Morbid question

[wildojinx]

What if a wrestler died in the ring during a televised match? How would WWE/AEW/Impact/etc handle the situation? Before you bring up Owen, bear in mind that his descent was not shown on camera and it wasnt during the actual match. Would this be the end of said company? Would there be numerous investigations? The show itself would likely have to be shut down, forget the whole "show must go on" thing.

[DiBiase is Good]

I don’t think it would be the end of the company if it wasn’t a negligence issue. At the risk of tempting fate, there could just be a freak accident or even someone in peak medical condition could just drop dead, that wouldn’t be the fault of the company.
I’d imagine they’d immediately evacuate the audience and cut the broadcast. If they absolutely had to stay on the air, they could as a last resort fill with video clips, backstage segments etc.

[Natural Born Farmer]

They'd cut away, have the announcers explain what's happening, and if absolutely necessary call the network or PPV provider to cut the feed and start a movie or something.

They came pretty close to having to do this with Lawler, and while it wasn't a great look and made for really uncomfortable viewing, they got past it.

[Burst]

I'm trying to remember (mostly because I have no desire to watch the video again), but was Perro Aguayo Jr's death during a broadcast show or were those just fan recordings?

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I know SNL always runs a taped show in concert with the live one, so if something ever happens, it’s bang, straight to the tape.

I have no idea if this is exclusive to SNL or other networks do it. But, how many horrible NASCAR deaths have been broadcast? Boxers have died in the ring. I mean, 9/11….

It’s not like real actual death has never been on TV before.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

Jun 13, 2022 17:50:05 GMT -5 Burst said:

I'm trying to remember (mostly because I have no desire to watch the video again), but was Perro Aguayo Jr's death during a broadcast show or were those just fan recordings?

I don't think it was broadcast, but it was definitely recorded by a ringside camera crew.

[sdoyle7798]

Jun 13, 2022 15:58:35 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

What if a wrestler died in the ring during a televised match? How would WWE/AEW/Impact/etc handle the situation? Before you bring up Owen, bear in mind that his descent was not shown on camera and it wasnt during the actual match. Would this be the end of said company? Would there be numerous investigations? The show itself would likely have to be shut down, forget the whole "show must go on" thing.

Depends on how/why they died, but a freak in ring accident or other deaths not brought about by gross neglect of the company would not kill the company, though there could be investigations and probably should end that specific show.

Even gross neglegence by a wrestler that causes may not shut down the company, though it could. It would depend on what that negligence was, and how the company responded.

[hentery]

What everyone else said.

To add: it also depends on the handling of the aftermath, and the companies actions in the days and weeks after. A good carnie would spin it into positive press and use the increased eyes as a chance to keep a few new fans.

[Burst]

Jun 13, 2022 17:59:39 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

But, how many horrible NASCAR deaths have been broadcast?

The last NASCAR fatality from a national level/nationally broadcast series was Dale Earnhardt's back in 2001, though both Indycar and Formula 1 have had fatalities since then.

The whole "would it be the end of said company" argument at least on the motorsport side is something I've seen come up mainly in regards to fan injuries or fan fatalities. There's more or less an acceptable risk for the drivers that while it's still tremendously sad and always worth a safety reckoning when a driver dies, there's still the "oh, it's a dangerous sport" factor, especially when you look back to around 1982 and earlier when multiple drivers dying each year (at least in the open-wheel series) was almost expected.

The other caveat is the level of freak accident vs perceived gross negligence, like the circumstances that lead to Dan Wheldon's death in 2011, which was probably the most damaging to Indycar's reputation that they've had in the modern era, and justifiably so. The handful of times you've had a NASCAR vehicle go in the catchfence and cause fan injuries also have been a lot more damaging from a public perception point-of-view.

The only other thing that could negate the "oh, it was a freak accident" factor, would be the sheer scale or grisliness of a hypothetical incident. To use another motorsport example, there was a fatal Indycar testing accident at Indianapolis in 2003 where nearly all the information about the crash has been buried, and multiple personalities have basically said that if it had happened during the Indy 500 proper and not during a private testing session, it would've been the end of Indycar and the Indy 500 then and there. Hyperbole in a sense, but then you see the handful of aftermath pictures that -have- leaked, and you basically had the car spearing through the catchfence and ripping through the lower levels of the grandstand in a way that was very unpleasant for the driver and would have been extremely unpleasant with a full grandstand.

But yes, to bring this back to wrestling, completely hypothetical, but I think the most likely thing to get a promotion blackballed or shut down would be something negligent or poorly thought out that did end up leading to fan injuries or death, such as a badly built scaffold match setup falling into the crowd, deathmatch debris going the wrong way, or someone being overzealous when brawling through the crowd, I dunno.

[Dang!]

Isn't pretty much every show not actually live at this point? I think there's never gonna be a wrestler dying live in front of a TV crowd.

[Hit Girl]

It wouldn't be a problem. Undertaker used to kill jobbers every week and put them in bodybags. The show continued nevertheless.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

Jun 24, 2022 1:16:41 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

It wouldn't be a problem. Undertaker used to kill jobbers every week and put them in bodybags. The show continued nevertheless.

And that was pre-taped. Networks had a chance to review said killings and they chose to air them regardless. You could say it was in poor taste, but The Undertaker is now a largely respected Hall of Famer. Go figure.