I Can See Your House From Here - Archives
vol 2 number 24
It's Monday night, January 7, 2002, and in a few hours, HHH returns live to WWF's RAW on television.
I heard that collective sigh, by the way. "Wrestling. Bah! What does that have to do with comic books or science fiction?" Besides the fact that I've been taking flak for enjoying all of them for years? Actually, a quick game of SIX DEGREES OF... shows that HHH connects to both Christopher Reeve (and therefore Superman), Stephen King, and Michael Turner (artist and creator of Fathom ) in one simple step. Or, perhaps, a lot of not so simple steps.
In the spring of last year, HHH (real name: Paul Levesque) tore his quadriceps muscle in his left leg. For the anatomically uneducated, the quadriceps is the really big muscle that covers the entirety of your upper leg -- it's the counterpart to what is typically thought of as your thigh, and it enables you to kick, push, and walk, among other things. Now, when I say tore, I don't mean a tiny split or rip; I mean that the muscle disconnected completely from its attachment and rolled up like a scroll. If you watch wrestling, you've seen the footage of his operation and his rehabilitation, which has took the better part of 2001. It's a horrifying concept, and painful to watch.
What makes it impressive, though, is his return. Consider this: while the storylines are scripted, the fighting prearranged and the winners and losers based more on ratings and merchandising than who is the tougher guy, the injuries are very real. Wrestling, in a sense, is no less dangerous than being a stuntman; the main difference is that these guys and gals do this four to six nights a week, year round. It's not just the plot lines and dialogue that remind me of comics; it's the risk that these people take with their health, because of their chosen profession. Now, take that risk, and add to it a previous injury -- not exactly a recipe that's guaranteed to come out right.
Why would any person do what HHH is doing? Plainly enough, the answer is passion. Wrestling is something the man loves, not just something that he gets paid to do week in and out. He's got the enviable position of having a job that he's been very successful at and that he enjoys doing. I don't want to sell HHH or his accomplishment short, but it's something that can be said about a lot of the industry, in fact; among others, Steve Austin has been paralyzed from a mistimed move, and had career threatening neck surgery a few years later, only to return as good as ever. Chris Benoit is rehabbing through a similar surgery.
So... HHH is impressive and courageous, along with more than a few of his colleagues. How does this connect to King, Reeve and Turner? Right around the hip bone, and then again at the heart.
Presumably, everyone remembers Reeve's horseback riding tragedy from about six years ago. We all read about King getting hit by the van two years ago, and you're possibly among the few million people who read his recounting of his injuries and recovery in On Writing . Comics fans know that Turner successfully fought cancer, and in the process had a large chunk of his hip removed. Turner not only blew the recovery curve out of the water by walking much sooner than was predicted -- he plans on water-skiing again. As well, he continued to draw throughout the recovery process, despite the exhausting radiation and chemotherapy treatments he received. King had to make adjustments to his surroundings, as sitting for too long was too painful for him -- but still he continued to write, forcing his way through the exhaustion of recovery and the haze of the pain killers.
Christopher Reeve, of course, proved to the world that Superman does exist. His accident cost him more than the use of his legs: his entire lower body is paralyzed, requiring even a respirator for him to breathe. As expected, he was intensely depressed after the fall, but his family brought him out of it. Not only did he come out of it, but he has gone on to write a biography ( Still Me -- I highly recommend it to anyone), speak publicly about his experience... oh, and he acted again, most recently in the television remake of Rear Window .
I've seen a lot of things in my relatively short life, good and bad. I've seen athletic careers ended in high school by bad tackles and car crashes, and musical aspirations stopped in their tracks by industrial machinery. I've also seen people give up on chasing a dream because life got too busy, or criticism was too loud, or because it was just too hard. I can't help but feel a world of sympathy for those whose dreams are cut short by circumstances beyond their control; I have a harder time with each passing year feeling anything for those who drop out of the race before its over. So you had a kid too soon, or got married too young, or the editors don't seem to know any color other than pink -- boo F'in hoo. There are writers who put pen to paper at risk of exile or jail time. There are people with missing digits that continue to play guitar. There are athletes in wheelchairs, and blind artists.
In this world, it's not just anatomy that separates the men from the boys; neither is it entirely strength, or determination, or an inhuman ability to fight past the pain. The people who win, in the end, don't do what they do because of public opinion or money or power, though that might play into it. The driving force behind success -- big and small -- is passion, a love for the game, and a desire to keep playing, no matter what. Look at HHH, and King, and Turner, and Reeve -- even with all their problems, they're still a few steps ahead of the rest of us.
Kenn McCracken is still learning how to walk.