Long time reader, first time poster. The sheer inanity of the "Stand up for WWE" campaign has promted me to say something. I love wrestling, and the WWF/E has provided me with some of my fondest wrestling memories. Having said that, I'm not going to "stand up" for it; as another poster said, the WWE isnt my family or my country in a time of war, it's merely a company that produces a product I enjoy consuming.
Besides that, I do not consider WWE to be a particularly ethical company. Vince McMahon has some serious questions to answer, namely, "why do so many of your employees die young compared to practically any other companies?".
As far as business practices go, so what if they bought out WCW and put the squeeze on other promotions, to keep themselves with essentially a monopoly in pro-wrestling?
This I agree with. WWE's "ruthless" expansion tactics do not make them any better or worse than any other other major corporation. Anyone who thinks for one second that WCW wouldnt have done the same thing is insane. Thing is, I don't hear the WWE's critics even
mentioning this, so I'm not sure where you're going with it.
As far as wrestler's deaths go. Let me put it this way, if I start sniffing massive amounts of cocaine, while chasing it with booze, Oxycontin and Somas, who's fault is it?
This is a masively misleading statement. While anyone who becomes an addict is responsible for their own situation, it is ridiculous not to take external factors into account and to just assume that no outside party might also be partly at fault.
Put it this way: if you're -for example- a plumber, who works at a company with reasonable working hours, paid leave, overtime, health insurance- in a nutshell, the kind of labor standards most workers take for granted (plus the ability to bargain collectively in order to maintain/improve said conditions), and you were not working through chronic pain, and you STILL decided to "sniff massive amounts of cocaine while chasing it with booze, Oxycontin and Somas", then yes, you would be entirely be to blame, and it would not be your employers fault in any way.
However, let's say you're a WWE wrester, in which case you have virtually NONE of the labor standards most workers take for granted, and absolutely NO ability to bargain collectively to improve conditions, and let's say you're working through chronic pain, but you're afraid to take time off in case you lose your "spot", or even deliberately punished by being de-pushed when you return. Besides, half "the boys" are working through injuries, so you don't want to look like a pussy. So you work through it, on the road 24/7 with a serious injury, performing a very hazardous and phsysically demanding task (working a wrestling match) on a constant basis, knowing there is nothing resembling an offseason, i.e. there is absolutely no break in sight. Lets say, due to all of this, you start taking drugs in order to get through the pain, but as you build a tolerance and as your injuries continue to multiply and worsen, you take more and more until you are completely consumed and killed by the habit. While the specifics vary from case to case, this is basically what happens time and time again to WWE employees and ex employees (in ex eomployees cases, the cycle often started while they were on the WWE roster).
Of course they chose to take the drugs in the first place, and must be held accountable for their own poor decisions. But to say that Vince McMahon deserves
no criticism for creating a working environment where this sort of thing keeps happening, is flatout absurd.
That's what most of these wrestlers die from. And guess what, it shouldn't be Vince's job to babysit grown men and keep them from doing drugs.
A classic strawman argument.
Nobody is saying Vince is morally obliged to take an active role in stopping his employees from doing drugs; that's not the argument. The argument is that the brutal, grueling working conditions that Vince has emposed on his employees, have actually
caused many of them to turn to drugs and to be consumed by them. There is also his history of pushing wrestlers who take steroids; this tacitly encourages steroid use. He is contributing to the problem.
Look at the rehab they paid for all those wrestlers to go to
Great initiative from WWE. So was banning chair shots to the head. But the fact is that A: these initiatives should have been introduced ages ago, and B: they still have a very long way to go before their labor conditions are up to scratch.
On top of that, they've been campaigning to get young people to vote
You're being a bit naive here. I don't want to make the thread political, so I wont state my own political views, but WWE have a definite agenda with their "Your Vote" initiative. It is not a selfless community initiative, as you suggest.
At every turn, WWE writers disparage Democrats and put forward a conservative Republican POV. Remember the Steiner/Nowinski feud? The babyface was pro-Iraq war, and the anti-war guy was depicted as being a weak, treacherous pussy. Whenever a political issue is referenced in a WWE storyline, the babyface takes the conservative viewpoint and the heel takes the liberal one. Furthermore, they'll do stuff like the Obama/Hillary "match", making fun of Democratic candidates, but I've never seen them try to satirize Republican politicians in the same way.
Now that's fine, the WWE have every right to do this, but it's a clear indication that A: the companies target audience are Republican voters and B: the company encourages its audience to vote Republican. While the Your Vote campaign is presented as being non-partisan, the rest of WWE's program is
extremely partisan. Put simply, the Your Vote campaign -while technically non-partisan- pretty clearly has the design and effect of getting young, likely Republican voters to register. There is a clear partisan agenda.
I'm actually fine with it, theres people on both sides of politics doing that sort of thing, but let's not pretend like it's a wonderful, seflless community initiative.
they participate more than anyone in the Make a Wish foundation. All those troop tribute shows.
Again, great initiatives. Most large companies do these sorts of things; they are so good for your public image that you almost cant afford not to. I don't think it makes WWE special or sets it apart from any other company.
And on top of all that, they still find time to give us years of entertainment watching their hours of programming every week.
This is not a reason to "stand up for them". They produce a product that we enjoy. That's lovely, but it doesnt make them a "moral" or "good" company and it doesn't make Vince McMahon any less answerable to the very valid criticisms he has recieved from the media.
