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There is tragic evidence that when young people imitate the antics of professional wrestlers, the consequences can be lethal.

Last year alone, a 12-year-old Florida boy was charged with murder in the death of a 6-year-old neighbor girl who was thrown into an iron stairway railing, a move he had seen on television. A 3-year-old Texas boy died after his 7-year-old brother put a so-called "running clothesline" move across his throat. And a 12-year-old boy in the state of Washington was convicted of second-degree felony murder after repeatedly body-slamming his 18-month-old cousin on a couch.

Steve Danish, sports psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, says children under 8 are unable to distinguish reality from fantasy when it comes to wrestling violence. "If they watch a movie on HBO they understand more quickly that that isn't real," Danish says. "But this is a 'sport,' and they probably don't see that this isn't real."

In the last ten years, professional wrestling on TV has moved from being low-budget and underproduced to being slickly produced and aggressively marketed. The result has been an enormous financial windfall for wrestlers and promoters alike.

The two rival leagues are in a prolonged period of one-upmanship. Media titan Ted Turner's organization operates WCW, while Vince McMahon Jr. and family, who have been involved in professional wrestling for three generations, run WWF. Americans with cable TV can watch wrestling five nights a week. Wrestling programs are often in the top ten of cable television ratings each week. Most carry a warning that the content is not appropriate for viewers younger than 14 because of violence, coarse language, and sexually suggestive dialogue.

UPN is the sole broadcast-only network to carry wrestling, and WWF Smackdown! is its most popular program. The two-hour Smackdown! began last August on Thursdays and now regularly draws more than 7 million viewers each week. Overall ratings have risen nearly 40 percent from last season.

CBS and Fox have shown interest in adding wrestling programs in the fall. NBC has formed a partnership with WWF to show games of McMahon's proposed XFL football league, scheduled to kick off next year.

The industry's flair for the theatrical backfired last May when Owen Hart, 34, plummeted 78 feet to his death when a cable lowering him for a grand entrance in the ring malfunctioned before 17,000 fans in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. Matches resumed 15 minutes later after Hart's body had been removed and his blood was cleaned up. The WWF did not want to refund money because the event was part of a live pay-per-view broadcast, which regularly draws an audience of half a million at $30 apiece. Hart's widow Martha has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the WWF.

Ten WCW or WWF wrestlers, ages 27 to 41, have died in the past seven years. Abuse of steroids and painkillers is reportedly widespread in professional wrestling.

Gerald Durley, pastor of the 1,000-member Providence Baptist Church in Atlanta, home of Turner's wrestling empire, believes the images seen on TV wrestling can have a latent effect that lasts for years. "The violence is glamorized, whether it's a man taking a chair and breaking it over somebody in the ring, or he's running out beating up his girlfriend who has just paraded around the ring outside," Durley says. "Many times it's sublimated into the psyche. Children don't always see that's it different from playing war and using guns."

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May 22 2000, Vol. 44, No. 6