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Rolling Stone Interviewer: For as much as we don't want to credit it, professional wrestling still takes athletic skill. And as much as people talk about being able to "fall right," accidents can, will, and do happen on a constant. Even flawlessly executed moves can cause pain that can take days, weeks, months, or and entire lifetime before they go away. These men and women continue to work, with injuries that would cause any starting Quarterback in the NFL to consider sitting out the rest of the year, and any normal untrained person to file for disability in a heartbeat. But they keep going, night in, and night out. Continuing to push their bodies to limits that humans were never meant.
Rolling Stone Interviewer: For a lack of a better word, these people are human crash test dummies.
Rolling Stone Interviewer: And with this lifestyle, comes the inevitable. Taking time off isn't an option for these people. Drugs becomes a necessity. Prescription painkillers, mixing with the atmosphere, and nature of the beast. Steroids, to keep their perfect physiques, and booze, just to help get one through the night. These cocktails become ticking time bombs on their own. Add the pressure of being on the road, 250 days of the year, being asked to perform at your best each night, and of course, life's normal duties. Being a good parent, spouse, and paying the mortgage on time, its enough to cause anyone to do drastic things, in it of passion.
Rolling Stone Interviewer: The trend of broken households, domestic violence, and deaths in this industry have been well documented by the media in the fall out of the Chris Benoit tragedy. But what is it really like, to live in one of these homes? I'm talking about, growing up in one, and following in the footsteps of others who have lived this lifestyle? Which is why I talked to second generation wrestler for SFT, and RWA, Sara Pettis.
Rolling Stone Interviewer: Sara is currently the CWF World Champion, the second highest ranking belt in the Renegade Wrestling Alliance. She is the daughter of wrestling legends Becky Thompson-Schorg, known by wrestling fans as Ice, and Andrew Mitchell Pettis, known by wrestling fans as AMP. She was raised by Becky and her husband, Sara's Step-Father, Will Schorg. Will Schorg is famous as Aj Nin Red Rum, and was a multiple time World Champion in his own day. I asked Sara questions about her childhood, her life as it is right now, and what she thinks life might be like for her family, later on down the road. It was during this interview that the young woman came clean with a skeleton in the closet she has concealed for over half a decade.
RS: Sara, my first question is, with everything that has been made of the whole Chris Benoit situation, professional wrestling has taken a lot of heat, as being a hard profession for families. In your experience, having been raised by professional wrestlers, and being one yourself, is this a justified concern?
Sara Pettis: It really is, I think. I will come out and say that, my sister, brothers, and myself were very lucky. We grew up in a fairly stable household I think. But I saw friends of mine backstage, who were in some pretty dire situations, now that I look back on it as an adult. As a child, seeing another kid with a black eye doesn't send red flags like it does to an adult. But yes, I do remember seeing other kids, bruised, black eyed, clinging to their mothers, who were also covered in bruises typically.
RS: Did anything like that, ever happen between your parents?
SP: Well, I was in a unique situation. My actual parents NEVER got a long. I guess you could say my being here was a product of the hardships of wrestling. My mother and step-father though, I never saw them strike each other, short of being in the ring together.
RS: What do you mean when you say, you're a product of the hardships of wrestling?
SP: Well, I love my mother, but I also know she wasn't a saint. She had her days, with booze, and painkillers, where she did things she grew to regret later on in life. One of them, was getting involved with Andrew Pettis, my biological father. Neither of them really knew each other at the time, but when I was conceived, they were forced to get to know each other. And found out they weren't too fond of each other. I know that if it hadn't been because of the drugs, or the alcohol, or whatever they were under the influence of that night, I wouldn't be here today.
RS: So, you and your siblings, you all grew up in an environment full of these things?
SP: No, I didn't say that. My mother, while pregnant with me, gave up drugs, and booze. I mean, she occasionally drank. But I can't recall ever seeing her drunk. As for the drugs, she had a real hard time with those. I remember even when she was having the surgeries, treating her cancer, she refused to take pain medications. She never did trust herself to stay clean I think. Doctors would give her prescription after prescription, and she would never have them filled. I even remember, my step-father had his own medicine cabinet, which she made him keep under lock and key. This was during the time when she was a stay at home mother with all of us, and he was traveling the world still, wrestling almost every night.
RS: Your mother never had a problem with Will taking medications, even when she was attempting to stay clean?
SP: I can't say for sure. I mean, I never heard anything about it. But I was just a little girl at the time. I know that Will tried to stay clean for Mom, but the fact that he was still wrestling made that hard. He'd be gone, for months at a time sometimes. We never watched him on t.v., but he'd come home from a tour of Japan, or Europe, or who knows where, full of stitches, gimping. I remember after one Japanese tour, he dropped his bags at the door, and even before greeting us, he had to take two pills from a bottle in his pocket. Now that I think about it, I do think my mother confronted him about it at that time. But to his defense, he was a wreck. He was covered in burns, and stitches from where he had been torn open with barbed-wire all over his body. After his introductions, and the obligatory giving us gifts, he went to his cabinet, and put the bottle away.
