Martin felt overwhelmed and disoriented, fled his home and entered a neighbor’s home two doors down where police took him into custody, Murphy said. “Ultimately, mental illness proved to be the one opponent from which Doug could not run,” Murphy said.
Adam Conover and many others have also talked about it. It truly breaks my heart to think of these young men who want to prove themselves physically being destroyed because of that dream. Thanks for the summary; this is exactly what I was getting at.
It’s actually the story of Chris Benoit specifically that gets me. And he probably knew better than some what he was getting into, from what I’ve read. His poor wife and child, and him too. It must have been awful to go through that first hand, and who can say what his state of mind was exactly at the end. He was one of the biggest stars they had, but they treated him like garbage: driving himself to venues, no health insurance, and still feeling he had to prove himself.
I hope that with people talking about the deadly impacts of these sports more openly, there will be real drive to change these standards for the betterment of the next generations.