GLENN BECK

Chris Benoit Tragedy Is Typical Of Too Many Pro Wrestlers In The Pseudo Sport; Dog Fight Scandal: Shocking Brutal Details Implicate NFL Player

Aired July 20, 2007 - 19:00:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


GLENN BECK, CNN ANCHOR, GLENN BECK: Tonight, Chris Benoit`s tragedy continues to unfold with the recent toxicology reports painting a scary portrait of steroid and drug abuse that unfortunately exposes a much larger problem for a very violent form of entertainment.
Plus, the quarterback and canines. NFL Star Michael Vick indicted for running a gruesome dog fighting ring.

And is Cheney pushing for military action against Iran? A new report claims the vice president is urging Bush to act against the regime before leaving office. Will the president listen? All this, and more, tonight.

Hello, America, this Sunday night is the all-American bash. And, no, it`s not an event sponsored by John Murtha, which I was surprised to find out. It`s WWE hosting their 22nd annual star-spangled pay-per-view event and here`s the point tonight.

(Voice over): Professional wrestling is nothing more than an over- inflated, oiled-up example of how violent our society has become. It glorifies the very worst that we as a people, athletes and Americans can be. And here`s how I got there.

First, let`s start with defining the terms here. Professional wrestling, not, not, not a sport. Not a sport. It`s sports entertainment, a label that the billion-dollar industry has lovingly embraced. These men are little more than muscle-bound "B" movie actors in dinner theater, in Spandex, where the guy with the biggest biceps, loudest mouth and highest rating gets to wear the championship belt, while you eat your Cheetos in your underpants.

I`ve been there, brother.

There is no competition. There is no athletic excellence and no sportsmanship. When there`s more physical skill in one of the "Jackass" movies, you can`t call yourself the all-American bash. Or then, again, can you? Is this what we`ve become?

Then there is the tragedy surrounding the Chris Benoit case. The Canadian Crippler, of if he would have only stopped at crippling.

Reports now show he was jacked up on steroids, Xanax and pain meds, when he killed his wife and seven-year-old son with his bare hands, right before hanging himself with a cord from his weight machine. He is the most recent example of a professional wrestler gone bad, but he`s not even close to the first one.

If you`re looking for entertainers with big drug habits and dying early, you probably think of, at least I did, the golden years of "Saturday Night Live," they were dropping like flies, but that was child`s play. Since 1984, at least 62 wrestlers have died before their 50th birthday. Nine of those were by suicide, murder, or drug overdose.

The rest were done in by a variety of things like heart attacks and organ failure, ailments that many experts say were the result of a cocktail of steroids, pain killers and recreational drugs that many of these guys live on. As for the arrests, due to their abuse of drugs, or spouses, or other scrapes with the law, I`d like to rattle them off for you but the show is only an hour long.

Many of these sports entertainers -- I mean, they come from troubled backgrounds. A life in pro wrestling has not helped them turn their lives around. It has just given them more money and they`ve taken that money and made more mistakes with more collateral damage. There are far more tragic endings than happy ones in wrestling.

So, tonight, here`s what you need to know, a true all-American bash is playing with your kids this weekend, or having a family picnic, not watching trash-talking thugs throw each other around on canvas. Violence is out of control in our society, from shoot `em video games to the gratuitous films to real athletes like quarterback Michael Vick getting tangled up in this dog thing.

What is going on? Pain has become our new pleasure. We need to get back to the noble values that built this country into the great nation that it really is. Let our true potential out of the headlock. We`ve come a long way from the eye pokes of the Three Stooges. And today`s movie and TV violence leaves wounds that are far beneath the surface and they are just festering. We are a nation that is hurting. And it is time to make it stop.

I`m joined now by Marc Mero, retired professional wrestler and Jack Singer, clinical psychologist, who has worked with many wrestlers throughout his career.

Jack -- actually, Mark, let me start with you. You`re a former wrestler. Before we get into it, I just want to ask you, people could say that what you`re about to say is just because you`re a disgruntled wrestler, that was, you know, was just forced out in the end.

MARC MERO, FMR. PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER: Well, actually, I had three years left on a guaranteed contract that I walked away from, Glenn. And I was very -- I`m one of the actual success stories of professional wrestling and financially, I`m set for life. I got a very good business in Orlando, Florida. And it is the people say I have an agenda and if my agenda is saving life, lives, then I`m guilty.

BECK: What was life like and why did you leave?

