Hello to all,

As if there isn’t enough negative goings on in Pro Wrestling today, here is aonther fact for us to ponder. There is now a name and an actual study going on for brain injuries in sports acording to the April 11th issue of People Magazine. This now can help us better understand what health issues we may face as wrestlers in our future. Hopefully this study continues and will help us understand what is happening in our heads so that we don’t have any more incidents like the Benoit situation as well as all of the wrestlers suicides, most recently Larry Sweeney this past week.

There are 70 reseachers at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University’s School of Medicine that are studying to understand the permanent damage athletes suffer from head injuries. Five athletes, that are now deceased, donated their brains to this study. Of the 5 men, 2 were suicides, 1 heart failure, 1 Overdose and 1 died from ALS (Lou Gerrigh’s Disease). What is this brain disease called? Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

So what is CTE you ask? CTE is the progressive death of brain cells following blows to the head, leading to memory loss, depression and dementia. So far the only test for it: Examine the brain postmortem (After you’re dead) for a toxic protein, TAU, that indicated swaths of dead areas. They have studied football players, hockey players and boxers. In all but one there is CTE.

The answer should be a simple choice for a wrestler to make, it’s called not being stupid. In the 90′s when hardcore was popular, alot of us took alot of senseless shots to the head just to make it look real. The marks wanted stiff, they got stiff. It was dumb for us to do then, it is absolutely retarded to do it now. This now has a name and has a body count. I am only hoping that you guys and gals in Florida really pay attention to this. Being careless to look good in front of a crowd of 50 at a local indy show is just plain dumb and promoters should really think about the angles they want to run and how they want to run them. A lot of people say, “It won’t happen to me”, but it will. I never worried about all of the head trauma that i took on because ECW was doing it, World Championship Wrestling and WWF were doing hardcore stuff. It all seemed just fine and dandy. Now we are finding out exactly how “Not Fine” this crap really is.

I am 36 years old now. My career is over. I had about 6 matches booked from February through July of this year. Nothing crazy, just a few matches with my tag partner, Vito DeNucci. On January 18th i was sitting at home with my Wife looking at something on EBAY. I woke up in an ambulance. I had a grand mal seizure while sitting in my computer chair. I broke a table and went crashing through a dog crate during my seizure. I wasn’t high, i wasn’t drunk…..I was sitting in a chair. The seizure was partially due to head trauma which showed up on the CT scan I had done while in the hospital. Not many people really know the truth about my seizure, but I am telling you guys and girls this because I do not want to see people have to go through this one day like I am now. I am hoping that people actually listen to this and take it seriously. I have massive migraines that come on about once a month that are so severe all I can do is lay in bed and cry until they are gone. I have been having vision issues as well as some memory loss, mostly short term memory. I am telling you all this because you can avoid these types of issues by doing right by yourself.

Being a Pro Wrestler was the only thing i ever wanted to do since I was 7 years old. It was my dream to work for the National Wrestling Alliance/World Championship Wrestling and the WWF. I was fortuate to be able to accomplish my goals in a business that today only wants guys that are 6′ 4″ and 280 lbs. I had a great career doing over 300 television matches and holding the National Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Titles on 3 occasions. I am proud of what i accomplished. I only hope that the damage that I did to myself does not get any worse in time. I was a football player, baseball player and a wrestler. I have been an athlete my entire life. My Son plays Varsity Football for his High School team where he is the QB. I support sports of all kind for anyone who wants to play. I really want you all to be careful out there. No $20 payday is worth the price you might have to pay in your future if you do crazy things and take major head trauma.

Like I said, I am proud of what I accomplished, very proud. I just want to be around and be able to coach my Son and one day my grandkids and not be in a wheelchair or dead. You all have a choice to make out there. I am not saying don’t be a wrestler. I am saying, please be a smart wrestler.

Very Sincerely,

Chris Nelson

Chris Tipton (Nelson)