I really felt for him in the documentary. I can emphathize. It sucks when your dreams don't come true. I felt really sorry for his wife though. She really looked like she was suffering in silence, like she knew something bad was going to happen. Poor guy.
I'm just morbidly curious as to what he died from. Was it suicide?
I heard on RX Muscle Radio it was solvent inhalation, and accidental. Very sad, he seemed like a decent bloke, and I too feel sorry for his widow.
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He actually did achieve it for a while, but the payoff wasn't much. If you're a jobber you're just a big guy that gets to lose to the stars to make them look good. He probably kept thinking he could take it to the next level, but he was getting older.
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I don't understand what age has to do with "fake" wrestling. I see 50 year old wrestlers on WWE. The real reason why they didn't take him was probably because he looked boring...he had no distinct character...and his acting wasn't good enough.
I do feel sorry for him though. If there is a god...I hope he was welcomed with open arms.
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The reason you see 50yo wrestlers on TV is because they have been around for a while and are considered veterans, or even legends. Very rarely is someone over the age of 30 signed to an actual contract and pushed as a legit competitor. When it comes to superstars, I believe the record belongs to Batista, who started wrestling at the age of 31 and was signed to a WWE contract at the age of 33. The only reason for that is certain established wrestlers wanted to work with him. Otherwise, as far as being hired at an old age and pushed? Boogeyman was around 40 when he was hired, but he was a freak occurrence and initially lied about his age, claiming to be 30. That lie was his way in, and the fact that they wanted him to play a total freakshow character. It's not about who is the best looking, biggest, strongest wrestler... it's about who you know, how much ass you kiss, what the promoters are looking for at that particular moment and whether or not you get noticed by the right person at the right time.
Bell had no contacts/friends to help him to the spot, and you really need that, especially in the WWE. Also, he was trying to break back into the company during a time that they were shifting their focus from finding talent to creating talent with Ohio Valley Wrestling, Florida Championship Wrestling and NXT.
Now, combined with all of that, Mike Bell had a very nasty incident in WWE against a guy named Perry Saturn. He badly botched a series of moves and could have seriously injured Saturn, who reacted with aggression and threw Bell outside of the ring where he landed on his head. It's very likely that Saturn complained after the match and those involved with WWE's booking/hiring process were turned off. That's one of the problems in wrestling... one wrong look or move and you're blackballed. Like someone in the film said, dreams like these are pipe dreams. They are based on lies.
I just never understood why anyone would want to be a professional wrestler so badly. I don't know how anyone over 15 can even stand to watch it anymore.
shareMy guess is that they consider it will give them fame plus have a hot athletic body.
I am sure some of those who die young is because they do other drugs, but why did Breat Hart had a stroke? He doesn't seems as a substance abuser and one to be a top athlete, has to give up the consumption of many things.
Look at Undertaker, he is near 50 and I am sure he deiced to end the scripted fight for the sake of both. Plus he got cancer, and weird as he has always been athletic and many doctors tell me to be active in order to avoid cancer and diabetes, yet fit athletic people also get it. Why?
Anybody can get cancer. It doesn't have to have a specific cause. That's one of the reasons it's as scary as it is.
Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
"I don't understand what age has to do with "fake" wrestling. I see 50 year old wrestlers on WWE."
And none of them work full schedules - far, far from it. Undertaker is the most famous example and he's only done a handful of matches in the last few years. WWE wrestlers travel year-round and work 4-5 shows a week. Over the last ten years, their schedule has only expanded, adding in more international tours. Anybody that would be signed to a new contract would be expected to work at this rate, and it's extremely demanding. The only guys who get the pull to have a limited schedule are veterans like Taker who have been with the company for many, many years.
You may call it fake wrestling, and to an extent it is, but they are still throwing their bodies around a ring that has little give to it - hell, when newcomers start training, they get bruises up and down their ribs and underarms just from bouncing off the ropes. Injuries abound, and painkiller addictions are (or at least have been) pretty common, not to mention other drugs. It's a painful way to entertain people.
Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
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