• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Mick's Blog: Whatever Happened to Research?

Posted: Sep 9th 2010 By: mikeiles

I remember back in 2000, when I was working on Foley is Good, the towering New York Times #1 best-selling follow up to my towering New York Times #1 best-seller Have a Nice Day. I was just a measly wrestler turned author, but I had stacks of library books on my desk, a notebook full of, um, notes, and a deep rooted desire to do as much research as possible on a chapter that was bound to be a contentious one; my feeling that the PTC (Parent's Television Council) was making erroneous, and exaggerated claims as it pertained to the content of WWE television shows. My wife thought my need to uncover the truth was borderline unhealthy, but I truly felt that doing the proper research would be the key to unlocking that truth. In the end, the PTC lost a lawsuit, and had to fork over several million big ones, (US dollars) in addition to having to write what looked to me to be the mother of all public apologies.

Call me sentimental, but even though I no longer work for WWE, and have a new book, Countdown to Lockdown, due out October 1st, which takes an occasional jab at my former bosses. But I still don't like to see them criticized in a way that I feel is unjust, or exaggerated, or erroneous - which, in this writer's opinion, is the nature of the criticism being thrown around in the wake of Linda McMahon's run for the US Senate. Let me be clear, here: I don't have a political dog in this race. I tend to vote Democrat, and would have to have a really good reason to do otherwise in an election of this magnitude; a mid-term that could very well reshape the political future of the country. But as a person who worked for and with Linda McMahon, I take great (fill in a good word for me here) at the attempt by Democrats to make this race about professional wrestling itself. It certainly seems to me that there are many people out there, in politics and the media who find pro-wrestling as a form of entertainment to be distasteful, and are attempting to segue that distaste into an indictment on Mrs. McMahon's character.

To be sure, the subjects that have been brought up - the early deaths of wrestlers, performance enhancing substances, the lack of health insurance and pension plans - are fair ones, and I think I tackle them fairly and in great depth in the upcoming book. But I can't help but feel that some of these recent media stories have been told through the thinly veiled lens of partisan bias and outright scorn for a form of entertainment they too often do not show the slightest attempt to understand.

In recent weeks, I have been interviewed three times for serious news stories involving these issues. In the case of New York magazine, I also spoke at length concerning the suicide of wrestler Chris Kluscaritis (Kanyon). In the case of the New York piece, I thought the writer was well prepared; he had obviously spent a great deal of time trying to understand a business that he admitted was incredibly complex. However, I really don't feel the same amount of diligence was displayed by the other two writers I spoke to, Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times and Ed Stannard of the New Haven Register.

I spoke to Mr. Hernandez for his July 16th article about Mrs. McMahon, a largely negative piece which painted Mrs. McMahon's WWE as a company that used and discarded broken wrestlers as a means of attaining prosperity. Although I spoke to him for several minutes, and sent him a galley (unfinished proof) of the upcoming book, with the promise that I explored most of the questions he asked in great detail, I was surprised to find that my name was never mentioned in his article. No quotes, no mention whatsoever; as if we had never spoken at all. At the time of our conversation, Mr. Hernandez was not aware that I had done any writing at all (I guess he didn't check out which books were at #1 on his own newspaper's best-seller list) or that I had been successful in professional wrestling. "Oh, did you do well?", he asked me at one point in our conversation. "Yes, I did pretty well", I told him. Pretty, pretty, pretty well.

I didn't think too much of this slight, until having a conversation with Kevin Nash a few weeks later, in which Nash told me his comments had been largely ignored by Hernandez as well. Hmm, this seemed somewhat suspicious; two former WWE champions, both of us fairly well spoken, each of us men of fairly strong opinion in matters related to wrestling, and politics. Why, I asked Kevin, did he think that our opinions had not been utilized? "Because we didn't bury WWE?" Exactly. In my opinion, our comments were ignored because they mentioned issues like personal responsibility, individual financial planning, and a realistic outlook on what the wrestling business does and does not owe its practitioners. Obviously, each wrestler's opinion matters, but to leave out the well reasoned responses from two fairly notable figures in the wrestling world seems to back up my worst suspicions of the media; that all too often reporters forsake actual reporting in favor of founding quick quotes or sound-bites that are just meant to solidify a preconceived opinion.

