WWFuNEWS:  Dawn Marie's WrestlersRescue close to procuring Health-Care Program for Professional Wrestlers

When WWFu Underground Babe and former WWE diva Dawn Marie Damatta started the WrestlersRescue foundation over a year ago, one of her main goals was to establish a health care program for professional wrestlers -- past and present -- and their families.

That noble yet highly ambitious goal is very close to becoming a reality, Damatta said.

“I am within months of the first national health care program for professional wrestling,” Damatta told me in a telephone interview. “We just have a few little things to work out, but we’re very close. Two major companies are bidding for it right now.

"It’s going to change the industry in such a positive way," she added, her voice cracking with emotion. "I'm helping people that deserve to be helped."

The fact that pro wrestlers have never had health benefits or pensions is something that has been talked about in pro wrestling circles for years, but nothing had ever come of it. More attention was brought to the challenges facing wrestlers – especially as they get older – in the movie The Wrestler.

Anyone who has ever had a contract with WWE, WCW, ECW or TNA is eligible, as are wrestlers from the territories era. There most likely will be a separate policy for independent wrestlers, Damatta said.

“The application has to come through our doors and get approved. Once it comes across my desk, I will either approve or not approve whether this person was a person in our industry,” she said. “Once we approve that they are actually a member of our community, they are able to purchase health care, the same health care that any Fortune 500 company would have at the same rate.

“We will have family packages. We will have prescription and major medical. We will have different levels of packages depending on what you can afford, or we can do different types of co-pays like any insurance. We will have a disability package. In the real word, if you are disabled, you get disability. They way we’re getting our package put together, disability by definition means unable to work for a period of time. Because most people when they break their leg, they can still go to work and sit behind a desk. When we break our leg, we can’t go to work. So there will be compensation and a disability packet.

"With the health care, there’s no high-risk category; it’s normal category. The thing I think people don’t understand, is that when you work with a major [wrestling] company, we don’t have heath insurance. We don’t even have anything to purchase into with our own money. And if we do, we’re considered high risk and we can’t even afford it. Not only can we not afford it for ourselves, we can’t afford it for our families.”