The drawing and print series I’m currently working on is titled “Dead Wrestlers.” At Northern this month, I’m showing an in-progress body of work consisting mostly of digital prints. I’ll be posting those images, photos of the opening and updating my website in the next few weeks. Here is the statement I wrote for the series, including scans of photographs I took in 1989 at my very first World Wrestling Federation event.

Statement:

“There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.”  – Roland Barthes

“The biggest thrill in the world is entertaining the public, there is no bigger thrill than that.”  – Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment

The first fan letter I ever wrote was to Hulk Hogan in 1987. I was 8 years old. In return, I received an autographed postcard with a photograph of Hulk on the front. I was soon sending weekly letters to “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, “Andre The Giant,” Jake “The Snake” Roberts, “Ravishing” Rick Rude, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, “Miss Elizabeth,” “Mr. Perfect” and Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Usually I would include one of the myriad drawings on lined paper I sketched of the superstar, with scribbled notes exclaiming how much I loved them, what I thought of their matches and how much I hated their enemies. I attended my first WWF wrestling card in 1989 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, NY. Somehow, my father was able to get floor seats only a few rows from ringside. Between cheering for the good guys and booing the bad, I stood on my seat, a metal folding chair, and took photographs, occasionally scurrying to the front row to get better shots. Those photographs are pictured below.

As I grew older and realized wrestling was scripted, I drifted away from the squared circle, occasionally checking in on the happenings of the WWF as I passed through high school and into college. In 2003 however, a series of wrestling deaths rocked the newly christened WWE universe – “Mr Perfect” Curt Hennig, “Miss Elizabeth” Hulette and “Road Warrior Hawk” Michael Hegstrand all died due to steroid and drug induced heart attacks. “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith had succumbed to the same fate a year earlier at the age of 39. “Ravishing” Rick Rude had passed in 1999 at the age of 40 due to overdose drug-induced heart failure. André “The Giant” René Roussimoff, a famous drunkard, died in 1993 at the age of 46 of a heart attack. The list of deaths directly related to steroid and drug abuse keeps on growing: “Bam Bam” Scott Bigelow, age 45; “Demolition Crush” Brian Adams, age 44; “Sensational Queen Sherri” Martel, aged 49; Eddie Guerrero, age 38; “The Big Boss Man” Ray Taylor, age 41; “Hercules” Hernandez, age 46. This list is by no means complete; by some estimates, more than 100 professional wrestlers under the age of 50, from one time superstars to hopeful jobbers, have died in the past 15 years due to anabolic steroid and other drug abuse related causes. The mortality rate of professional wrestlers is seven times higher than the general U.S. population. They are 12 times more likely to die from heart disease than other Americans aged 25 to 44. Professional wrestlers are about 20 times more likely to die before 45 than pro football players.

This ongoing series of drawings and digital prints simultaneously mourn and celebrate those wrestling superstars who succumbed to early deaths directly related to steroid and drug abuse. Enlarged, highly pixelated, digital abstract prints of captured online video stills represent matches considered by wrestling commentators as career-defining moments for each deceased wrestler. The pixelated, oblique boxes of color portray a contrived reality, recognizable only at a distance, underscoring the spectacle of sports entertainment and our supporting-role relation as consumers to it.

Photos, 1989 :

WWF in Buffalo, NY  – February 13, 1989 at The Buffalo Memorial Auditorium
Attendence: 10,207
Card:
-Sam Houston pinned Barry Horowitz
-Boris Zhukov pinned Tim Horner
-Outlaw Ron Bass pinned Koko B. Ware
-Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (The Brain Busters) defeated Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (The Rockers)
-Ravishing Rick Rude (died at age 40 of drug related heart failure) pinned Tito Santana
-Big John Studd (died at age 47 of liver cancer) fought Akeem to a double count-out
-WWF World Champion Macho Man Randy Savage defeated WWF IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior via count-out at 5:09

Akeem “The African Dream”

Akeem vs. Big John Studd

Ravishing Rick Rude vs Tito Sanatna

The Ultimate Warrior (and my favorite ref Earl Hebner)

“Macho Man” Randy Savage