Sexy Star Injured Rosemary Because *shrug*

Rosemary, the latest victim of Sexy Star's unprofessionalism Photo Credit: Lee South/ImpactWrestling.com

While everyone else was waiting for their pay-per-view providers to stop pussyfooting about and actually put Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor in the ring, a select group of wrestling fans looking for an alternative watched TripleMania XXV, Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide's flagship event, free of charge on Twitch TV. While its main competition, Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, makes headlines for in-ring excellence, AAA has mostly made headlines for less than scrupulous reasons. Whether it be welching on pay, staging elaborate worked-shoot angles playing on backstage reputations, or attempting to sue former talents like Penta El Zero M and Rey Fénix for using their more famous names, the company has become more infamous than famous lately. But hey, TripleMania was free, and 75,000 people watched it on the streaming service. That's good! They also saw the following.



That's bad!

In case the video is a little confusing, the one applying the armbar is Sexy Star, and the one tapping out is Rosemary, formerly known as Courtney Rush. Why would Sexy Star continue applying an armbar to a defeated opponent when she was the tecnico in the match? Well, according to PW Spyware, which I will not link because I care about your computer, she was legitimately shooting. The match was a tornado-rules four way match for the AAA Reine de Reinas Championship, and it also featured Ayako Hamada and Lady Shani. Apparently, Sexy Star got a bit of an ego about her as she's wont to do, forgot it was a work, and threw legit bombs at Shani busting her open. Hamada also had complaints of her taking liberties, and as the coup de grace, Star turned a worked armbar into a MMA-style shoot on Rosemary, causing a dislocation in the elbow and/or shoulder.

Please allow me to repeat; because Sexy Star decided to break trust for reasons unbeknownst to anyone else in the world, Rosemary legitimately got injured. The amount of things wrong with that scenario is staggering. For one, the cardinal rule of pro wrestling is that you protect your opponent. It is not a fight; it is a show. The fact that Rosemary will lose dates for this, dates that she probably needs to supplement her Global Force Wrestling pay. The mindless selfishness of one wrestler has impacted the health and livelihood of another. It's unconscionable. It's not as severe as the Yoshiko/Act Yasukawa incident, but it's the same in principle.

For that reason, no one should book Sexy Star again, or at least for a period of time where she can get this wild unprofessional streak under control. Of course, to get her to accept it would mean she'd have to have a moderate ego to appeal to, and since she's bragging to everyone that it was a work, well, she claims no responsibility. She'd need a strong administration to come down on her, which AAA doesn't have. As for others to that end, judging by the reactions of wrestlers across the indies and in GFW, she doesn't have to worry about getting bookings in reputable promotions north of the border.

This incident should also serve as a black mark for AAA, which again proves that it stands above and beyond all other promotions regardless of nationality in terms of carny shit, to put it lightly. It probably won't, but it should. In the meantime, Rosemary is left hurt for reasons I can't understand. Honestly, if AAA were a well-run company, it'd have ceased dealing with Sexy Star a long time ago, but of course, it's not. Just another example of why wrestling will always be mired in its low social status because of the people who run it.

I mean, this incident should be a slam dunk. It's as high-profile a lucha libre event as one is going to get, and one wrestler blatantly attempted injure everyone in the match, Hamada being the only one coming out unscathed. Then again, even though it's a different culture and country, Yoshiko is still getting booked. WWE continued not only to employ people who took liberties, but they were kept around as backstage enforcers. JBL is fucking Vince McMahon's mouthpiece in commentary for Christ's sake. Judging by Lucha Underground producer Chris DeJoseph, not only is AAA probably going to keep booking her, but LU will keep her around if it reaches season four.

Yes, stories often are multifaceted and have more than just what the public sees, but conversely, what could Rosemary have done to warrant having trust broken in the ring? It's victim-blaming, and it would be akin to saying Yasukawa deserved having her career ended for bullshit pride reasons or Mass Transit deserved to be bled out like kosher livestock because, uh, whatever reasons New Jack had for sticking him.

Wrestling's carny past actively keeps it from moving into the future. Fans like you and I want this industry to be a leader in all things social, but the people inside of it still want to rationalize shit like this because at best it has some kind of unwritten moral code of conduct between workers and at worst, it can be used to make money. Making money is why Combat Zone Wrestling and Game Changer Wrestling continue to book a Nazi like SHLAK. It's why Sami Callihan can speak out on this shit with such great respect and even rise to get the CZW booker's pencil despite having awful accusations of domestic violence in his past, or why people will look past anyone with that on their ledger.

Wrestling will not move forward until fans, wrestlers, and promoters alike realize some things are more important than money. Safety is and always will be one of them, because if not, then why even work the matches in the first place? Point blank, even though Sexy Star is a symptom and not a cause, she still puts wrestling's horse's ass-ugly warts on display at the worst possible time. If she can't be dealt with accordingly then why bother? That means she doesn't get booked, not that she should get reciprocated with the shooting in the ring either. An eye for an eye leaves the entire world blind, you know.