I was quoted a few times in Mr. Stannard's piece in the New Haven Register, I was quoted a few times, and I must say that I thought Mr. Stannard did a good job of showing both sides of a very contentious issue - the recent deaths of former WWE wrestlers Luna Vachon and Lance Cade. But I was somewhat surprised at Mr. Stannard's total lack of wrestling knowledge, especially when considering the consequences that just might be hanging in the balance; a seat in the United States Senate, and, not inconceivably, the entire balance of power of that branch of Congress. At one point in my conversation with Mr Stannard, I mentioned that the issue of independent contractor status was more complicated than it might seem, and that he might, for example have trouble convincing John Cena to give up his quarterly royalty check in return for employer paid health care benefits.

"Who's that?", Mr Stannard asked. "You mean John Cena?", I said. Mr Stannard confirmed that he was not aware of who Mr Cena was, at which point I asked very politely how he could possibly attempt to understand the complexities of a business like professional wrestling, without even knowing the name of the biggest star in it. Actually, it was at that point that I asked myself the mental question, "whatever happened to research?"

Look, I know that newspapers are on the downslide, and that Mr Stannard was kind of a jack of all trades at his paper, covering not only politics, but science and religion as well. But would he really enter into an article on science or religion without knowing the very basics of the issue at hand? I think not - which seems to back up another suspicion I have of the media; that they simply don't do their homework when it comes to these stories on wrestling. In my 2001 book, Foley is Good, I took political commentator Margaret Carlson to task for writing that The Rock was an "anti-black" skinhead, without taking the time to learn that his father was African American. I wondered whether she would face the slightest journalistic reprimand for an erroneous assault on a man's character, before guessing the answer to be "no", on the grounds that wrestling itself wasn't important enough to research properly, let alone be held accountable for. These two recent adventures in journalism have only deepened my convictions.

Fortunately, I know that their are journalist out there who do take the time to do their research. Let me tell you the story of the time I met one of them: Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show.

I appeared on Rachel's radio show in 2007, while promoting The Hardcore Diaries and found her to be fun, friendly, and amazingly well versed on all "Diary" related issues. Why? She actually read it - or at least 2/3rds of it, and she wasn't even a wrestling fan. Why? Well, according to her producer, Rachel has this ludicrous idea that she should actually do homework on her guests. So, here's a journalist who speaks to Presidents, congressmen, senators, and even disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich - and she still finds the time to research a wrestler? Wow! That's the person I want covering real news stories. Because if she's willing to learn all the details of my meeting with Iraqi war architect/Deputy Defense Secretary/World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz - she's going to be willing to get the real deal on other stories of worldwide magnitude.

So, I thoroughly enjoyed myself during my time on the air, and even more during commercial breaks where she became the only person ever to say the words "tell me about that interview with Samantha Power." Wait, check that - you know who else used those exact same words? Six foot eight, 300 pound "monster" Kane, who knew all about the career of the Pulitzer Prize award winning Power, who would later have her greatest exposure to the white hot spotlight of fame after referring to Hillary Clinton as a "monster" during the grueling 2008 Democratic primaries. I went into a little Samantha Power funk, after her dismissal from Senator Obama's foreign policy advisory panel, proving myself capable of mini crushes not only on Divas, Knockouts, figure skaters, singers, and porn stars, but experts on genocide as well.

I was thrilled to see Rachel hit it big on MSNBC, even if it did take me a while to get used to seeing her with makeup and fashion accessories. It's funny how you can get an image of someone that just seems to stick. And for me, Rachel Maddow will be first and foremost, the cool lady with the Red Sox cap (as a Yankee fan, I'm not endorsing the Sox, even if she did make it look good) studying The Hardcore Diaries on the subway.

Tags: Mick Foley, WWE