Linda McMahon Vs. The World

For every Stamford Patch article baring the name "Linda McMahon" somewhere in its headline, there are which range from polite to rather crude. Why is that the case, I've asked others.

More than one person has said "she sent us junk mail in '010". I wasn't here for it, but mass-mail isn't an uncommon campaign technique. More than a few people took an anti-Republican stance against McMahon, which made a lot more sense given the Democratic Party's strong presence in CT.

However, it seems as though no conversation about Linda McMahon can end without someone mentioning the WWE, the company that McMahon ran with her husband Vince McMahon for nearly thirty years.

McMahon's involvement with the WWE will always be the subject on which her detractors attack her the most, and for good reason; her connection to WWE calls her integrity as a leader and a person into question.

I hold my head high when I tell you that I was a big fan of professional wrestling for many years, and not just WWE. I followed WCW, ECW, even obscure, bloody Japanese wrestling where two men with names I couldn't pronounce would beat each other with spiked baseball bats until one of them passed out. What can I say? I found it entertaining. Thanks to Internet "dirt sheets", which were often as ficticious as pro-wrestling itself, I followed what went on behind the scenes at wrestling companies, too.

At first, I considered that Linda McMahon simply encountered the same anti-wrestling sentiments that Jesse Ventura encountered when he ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998. That led to the idea that Linda McMahon may be one of the many reasons that such sentiments exist.

A Patch reader recently posted a list which named deceased wrestlers since 1990. While most of the wrestlers on that list never wrestled for WWE, a large number did. Throughout the years, rumors of steroid use in professional wrestling became general fact, and while wrestling companies have taken steps to prevent drug use of any kind, professional wrestling has developed an actual mortality rate.

In all the pro-wrestler biographies that I've read, I've been able to discern one general thing about the rewarding life of a pro-wrestler: it is lived in a harsh, sometimes corrupt world where pain, drugs, and extreme stress are always present and don't mix well. In that world, too many men at peak physical condition die in their sleep before the age of 45, sexual harassment allegations were once rampant, and a wrestler from Canada murders his family and takes his own life for reasons that will never be clear.

It's a world where Vince and Linda McMahon were the law.

It isn't fair to say Linda McMahon isn't qualified to run for Senate in 2012 because she was once affiliated with professional wrestling, as at the end of the day, professional wrestling is just another creative franchise. In fact, the majority of past and present WWE employees have good things to say about it, such as the company's willingness to pay for injury-related medical treatment. More than that, WWE is active in philanthropy across , the U.S., and the world.

While it may be a little more fair to attack McMahon as a Republican, I've only seen people insult McMahon rather than the political platforms she stands for.

Linda McMahon is not in any way responsible for most of the problems or deaths in her pro-wrestling world, but she did have a hand in creating that world.  Like others familiar with McMahon activity in that world, I have to consider what kind of world she'd create for Connecticut residents if given half-a-chance to.

11% of state voters may have already considered that in 2010, and apparently, it's still on their mind going into 2012.

Questions, comments, complaints? Send your feedback to Jamal.Powell@patch.com to appear on next week's Letters to the Editor. Thanks for reading!