and still in effect.
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Triple H, who delivered the chair shot, is Paul Levesque, the husband of Vince and Linda McMahon’s daughter Stephanie.
The company’s statement is not credible. Spokesman Robert Zimmerman has not responded to my query on whether there were also consequences for another documented head chair shot incident, involving wrestlers Daniel Bryan and Sheamus at a March 25 show in Champaign, Illinois. WWE also offers no details on the fines to Levesque and the Undertaker (Mark Calloway). In the past, corporate press releases have gleefully played into storyline “angles.”
The website news updaters at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and Pro Wrestling Torch know all this, and more. They should be ashamed of themselves for reporting this development with straight faces. (“Good move from WWE,” James Caldwell of the Torch summed up.)
Next here will be the four-year chronology of WWE’s public misstatements and lies on industrial brain injuries.
Irv Muchnick
2 Comments
With word making the rounds that HHH and Taker were not instructed to use a chair to deliver a head shot, in no way softens the blow. If anything, it makes it look worse, as the heir(s) to the throne are in the loop where company policy is concerned. With UFC impacting their PPV buys, I wouldn’t dismiss their attempts at making the product edgier, part of the reason for this occurrence. But nonetheless, a policy is set in place for a reason, and by coming out and stating that a fine has been imposed for the infraction, is putting something out there in hopes that people will be accepting, and nothing more needs to be said or done on the matter. The WwE needs to be re educated on concussions, perhaps Chris Nowinski from Sports Legacy Institute can add something to this matter.
[…] HHH and Undertaker both have been fined by the WWE for the chair shot during the event, as we posted from Irv Muchnick Monday. Muchnick followed up his reporting with today’s post indicating the fine and statement from Vince McMahon. […]