Random Acts Of Wrestling: Respect & The Return Of Stardust

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We saw Stardust return to Raw this month. Earlier that day, we got teasers that he would be returning to the ring for the first time after the sudden death of his father, legendary WWE HOFer, Dusty Rhodes. About an hour before Raw went on the air, Stardust tweeted out a picture, and it was then that everyone started to believe that Stardust would return, ditch the cosmic gimmick, and return to being Cody Rhodes in a tribute to his iconic father.

My question is why did anyone think that?

Truth be told, WWE has a long history of profiting off tragedy. They did it on the SmackDown after 9-11. They do it anytime there is a death in the business; either a memoriam message will appear at the beginning of a show or the entire show will be dedicated to the loss. Hell, Vince McMahon even planned to “die” in a limo explosion and build a huge storyline around that. Unfortunately, those plans were nixed due to a real life tragedy that WWE handled in what is still shrouded in controversy of what they knew and when they knew it.

The death of Dusty Rhodes was sudden and tragic, and for a lot of us, it felt like we lost a member of our own family. Dusty is either the reason you became a fan of professional wrestling or he is the reason your favorite wrestler got into the business. The reason this loss felt so personal to so many was that Dusty was one of the few people in this wacky world we love so much that we could relate to. He was real. There was no artifice to him. He was a real person who you couldn’t help but fall in love with. When he died, we felt like we lost someone knew.

But, we didn’t.

Cody Runnels did. He lost his father. He lost his best friend. He lost his mentor. He lost his role model. And, he grieved. He had to deal with this loss in the public eye. He had to deal with some moron hiding behind a tree at his father’s funeral who was taking pictures and posting them on Twitter. He had to deal with speculation as to how and why his father died. He had to grieve all while fans were clamoring for his return.

And, when he returned, what did so many fans do? They trashed him for not allowing his father’s loss to be profited from.

Well, damn. How dare he??

We, as a society, seem to treat every tragedy like a car wreck. We slow down, crane our necks, and try to see inside, looking for the deepest, darkest, ugliest parts of it….because we think we are entitled to it because it happened in public where we could see it. Well, guess what? We aren’t entitled to anything.

While it is true that we see these men and women on our television screens each and every week and feel like we know them, we don’t. They owe us nothing more than the price of a ticket and the entertainment that ticket gets us. They don’t owe us glimpses into their private lives. They don’t owe us glimpses into their thoughts. And, they sure as hell don’t owe us glimpses into their grief.

These men and women have lives outside of professional wrestling. They have friends, families, hopes, dreams, laughter, and tragedy away from the cameras, and we are entitled to none of that. We aren’t entitled to stalk them at airports at 4 in the morning. We aren’t entitled to expect for autographs when they are in public restrooms. We aren’t entitled to expect pictures when they are out to dinner at a public place. We aren’t entitled to anything other than what we see on television or are lucky enough to pay for and see in person.

Too often, we forget to respect the people that play these characters on television. They have earned our respect and are entitled to their privacy. No one should profit off tragedy, and none of us should expect them to. Grief and loss are deeply private things, and anyone who expects a glimpse of anyone’s tragedy just because that person is in the public eye should be ashamed.

What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts, opinions, feedback and anything else that was raised.

You can find me on Twitter @AbbeyBrooke2121 and at abbeyarthur.wordpress.com. Until next time….