10 Biggest Mainstream Misconceptions About Pro Wrestling

3. Wrestlers Are Barely Even Real People

In the late '90s, when young wrestler deaths started to occur at a much faster rate, there was a weird pattern in the media coverage: Anchors treated the deceased like they weren't actual human beings. Similarly, there's a school of thought that wrestling's worked nature makes some fans think of dead wrestlers as disappearing TV characters because of the line they straddle. When Sylvester Ritter (best known as the Junkyard Dog) died in 1998, ESPN had to apologize when a Sportscenter anchor made a comment along the lines of "Professional wrestling will never be the same...unless you read the script!" CBS issued a non-apology apology for this Craig Kilborn line in 1999: "World Wrestling Federation wrestler Owen Hart, known as the Blue Blazer, died Sunday night. Blue Blazer's partner, White Turtleneck, was unharmed." When Rick Rood ("Ravishing" Rick Rude) passed away, Kathie Lee Gifford used a discussion of the tragedy as an opening to trash him for how he behaved in character when appearing on her show. If anyone from any other profession had died, would news anchors, talk show hosts, and/or comedians be joking about their deaths?