MERO: Well, first of all, we`re on the road, being on the road in the professional wrestling is unprecedented than any other sport. We`re on the road about 250 days a year. There is no off-season. We have our Super Bowl of wrestling is called Wrestlemania. The next night we`re doing Monday Night Raw. Could you imagine the NFL, after the Super Bowl, they start the season with "Monday Night Football"? It`s unprecedented and unheard of in any other sport.

Remember something, Glenn, there`s only 12 to 15 spots on television available. If you`re not jacked up, ready to go, with pain medication, feeling good, or with, you know, all the other list of -- the host of cocktail drugs that we are used to doing on the road to keep our bodies in top shape, including steroids and sleeping meds, or anything we need to keep going, then if you`re not going to do it, there`s a thousand guys behind you that are going to.

BECK: OK, Jack, we can talk about the wrestlers and what`s going on with them and the pain that they`re in, and the choices that they`re making, et cetera, et cetera, but let`s talk about the choices that we`re making and how it affects us, if we are watching this with our kids. What is the impact on us?

JACK SINGER, PH.D., CLINICAL & SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, you know, with all of this violence that`s happening in the world today, Glenn, in terms of fear of terrorism, and the fast-paced society we live in, and so forth, so many people look for an outlet like this in order to vicariously feel as if they`re not as bad off as they could be. They`d rather see someone else get beaten up. It makes them feel good.

BECK: But, you know what, everybody who watches this and everybody defended this, says, come on, everybody knows this is a TV show. But I have noticed that the TV shows are blending into our real life. And, I mean, I don`t think it started with reality television, but that`s what`s pushed it over the edge.

You now see kids videotaping beating up other people, or doing wrestling moves, or whatever, and they don`t know the difference between reality and television. And that is a frightening, frightening thing.

SINGER: It certainly is, Glenn. These two things have fused together. People don`t understand where reality begins and fake stops. And if you talk to many people who watch, as you say, people in their shorts, crunching on their Fritos, if you talk to some of these people, they`ll adamantly deny that this is staged. They`re in denial about this.

BECK: Mike, you didn`t answer the question why you left -- early. Why did you leave the contract?

MERO: Well, you know, at that time, you know, my ex-wife was in a lawsuit with the WWE. Her name was Sable in professional wrestling and part of the settlement agreement was I would walk away from my guaranteed salary and I decided to do that because it just wasn`t fun anymore. It wasn`t for me. And I got off a lot of the drugs I was on at a time.

(CROSS TALK)

BECK: What were you --

MERO: A lot people don`t realize this --

BECK: What were you taking?

MERO: Well, it was mostly pain medication to be able to make the shows every day, you have to take some type of pain medication. I didn`t even know many wrestlers that were not on some type of medication.

And, Glenn, this is unprecedented in any sport. I have wrestled 25 wrestlers that are no longer with us. Where can any athlete get up and show a list like this unless he`s a professional wrestler?

BECK: I`ve thought a lot about this, and Jack, maybe you can comment on this, professional wrestling, we don`t even think about it. Just like we never thought of Jerry Lewis and all of his pratfalls, the man wanted to commit suicide when he started to get older, because he couldn`t take the pain of all of the time he had just thrown himself on the ground for a laugh. Look at the abuse these guys put their bodies through. How do you possibly survive pain-free by the time you`re 40?

SINGER: Really difficult, Glenn. And interestingly, in this particular event, called professional wrestling, the better athletes are the ones who prevent themselves from getting hurt, the ones who try to not get hurt. It`s really interesting. And when they do get hurt, as you just heard from the other gentleman -- who I really appreciate as being really forthright here -- these folks load themselves up on all kinds of substances in order to just make it to the next day. Nobody has an idea of what these people go through.

BECK: I`ve only got 30 seconds. Either of you have an idea of why sports has become such a cesspool? Why is it we have the lowest common denominator that we`re looking for entertainment from? They all seem to be in trouble, or thugs, or criminals or some kind of trouble comes out of every sport now. Why?

SINGER: Well, let`s keep it in perspective. You`re looking at some people who have trouble in sports, the vast majority of people don`t. And we don`t pay a lot of attention to them. So we have to keep it in perspective, Glenn, the ones that you hear about are the ones that we get disgusted by, and these are people that have had problems that before they got into the sport.

The screening mechanisms in professional football, for example, are really wanting. I would never do the screening mechanisms that they use now to try to determine and predict whether someone is going to have problems, and yet they don`t seem to want to advance.

BECK: Guys, thank you very much. We`re have to move on.