What We Know About CTE in Professional Wrestling
By Thomas Bartlett
Chris Benoit pictured to the Left, Rob Van Dam pictured to the Right
What is CTE?
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive brain disease with no known cure that is connected to repeated brain injuries most commonly seen in war veterans, and athletes from sports like American Football, Boxing, and Professional Wrestling. Not much is known about the disorder, but CTE destroys the brain tissue and according to the CTE Center at Boston University, symptoms like memory loss, confusion, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, anxiety, suicidality, and eventually, progressive dementia are all effects of CTE.
CTE and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) have become an issue in the realm of Professional Wrestling, but have done little to change the scene until recently in 2007. The tragedy of Chris Benoit’s double-murder suicide forced World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to act and change the way they ran their company, such as changing their Wellness Policy completely, to banning chair shots to the head, and more. Benoit’s case, however, is not the only time that TBIs have been brought into the spotlight regarding Professional Wrestling.
“Hitting somebody in the head with a steel chair, you can’t, you can’t mask it. It’s dangerous. We have learned that many of us later in life, you know, suffer memory issues and all of kinds of things from getting hit in the head with chairs … We just didn’t have the medical community stepping up” -Arn Anderson, WWE Hall of Famer
Examples of Wrestlers Diagnosed with CTE
Chris Benoit
Chris Benoit (1967–2007) was a Canadian professional wrestler who was highly regarded as one of the all-time best wrestlers to ever step into a ring back in his day. Training under the legendary Stu Hart in the famous Hart Dungeon, Benoit was given some of the best training that could’ve been offered to a young aspiring wrestler and went on to perform for audiences in Canada, Japan, the United States, and more. Benoit would go on to be the second competitor to win a WWE Royal Rumble as the very first entrant and win the World Heavyweight Championship against Shawn Michaels and Triple H in the main event of Wrestlemania 20.
Chris Benoit’s “flying headbutt” signature move saw him jumping off the top rope and landing head-first on his opponent. Benoit would also commonly headbut his opponents standing up, and also took an absurd number of chair shots to the skull over the years. Thousands of matches later, with “more concussions than I could count” (Words from Benoit himself), and Benoit had developed CTE. Chris Benoit, unfortunately, ended up murdering his wife and son and then hung himself the weekend of June 23rd, 2007. When his brain was studied by the Sports Legacy Institute, they found that Benoit’s brain resembled that of an 80-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease.
Chris Benoit
Rob Van Dam
Robert Szatkowski/Rob Van Dam (1970-still alive) is an American professional wrestler who is a WWE Hall of Famer, class of 2021. A 16-year-old RVD could be seen kissing Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase’s feet in a skit on television in 1987, and RVD attended Wrestlemania III, watching in awe as Hulk Hogan bodyslammed Andre the Giant. Just ten years later, RVD had gained fame in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and become a superstar that would later be signed to the WWE in 2001 and was even ranked as the #1 pro wrestler in the world by Pro Wrestling Illustrated in 2002.
Rob Van Dam wrestled in WWE, TNA, and is still wrestling today on the Independent scene at 52 years old! However, Rob Van Dam announced his CTE presumptive diagnosis to the world after HUNDREDS of concussions after a 30-year-long career back in 2021. RVD has joined a list of athletes that will donate their brains for research on CTE but he still chooses to wrestle to this day.
Rob Van Dam
Test
Canadian wrestler Test, whose real name was Andrew Martin, was a popular wrestler in the Attitude Era of the WWE/WWF, bringing a unique blend of power and agility from his impressive size and athleticism. Test not only held multiple championships during his run in the company but he was also known as a part of The Corporation stable in the late 1990s. Test would go on to wrestle on the indies circuit and TNA, before his untimely passing in 2009 at age 33.
Martin was discovered motionless by his neighbors just 4 days before what would have been his 34th birthday, and toxicology reports revealed that Martin had overdosed on his prescribed oxycodone. Forensic pathologists later determined that Andrew Martin had suffered from severe CTE from repeated concussions and brain injuries during his career.
Andrew Martin; “Test”
Ron Bass
Ronald Heard (1948–2017) was a professional wrestler from the 1970s to 1990s, wrestling as “Outlaw” Ron Bass or “Cowboy” Ron Bass, depending on what territory he wrestled in. A former National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Champion, Bass saw big success and eventually signed with the WWE (Then WWF) from 1987–1989 and participated in the first Royal Rumble, the first match at the first Survivor Series, and even defeated a young Shawn Michaels at the King of the Ring tournament in 1988.
Bass would only wrestle for 2 years following his tenure at the WWF, retiring from professional wrestling in 1991 due to the many injuries he suffered over his career. Following his career, he would not make many appearances in the professional wrestling field but he was named part of the class action lawsuit against WWE where wrestlers sued the company for their life long traumatic brain injuries. After his death in March of 2017, Bass’ brain showed that he had suffered from CTE in the later years of his life.
“Outlaw” Ron Bass
How Can Wrestlers Try to Avoid CTE?
Although outcomes are predetermined, professional wrestling is certainly not “fake”. Most maneuvers, such as a body slam or a suplex, cannot be cushioned in any way so the damage that wrestlers take is very much real. The canvas itself is not soft either, contrary to some’s opinions, as it is made up of wooden planks placed along a solid steel beam and while there is a layer of foam placed above the wooden planks, it is thin and any wrestler you ask can tell you that it really doesn’t do anything to cushion a landing. Unfortunately, with a career in professional wrestling, you are almost bound to suffer injuries and concussions at some point.
The best advice for a professional wrestler to avoid CTE would be to simply avoid dangerous moves that impacted the head. WWE has done a good job of this, banning dangerous moves like the piledriver and chair shots directly to the head, and most other wrestling promotions have followed since 2007. Another noteworthy tip could be to try and limit the whipping of the head. For example, if a wrestler is irish whipped to the ropes and they lash their head back and forth too quickly, it could potentially give a concussion to the wrestler right there alone. Concussions occur as a result of the brain making an impact with the skull, so high-risk maneuvers such as a harsh irish whip, or big amounts of impact to the skull like a chair shot to the head could all rattle the brain and concuss a wrestler, which after happening many times can result in CTE.
As the advancement in knowledge of CTE progresses with time, and big wrestling promotions take steps to protect wrestlers more than ever, we can hope that cases of CTE in professional wrestlers will be a remnant of the past one day. All of the research on CTE may turn out to be a blessing as going forward, wrestlers can continue to perform for millions worldwide while keeping safety in the ring at an all-time high. Below are listed some knowledgeable and reliable sources with more information on CTE.
For more information on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), visit these links:
Alzheimer’s Association’s “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia/related_conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy#:~:text=Traumatic%20Encephalopathy%20(CTE)-,Chronic%20Traumatic%20Encephalopathy%20(CTE),with%20the%20development%20of%20dementia.
Boston University CTE Center’s “Frequently Asked Questions about CTE”: https://www.bu.edu/cte/about/frequently-asked-questions/
Concussion Legacy Foundation’s “What is CTE?”: https://concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/what-is-CTE
National Library of Medicine’s “Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a professional American wrestler”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21175533/