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http://www.nypost.com/sports/57926.htm



Read this bullshit it made me sick to see how the NYP thinks about wrestlers death.sthe reason got the link is so that you can write them and E-Mail them.

I found this on Joey styles web page www.1wrestling.com



New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick called me this morning to complain about the story that appeared on 1WRESTLING.COM on Sunday. The story linked to a column penned by Mushnick about the recent death of Eddie Guerrero. The headline contained a direct quote from the Mushnick column and read as follows: Mushnick: "They're only pro wrestlers; It's not as if they're real people".

The 1WRESTLING.COM story prompted a flood of email to the Post from outraged wrestling fans. Mushnick said the email servers were overwhelmed by the amount of messages complaining about what he had written. Some of the email messages apparently included threats, something we would never condone under any circumstance.

Mushnick was upset at the use of his quote in the headline and complained it was "inflammatory". My response to him was to point out that he works for the New York Post....a paper well known for outrageous and "inflammatory" headlines. I also pointed out that it was a direct quote from his column. When Mushnick complained that his comment was taken out of context without being included with the entire column. I responded by telling him we provided a link to his column directing readers to the NYPost.com website so they could read it in it's entirety. Mushnick pointed out that many people did not click on the link or had problems because they had to sign up as members of the Post website and asked that I run the entire column on 1WRESTLING.COM (with his permission) so readers could see and read everything he said. The full column will be printed at the bottom of this story.

During our discussion this morning I pointed out to Mushnick that I thought he had the right message, but was the wrong messenger. He has written numerous columns blasting WWE for a number of things and isn't exactly an unbiased columnist when it comes to Vince McMahon. He often writes outrageous things about WWE and gets upset when wrestling fans show their outrage as thousands of fans did after his most recent column. A perfect example is a quote from a column he wrote way back in the early 1990s: "Never will you encounter a human being more cold-blooded, more devoid of humor and propriety than Vince McMahon, America's foremost TV babysitter. In your wildest, most twisted dreams, you won't meet up with the likes of McMahon, a miscreant so practiced in the art of deception, the half-truth and the bald-faced lie as to make the Artful Dodger appear clumsy. A George Steinbrenner or a Don King pale by comparison. Indeed, Hannibal Lecter is the only fictional character who comes close."

The above quote is only one example of the outrageous things Mushnick has written about Vince McMahon and WWE over the years.

I asked Mushnick this morning if he planned to write a column about McMahon's decision to implement a stringent drug testing program and he responded, "Why should I? He's had 5 or 6 drug testing programs and they never amounted to anything. Last time they had a major drug program they brought in a doctor best known for telling people how to beat the test. Do you really think if someone tests positive that McMahon will suspend them?"

I think that's probably the best example of the one-sided and unfair way Mushnick has covered WWE over the years. I've been a harsh critic at times in the past of things Vince McMahon has done, but have always tried to be fair...and when he deserved defending him I was one of his biggest supporters. Mushnick doesn't look at anything WWE does with any semblance of objectivity. Never has....never will.

In the column he wrote this weekend about Eddie Guerrero, Mushnick closes with the following statement: "Anyway, under threat of Congress, MLB last week introduced a stronger drug policy. That made big news - while another pro wrestler dropped dead. And they continue to drop dead, ever so softly, so as to scarcely make a sound. Just the way McMahon likes it". That comment is horribly unfair to Vince McMahon, but is a perfect example of the way Mushnick approaches anything he writes concerning WWE.

Casual readers of the Post, who aren't aware of the history between Mushnick and WWE, wouldn't know that Mushnick was the target of a libel lawsuit filed by WWE back in 1992. They wouldn't know of all of the venomous statements made in columns in the past such as comparing McMahon to Hannibal Lector. They might read a Mushnick rant on WWE and think he's just voicing his objective opinion. They'd be wrong, and that's why the editors of the New York Post should take steps to reign in Mushnick. If he isn't able to step away from his obsession of trashing Vince McMahon and WWE in print, his editors should forbid him from writing further columns about wrestling.

