8 Damaging Ways Pro Wrestling Tackled Mental Health Problems

6. Depression Is Funny

Two of the most tasteless moments in WWE history occur when characters were seen to be suffering suicidal depression, and were mocked for it. Tim White was a referee who suffered a sever shoulder injury during a Hell In A Cell match between Triple H and Chris Jericho in 2002. The injury proved to be insurmountable and he retired from his role in 2004. At the Armageddon PPV in 2005, Josh Mathews interviewed White in a bar and, despondent after having his life ruined by the injury, the man took a shotgun and appeared to shoot himself offscreen. But it transpire that he failed, and for the next few weeks, White attempts to kill himself via rat poison, hanging and other methods in a weekly segment called (and this is absolutely true) 'Lunchtime suicide'. Because suicide is funny. For further confirmation at how lols it is, look at the sad case of Hawk, one half of the Road Warriors. Hawk was legitimately struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction in his life. For whatever horrible reason, the WWE decided to incorporate that into a storyline, having Hawk show up (kayfabe) inebriated to his matches and start to show suicidal tendencies. The whole thing reached a spectacular low when Hawk climbed the Titantron and threatened to throw himself off. Fellow Road Warrior Puke (aka Droz) climbed up and, while it initially appeared that he was going to help him, pushed him off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9geNPA9zQPA That's the punchline, and that kind of laughing at depression makes people disrespect it as a serious issue. If you disagree with that, take into account that someone disrespected it enough to write this garbage. If people laugh at hapless sods who wan to off themselves, that might make people struggling with suicidal thought not want to speak up. And that's terrible. Hawk quit the WWE in disgust after that angle.