League of Denial by Mark Fainaru-Wada

Author:Mark Fainaru-Wada [Fainaru-Wada, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3755-8
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Nowinski, of course, knew that the sport was staged, that the moves and the results were choreographed. But there was no way to comprehend the true violence of pro wrestling until he was in it. “You don’t appreciate how the sausage is made,” he said.

Nowinski got kneed, elbowed, drop-kicked, punched, and otherwise smashed in the head. That was all very real. The concussions began with a kick to the chin from Bubba Ray Dudley’s boot. Nowinski sucked it up and kept going. When more concussions followed, he never gave himself time to recover. Soon he was experiencing pounding headaches and blurred vision; sometimes he forgot how his matches were supposed to play out, like an actor forgetting his lines. He began sleepwalking. One night his girlfriend woke up at a hotel in Indianapolis and saw Nowinski standing on the bed, trying to climb the wall. She tried unsuccessfully to wake him by shouting his name, only to watch him leap off the bed and slam headfirst into the wall.

After that, Nowinski set out on a journey to try to figure out what was going on inside his head. He visited a series of head trauma experts, including Lovell at UPMC, but never felt that he truly understood. Finally, he was referred by a friend to one of the world’s leading concussion experts, a doctor right in his own backyard. It was Cantu, one of the original Dissenters. Nowinski had found his savior, a man who took the time not only to define concussions for him but to explain how poorly understood they were and the dangers of not allowing them to heal. The two met many times over the coming months, and Cantu became more than Nowinski’s doctor; he became his mentor, his teacher, his friend, and his champion. It was Cantu ultimately who encouraged Nowinski to write the story of his concussions, to help educate the world. Cantu saw “a dynamic individual, a very brilliant mind, whose background is 180 degrees from mine. He had lived reality TV life. He had lived the star athlete life. And he knew how to use the media to get across ideas in a way that, duh, never occurred to me in 30 years of writing papers. Reminds me of the monk in the monastery approach, as compared with what can happen instantaneously if you get that message out.”

“Medical guys write books all the time, but no one reads them,” Cantu told Nowinski. “You have a platform from wrestling.”

As Nowinski began his work on the book, Cantu directed him to other research scientists and some of his other patients. Nowinski also reviewed the literature on concussions. That was how he came upon Omalu. Nowinski’s book, Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis, was published several months later, with an introduction by former professional wrestler turned governor Jesse “the Body” Ventura. Nowinski’s dedication read: “To the players, young and old, whose lives have been changed forever by head injuries.”

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