Healthily Neurotic

Professional wrestlers, the grunting, groaning showpieces of the most thoroughly faked U.S. sport, are maligned men, according to Dr. Charles Davis, physician for the California State Athletic Commission. Wrestling fans are apt to picture their hippodroming heroes as gross, stupid, out of condition, and in general, slobs. Not so, says Dr. Davis--at least not so on the fitness side. Thanks to continual training for weekly and sometimes nightly bouts, says Davis, wrestlers keep in the pink of physical condition. What's more, many of them are in good mental shape as well. Last week, after five years of examining the groaners (most of whom are in their 505), Dr. Davis reported to the County Medical Society in Los Angeles:

"For the most part, wrestlers are men of a high intellectual caliber. I know several dentists, one M.D., a pharmacist and several lawyers who are professional wrestlers. Many are college graduates. And as a result, they are intelligent in their approach to conditioning for the sport. They fully realize the hazards and, unlike most athletes, they accept final [doctor's] rulings ... As a matter of fact, many are neurotic about their health; they are cooperative and understanding when it comes to accepting treatment."

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