WWE News: Why Chris Shays' Smear Campaign Against WWE Is Simply Ridiculous

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You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life. -Gloria Loring, Al Burton and Alan Thicke, Facts of Life theme song.

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I would like to preface this article by saying that I consider myself neutral when it comes to politics. This is in no way an endorsement for Republican Linda McMahon's U.S. Senate campaign. It is simply a response to her opponent's comments about WWE.

When someone gets into politics, it is expected that they will be thrown under the bus by their opponent for anything they have done in their life that can be viewed as negative.

When Linda McMahon first ran for Senate, she was lambasted by her opponent for being the CEO of a company who portrayed women in a negative light as well as created unsafe work environments for the wrestlers of WWE.

Now it appears that her opponent, Chris Shays, is bringing up the WWE's negative image once again to try and portray WWE as a company which promotes bullying, violence and portrays women and minorities in a negative way.

Here is a quote taken from the story posted at The Weekly Standard:

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"Anyone who does a quick YouTube search on Linda McMahon's family business can see that WWE has a long history of promoting violence, bullying and degradation of women and minorities," said Shays spokeswoman Amanda Bergen in a press release. 

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Here is how the McMahon campaign responded to the claims made by Bergen:

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Candidate Shays will say anything to get elected. Candidate Shays has gone to great lengths to run from Congressman Shays' 21-year record—all in hopes of appealing to the same electorate that threw him out of office in 2008. In recent weeks, Candidate Shays has changed his position, distorted his record, or promised not to make the same mistakes again on a myriad of fiscal issues.

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While I completely understand Shays' tactics, I have to say that he is coming off as uneducated on the business by making these statements.

First and foremost is his claim about violence. Pro Wrestling is staged fighting. How exactly would they operate as a business without portraying violence, Chris?

If fake violence is not allowed, then we may as well shut down Hollywood right now.

This does not mean WWE promotes violence among its fans, in fact, it is the exact opposite. For many years WWE has had pre-show videos showing the dangers of wrestling with the quote "Do Not Try This At Home" appearing on the screen before the show starts.

Maybe this does not deter everyone from trying it at home, but the responsibility for safety is on those with kids watching the product, not a company putting on a show which is TV-PG.

We also constantly have wrestlers out in the media talking about how being a wrestler stopped them from becoming a criminal, or in the case of MVP, helped to reform and turn their life around.

Just making the claim that WWE portrays violence is redundant. Yes, they portray violence, just like every cartoon I grew up watching, every drama on television and most comedies as well. Oh, and EVERY WRESTLING PROMOTION TO EVER EXIST!

And seeing as we are on the subject of violence, I thought it would be appropriate to include this quote from Shays during a debate he participated in on October 11, 2006.

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Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture. It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from Maryland who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked, and they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture.

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Please, Chris, tell me where to draw the line between debatable torture and fake violence, because I think that what you say was acceptable in Abu Ghraib is much worse than Mickie James being called a pig.

On a side note, I miss Mickie James in the WWE ring. She was not a pig, she is gorgeous and extremely talented both in and out of the ring. Now, back to business.

WWE is not telling anyone to go out and be violent towards anyone else, and Linda McMahon should not be portrayed as someone who promotes violence.

The second part of the complaint is that WWE promotes bullying. Maybe I am missing something here, but hasn't WWE been anti-bullying for quite some time?

Their B-A-Star campaign is heavily advertised during all WWE programming and WWE Superstars and Divas are making appearances around the country to promote the campaign against bullying.

We also have to remember that WWE has to have the heels bully the baby faces in order for these feuds to work, but what Shays seems to forget is that WWE superstars are acting. Also, heels not bullying baby faces would make the shows very boring and pointless.

None of the anger and violence is real, just like how the victims on CSI, Law & Order and Dexter are not real.

This is all staged and the fans who watch know that it is. Pro wrestling has not tried to pass itself off as being real fighting in many decades and they never will again.

Doing a few YouTube searches will probably always bring up some of WWE's more violent clips, which is why they get the most views, but to say that three little clips shows WWE's entire direction as a company is simply ignorant.

The final point I will make is that Linda McMahon was the CEO of WWE and she made the company into a global brand which brings in millions of dollars in revenue each year, providing jobs to people all over the United States as well as in other countries where WWE has offices.

WWE has devoted more time to charitable causes than any other company I can think of and their portrayal of women and minorities has been negative as well as positive.

WWE is by no means a company that can escape some of these claims, as their business thrives off of staged violence and bullying, but the fact is, it is staged and that makes all the difference in the world.

Here is one other thing I would like everyone to think about—if Shays does win, do you honestly think he will stop WWE from doing business in Connecticut? If he really has such a problem with WWE, then he should try and boot them from his state, but he won't because they are a major employer and probably pay a lot of taxes to the state.

I did not write this piece to endorse Linda McMahon, I wrote it to defend the WWE and all the fans who love to watch every week. I realize this is not fresh news, but it took me a while to form my argument without coming off as a bully myself.

As a fan of WWE I have to say that I get offended when I hear these erroneous claims made by people who clearly just listen to what their advisers tell them to say without taking the time to learn about the issue.

I do not care who wins the election in Connecticut, but I do care about WWE and its employees, wrestlers and fans.