David Starr would make a decent Labour candidate in a marginal seat. He would certainly be up for a scrap. On the economy his line deviates little from the Corbynite script. He said recently that he finds “the idea of capitalism pretty cancerous, for the most part. I don’t think that our society is going to get rid of capitalism fully fledged any time soon but I think it needs to be massively, massively regulated and controlled for the protection of labourers and the protection of consumers.”
Starr’s other great passion is the NHS. “We need to protect that as much as possible, especially now,” he added.
But David Starr is not a politician. He’s a 28-year-old pro wrestler also known as “The Product”, who was born in Philadelphia and now resides in Bishop’s Stortford. In the ring Starr is engaging and charismatic: a rare performer who is equally adept at the physical, technical aspects of grappling and the hammy mic skills that give an arc to the storytelling. His handsome features make Starr (real name: Max Barsky) a natural “face”, or good guy, but he’s also a convincing villain, or “heel”.
You won’t, however, find Starr appearing in the showcases organised by WWE, the dominant global platform for wrestling. He tends to compete in bouts for smaller operations, such as TNT Extreme Wrestling or Over the Top Wrestling. Starr did once have a trial for WWE, in 2014, but it didn’t work out and he seems to have closed the door on that ambition. It may not help that he lambasts the working practices of the WWE as “egregious” and has wondered aloud how its executives, specifically the billionaire CEO Vince McMahon, “can sleep at night”.
Starr is not the only person to have a problem with WWE. Earlier this year the British comedian John Oliver, who hosts Last Week Tonight on HBO in the US, made an impassioned attack on the wrestling behemoth, which last year had revenues of $930m (WWE’s signature event WrestleMania makes more money than baseball’s World Series). Oliver pointed to 2014 stats from Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website, which indicated that male wrestlers have an alarmingly outsized chance of dying much younger than the average man. Their lifespans were significantly less than those of other sportsmen, even NFL players.
Hulk Hogan may still be going strong at 66 and campaigning for one final WWE bout but many wrestlers – both male and female – won’t make it to retirement age. In May a former WWE superstar Ashley Massaro died, aged 39. She had previously claimed that wrestling caused her neurological damage and further alleged that WWE played down the dangers of head injuries.
At the heart of the issue, Oliver argued, was that WWE treated its wrestlers as “independent contractors” not employees. It is rare for wrestlers, even those that have signed exclusive, long-term contracts, to have health insurance; they can also have their deals terminated if they are injured in the ring and are unable to wrestle for six weeks. Some will sign a waiver that states the WWE bears no responsibility if they die. “When you’ve lost the moral high ground to the fucking NFL,” Oliver concluded, “you’re morally subterranean.”
For Starr, an admirer of Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, the solution is obvious: wrestlers need to form a union. On 4 July this year, Independence Day in the US, he launched We the Independent, a “pro labour empowerment, pro fairness and pro equality” movement for wrestlers. He has also become a member of Equity, the UK trade union better known for working with actors. If Starr needs legal support, Equity will represent him in the small-claims court and can help squeeze independent promoters who pay late. Part of Starr’s reason for leaving the US was so that he would not have personally to cover health insurance. “Of course there are unions that are flawed,” Starr wrote on Twitter, “but the power imbalance needs to be corrected and unions often do that. Also, you can thank unions for having the weekend.”
There are echoes of Starr versus WWE, a real David‑Goliath tussle, across different sports and the bad news is that it rarely pans out like in the Bible. Colin Kaepernick was back in the spotlight again last weekend, when the quarterback was due to take part in an NFL‑endorsed workout to determine if any teams were interested in signing him. Kaepernick, who led the San Francisco 49ers to the 2013 Super Bowl, losing narrowly, has not thrown a ball in competition for three years. The reason is not one of talent but that he represents a massive financial gamble for any NFL franchise that takes him on: ever since he started kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest against police brutality – and was called out by Donald Trump for it – Kaepernick is considered a liability.
Kaepernick’s session did not happen as promised, so he organised his own. He passed well, completing 53 out of 60 throws, and at the end said: “I’ve been ready for three years, I’ve been denied for three years.” There has been talk of rearranging the NFL audition, perhaps next spring, but the clock is ticking for Kaepernick, who is now 32. He will never get back what could and should have been the prime of his career.
The message for athletes again and again is “stick to sports”. It’s probably sensible, certainly remunerative advice, though not something that Starr, a self-described “political nerd”, is planning to follow. But there is also a role for us, as fans, to play. Oliver, in his monologue, suggested the crowd at WrestleMania, which was taking place the following week, take signs telling WWE that they wanted the organisation to look after the wrestlers better. Apparently, no one did. “I was there. There was nothing,” reported one user of the website Reddit. “No chants, no signs, nothing. Just a regular show like nothing happened.”
Like nothing happened … If we do want the Davids to topple the Goliaths, they might need our help.