Here, as requested by Phil Mushnick and printed with his permission, is the entire column he wrote this past weekend:

November 20, 2005 -- WE'VE been writing it for more than 15 years, but we're going to try it one more time. And then we're going to try to do what the rest of the media does: we're going to ignore it.

After all, what's a dead pro wrestler, or two. Or 20. Or 80. They're only pro wrestlers; it's not as if they're real people.

While Bud Selig and Donald Fehr resisted Congress's efforts to expose and eliminate steroid use, they should be grateful that Congress, and, by extension America, gives a damn whether ballplayers live or die.

On the other hand, it's hard to keep a body count on pro wrestlers, under the age of 40, who have died sudden, steroid-aided deaths in the last 20-25 years.

Vince McMahon does not contract the Elias Sports Bureau to keep track. But that industry-wide number must be closing in on 100.

Not a single active MLB player is known to have died a steroid-related death. But imagine if there had been one. Or two. Imagine if a massively muscled outfielder with the Tigers or Cubs was found dead in his hotel room today.

That's page one, the lead story of every newscast.

But as pro wrestlers drop dead - four, five, six a year - they hardly make a sound.

Pro wrestlers, a fraction of the number of MLB's talent pool, regularly drop dead; few seem to notice and fewer seem to care. And that's just the way that McMahon & Co. want it.

Last week, as MLB and the MLBPA finalized the Congressionally exacted steroid policy, Eddie Guerrero, one of McMahon's top WWE stars, was found dead in his hotel room in Minnesota. He was 38.

Pro wrestlers are commonly found dead in their hotel rooms. In fact, steroid-fortified WWF (now the WWE) star Brian Pillman, 33, was found dead in his hotel room in Minnesota in 1997.

It works like this: The wrestlers know that their bosses want over-the-top muscle.

They know that there's an implied, industry-wide directive to be on or to get on the juice.

They know that they have to be on the road many weeks at a time, without any medical coverage or sick days.

Miss a show due to illness or injury and you miss a payday. Often, one or two misses and you're fired.

So the cycle begins. Steroids to get and keep the job, barbiturates to kill the pain and get some sleep, stimulants to get through the next gig.

That's why pro wrestlers are found dead in their hotel rooms.

Guerrero was only 5-8, but with muscles that pushed the limits of natural physiology. And he was a pro drug abuser every bit as much as he was a pro wrestler - the two, in the Vince McMahon Era, rarely stand alone.

While Selig, the king of baseball, is hauled before Congress, McMahon, the king of pro wrestling - himself once massed on steroids - skips through the cemetery. He surely must think it wonderful that so few people care, that the media view his business only as a trendsetter for lowbrow pop culture.

McMahon is so smug in his knowledge that the news media ignore the deaths of pro wrestlers that he actually exploits the fatalities to pump TV ratings. Shortly after Pillman's death, the WWF promoted a "stay-tuned-for" interview with Pillman's widow, who was too naive to understand that her late husband died both a drug- and pro wrestling business- related death.

Last week McMahon exploited Guerrero's death to make ratings hay with his NBC-TV partners, first on McMahon's hideously desensitizing USA Network show (USA is now owned by NBC) and then through a speak-no-evil memorial on MSNBC. And let's not forget McMahon's long friendship and partnerships with NBC Sports boss d**k Ebersol, who convinced NBC to turn Saturday nights over to McMahon's XFL.

There are other big shots who take big dives for McMahon. A former U.S. governor, for example, other than Jesse (The steroid Body) Ventura. Lowell Weicker, from McMahon's home state of Connecticut, is a former governor and senator.

Weicker has long served as a member of the WWE's Board of Directors. We don't know what Weicker is paid for his presence, but given that he has to look past the perversity of McMahon's TV product and that he has to look around the scores of dead young men produced by the industry, he works cheap.

Anyway, under threat of Congress, MLB last week introduced a stronger drug policy. That made big news - while another pro wrestler dropped dead. And they continue to drop dead, ever so softly, so as to scarcely make a sound.

Just the way McMahon likes it.

phil.mushnick@nypost.com

******** him, seriously. That guy needs to pull the stick out of his a**. So I can beat him with it. 3nodding