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| Why doesn't he get as much heat as Invader? Photo Credit: WWE.com |
To this day, Gonzalez maintains his innocence, something that I didn't particularly buy upon first hearing about the whole thing. However, hearing more and more about how Brody was the most raging jerkoff in wrestling history before his death, I've mellowed over time to Gonzalez's pleas of innocence, that maybe it was self-defense and not solely the product of a sham trial. Well, I'm not sure anyone would dispute the trial was a circus; it was set up from jump to protect Gonzalez seemingly by his boss/accused conspirator Carlos Colon, a man with great influence in Puerto Rico once upon a time. There's so much swirling around this case even today that people can't seem to let it go.
Snuka has also maintained his innocence. But it feels like the wrestling community at large just takes him at face value on this. Sure, there are jokes here and there about him and a hotel bedroom that pop up, but no one really remembers Nancy Argentino. The classic counterargument is that Argentino wasn't a pro wrestler like Brody was, but who the fuck cares how famous you are if you're murdered? Justice isn't harsher for murderers of celebrities than it is for those who murder the rank and file, or at least it isn't in theory. I forgot that humanity as a rule seems to be far more protective of the people they consider famous rather than any old silly person.
Then again, I would have to wonder if Snuka would have skated if the person who showed up dead in his hotel room wasn't his girlfriend but a bellhop or a pizza delivery guy. Would he have been as forgiven by the public if it was a man whose skull was caved in in the Lehigh Valley nearly 30 years ago? Would Vince McMahon be looked at with as much disdain as Colon seems to be over the whole ordeal in his assumed although not proven paying off of Allentown police to drop charges?
It's unfair to say McMahon has completely skated on perception, because c'mon, there aren't really a whole lot of people in wrestling who consider him as a bastion of morality or ethical fiber. But it almost feels like they give him and Snuka passes for Argentino's death, and I'm not sure there's a better explanation than the fact that hatred of women seems to be at the root of more than a few people's wrestling fandom. There really is no comparison between the deaths of Argentino and Brody. We don't know anything about the former, that much is true, except that she and Snuka were in a relationship that ended with her skull getting mysteriously caved in. That fact alone doesn't really pass the smell test to me.
Brody's death, as I've written about before, was unneeded, but to what degree? Nick Bockwinkel is supposedly reputed as saying that Brody had it coming to him, and he's one of the consensus nicest people in wrestling. If there's more of a question over Brody's death than there is Argentino's, then why are Gonzalez and Colon regarded as scummy, even by wrestling standards?
The point is that misogyny in wrestling is a long-rooted problem, and getting rid of it today in the medium is going to take a lot more than WWE treating the women's division better in character or even for some of the more progressive stuff that promoters like DJ Hyde, Darin Childs, and especially Mike Quackenbush are doing in the indies. I think we first have to examine the problems that have led to the state of women in wrestling, whether they be employees, friends, significant others, bystanders, or fans. Maybe we can start by wanting justice for Nancy Argentino as much as we want it for Bruiser Brody. Then, maybe we start demanding equal pay for equal work, or by not patronizing companies with exploitative names and mission statements *cough*BLOW*cough*.
Or maybe, just maybe, fans and wrestlers alike can get it through their thick skulls that women and men are the same kind of people with differences in hormonal output and genitalia only. The first step is to stop making jokes about Jimmy Snuka as if his biggest crime was rending asunder a blow-up doll.