RS: Whats your feeling on pain medications?
SP: I try not to use them. After my surgery to repair my broken neck, I took a few pills. But that was right after the surgery. I still have that first bottle of pills, and it's 3/4 full.
RS: Have you ever been tempted to take more when you didn't need too?
SP: No, I mean. I remember when I took the first one, and how good it felt. I knew then that I had to be selective about taking the pills. After taking one of those, I can see how someone might need them. I don't have kids, or a family of my own to have to care, and provide for. But most of these guys and girls, they do. Those things can just help take the stress of our jobs, and they are stressful, we have to be at the top of our game constantly, every match. We do get breaks, because if you're not seen in this business, you're forgotten. But those things, they just take that pressure of having to perform, and provide, and care, and nurture, and they just make them so distant. The thing about this business, is that for every huge superstar that makes so much money he can throw around like confetti, there are thousands who are just struggling to pay the mortgage.
RS: Some people contribute Chris Benoit's behavior to steroids. Have you ever had any experience with steroids?
SP: No, I personally never have. My mother, father, and step-father, none of them ever took steroids. They're styles, and my style, of wrestling isn't the kind where steroids would be an enhancement. I mean, I know some guys take steroids, more to help heal an injury then actually better their physique. But growing up, theres no doubt in my mind that those kids, and wives I'd see with the bruises were the victims of a recent 'Roid Rage' episode. No doubt in my mind at all.
RS: Do you think that the WWE or the companies that you work for need to be more strict about steroids, or at least, test more often?
SP: I can't comment on the WWE. But I know RWA and SFT are very good about random testing for steroids. Now wither or not they're testing for other substances, I question, knowing what some of my colleagues like to do in their free time. But I personally have been test quite a few times, increasingly so since my broken neck. I feel like these two companies have a pretty good testing structure. Granted, I don't know how often they've tested others.
RS: So, for the most part, other then losing your mother to Ovarian Cancer at a young age, would you say you've had a stable, un-traumatic childhood?
SP: Well, there were unpleasant times, other then my mother's struggle, and eventually succumbing to cancer.
RS: Such as?
"Sara, if you don't want to talk about something, thats fine. I understand." He tells her.
"It's not that. Theres something I've been wanting to tell someone, anyone for years. But I was always scared. I mean. I've had it bottled up for so long now, that I just want to confront him about it, but I don't even think he remembers it happening" Sara says without even turning around.
"Well, if you want to talk about it, and get it off your chest, by all means be my guest. You just have to tell me if you want it on, or off of the record." He tells her.
Sara thinks about it. Her deepest, darkest secret from her childhood, so vivid in her mind that it feels like its happening all over again. She never told anyone about it. Not ever Jane, who she had always told everything too. She even wondered if Will Schorg knew that it had happened. She takes a deep breath, and tries to compose herself, as the emotion has been bottling up in her throat the entire time she has been thinking. She knows that if she shares this intimate knowledge with this reporter, theres no "on record" and "off record." She also knows that if she says it, it'll end up in print, a million times over showing the world what had happened. She reaches into the front of her shirt, and pulls out her mother's Star of David necklace, and whispers to it, "I'm sorry mom, but I have to let this out."
SP: There was one incident, I've never told anyone about before. Never a friend, or a relative. Never told a co-worker, and especially not my brothers, or my step-sister. It was the four year anniversary of my mother's passing. And Will was, he was having a hard time dealing with it. I was 13 years old at the time. I remember coming home from Middle School, my little brothers were still at school themselves, and my step-sister Jane was doing her after school thing, I think she was at Volleyball practice or something like that. Anyway, I came home first, and I was greeted by a New York police officer. He took me down the street to the cemetery where my mother was buried. At my mother's grave, was Will. He was speaking incoherently, and had a bottle of Southern Comfort, a fifth, in his hand. The officer told me about how he had been there all day, screaming, and crying. And how he lashed out at anyone who came close to him. I approached Will, and was able to calm him down, and with the Officer's help, got him home. When we got inside, the house was trashed, and the cabinet where he keep the medication was wide open, with bottles of pills all over the kitchen floor.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about that." Sara apologizes to the interviewer, trying compose herself.
"It's ok, take your time. Don't worry about the spill, we'll clean it up later, its just water." He tells her.
"Alright...." she takes a drink of water, "So anyway....Will was in a really bad way, he was drunk, and god knows what else he had running through his system at that point. So I took him into the bathroom, and helped him get undressed, and into the shower, hopefully to help him get sober, and he had gotten himself dirty, trying to dig my mother' grave up with his own hands. So, I was trying to wash him up, the whole time he was screaming my mother's name. And then he just stopped. I looked up, and he was just staring down at me. He smiled, and grabbed me, and pulled me into the shower..."
"Will..." the young Sara says, trying to pull away and getting soaked under the running water, "I'm getting drenched. Let me go, ok?"
Will doesn't say anything, he just continues to hold her close to his naked body. He starts to cry, which makes Sara even more uncomfortable as she struggles against him. Suddenly he lets out a roar.
