“You get so brainwashed. You’re on the road 300 days a year, and that’s why guys get so messed up. This life just becomes a part of them. It’s not real, but some guys who are still in the business think it is. You look at Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler - he just couldn’t let it go. You live a double life. I was tired of trying to be who I was in the ring and then coming home for two days to be normal. They didn’t allow you to be. The guys who get out are the smart ones, really and truly.” -Brock Lesnar on Pro Wrestling
Nothing wrong with what he said at all. How many times on these forums do you read about someone saying so and so is hanging on to damn long to the business. When does someone over stay there welcome, and then do more to damage their career as opposed to make their legacy grow?
The wrestling business, especially stateside, has left a long list of whose who behind in it's wake to grow to the level it has. How many hundreds of professional wrestlers are now nothing more then corpses rotting in a pinebox six feet below the ground? I love the wrestling business, but the wrestling business in an unforgiven mistress that destroys as much as it creates.
Guys like the Rock, Brock lesnar, and if the rumors are true, Jeff Hardy, that get out early are the smart ones in the long run. They will be the ones that are able to play with their children, let alone grand children, without the support of a backbrace. They will be the ones that don't need artificial hips because they left body parts lying all over the world.
I love the wrestling business, but the business is also a killer.