8 Damaging Ways Pro Wrestling Tackled Mental Health Problems

4. The Piggie James Nonsense

After Mickie James put on some weight in 2009, the WWE tried to send her a message about it both backstage and on camera with the 'Piggie James' angle. Laycool, the team of Layla and Michelle McCool began to harass James about her weight and started calling her Piggie James. While the company were careful to not come out and actual say it, Laycool heavily implied that James had some sort of eating disorder, reducing her to tears on many occasions. This is especially contentious considering that rumours persist to this day that a few years beforehand Michelle McCool had been hospitalised from a combination of an eating disorder and too many diets pills. There's no shame in having an eating disorder, nor is there in putting on weight, but you wouldn't know it with WWE around. While, yes, Laycool were being villains, and were eventually humiliated in this feud, you know that the guys behind the scene were having a big old laugh about this. They weren't concerned about a hero's tale of standing up to bullies, they were most likely competing to see who could come up with the best fat jokes. For months the fans had to sit and watch two women torment another to tears about her body. In an aesthetically-obsessed western culture, where psychological eating disorders are more common than anyone really wants to think about, having Layla walk down to the ring in a pig fat suit to shame someone else for having an actually healthy bodyweight (who the hell things someone like Mickie James is out of shape), is unfunny and irresponsible. Speaking of irresponsible portrayals of women...