"BECKY!" screaming the name of Sara's mother, his deceased wife, "Becky, I'm so glad you're here! I've missed you so much! I need you Becky! I NEED YOU!" he cries as he grips Sara tightly.
"Will, no, it's me, it's Sara." Sara says still struggling.
Suddenly Will pushes her back, against the wall of the shower. "Becky, you don't have any idea, how hard it has been since you left...four years Becky...it's been four years..." Will says as he begins to slide his hands up and down Sara's back, to which she starts to violently struggle, and begins to scream.
"Will! I'm not mom! It's Sara! It's Sara!" she screams, but its no use. She pushes Will away finally, but in the process slips, and slides down onto her back in the bottom of the bath tub, hitting her head on the edge in the process....
A crying Sara continues, "I wasn't knocked out, but I...I was dazed...and I couldn't anything. By the time I was aware again....it had already started...he had taken my jeans, and underwear off, and...and...I keep screaming for him to stop...but the whole time he thought I was my mom. I tried to get him off...but he just over powered me. When he got done, he got up, and left, just saying, 'I love you, I love you' over and over again...I laid in the bottom of that tub in my soaked t-shirt and training bra for about 4 hours...I didn't believe it had happened."
"And...you never told anyone about any of this?" the interviewer asks.
Sara tries to get herself composed, "No...no one."
"Not even Will?"
"I don't even think he knows it happened." Sara says, feeling slightly ashamed, "I mean, the next time I saw him, he said nothing about it. I never said anything. He even asked me one day why wouldn't look him in the eye anymore."
"And you never told the police?" the interviewer asks.
"And what? End up getting taken away? By this time, Andrew Pettis had already gave me away to Will. If I said something, they would've probably taken all of kids, and split us all up. I'd probably end up with Andrew, who obviously wanted nothing to do with me. I mean, Will Schorg was all I had." Sara says looking down at the floor, tears still rolling from her eyes.
"Do you blame yourself, for what happened?" the interviewer asks.
"Yea, I did. I mean. I can't blame Will. I mean, I should blame Will...but I mean...I should've fought harder, I should've just taken him to his bedroom." Sara says as she wipes her eyes.
"Sara, are you sure you want this on the record?" the interviewer asks, turning off the tape again.
"I don't know...I...I kinda do. I mean, I've had this inside for so long, just eating at me. And I want Will to know it happened." Sara tells him.
"I mean, Sara, this sounds like something you should talk to him about." the interviewer tells her.
"Listen, you have it all on tape. I know you're going to use it. So use it. I'm done having this go unknown. Will Schorg.....Will Schorg raped me. And until now, until now when I told you, I felt like it was my fault. Its not my fault. I'm not going to be ashamed of it." Sara tells him.
RS: When I started this piece. I had no idea of what it would become. I had intended it to be a spotlight on what happens backstage, behind the scenes at wrestling events. It was supposed to be about how 'the boys' got by, and the effects getting by took on their families, their physical health, and their mental health.
RS: Instead, I found myself, listening to girl, who grew up in this culture. Who grew up, spared the 'Roid Rage' violent outburst. Spared the drama of having to see her father taken away in handcuffs for hitting her mother, and spared for the most part, the things that the children she grew up around had to endure.
RS: And yet, it still got there. It still managed to show up. The wrestler, who's body was broken from years of abuse, and mind shattered by years of depression, and suffering. Finally lost it. I should point out, as Sara told me. Will Schorg's life has been like a long, drawn out Greek tragedy. He has lost two wives, a brother, and a son. But that does not excuse his actions.
RS: Just like Chris Benoit's lifestyle, doesn't excuse his actions either.
So now, after all of this. I have to talk about the match. After this whole story that I laid out before you, I have to talk about Zone Capone. And worse yet, everything he says sounds like he's channeling it from Dameon or something. I'm really not in the mood to deal with that type of shit.
Quit crying about getting hit in the head with a T.V. Zone. Suck it up and be a man. Dameon went on the same tirade months ago about getting hit in the head with a T.V. Get over it. It was a T.V. Match. What is the object of the T.V. Match? Hit your opponent in the head with a T.V. Which is what I did. I'm sorry if it messed you up, but you know something? I don't care. I wanted to win that match, so I did what was required to win that match. If it had required the standard 1...2...3 count, I would've done what I needed to do to get that done too Zone. But they made it a T.V. match, not me.
And I sick and tired of hearing from guys like you and Dameon about how impossible it is for someone like me to beat the two of you. Theres more to this sport then 'Hulk Slam on Mat!' like you guys do. There are plenty of other ways for someone like you to be taken down. A kick to the jaw is a kick to the jaw Zone. It doesn't matter if you're 5'6, or 6'6. A kick to the jaw still hurts like hell.
See, I like to use a something called, speed, conditioning and finesse. Wear an opponent down. You know what that is, right Zone? I mean, you're going to respond to that with 'who needs conditioning and speed when you're just a great athlete', like Dameon did, are you?
This isn't going to be an easy win for you Zone. And don't worry, its not going to take must suspension of disbelief for people to believe I can compete with you.
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