PROFESSIONAL WIENER DOG WRESTLING HIT BY SCANDAL

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Regulators mull possible sanctions.

Bender fends off a folding chair from Oscar “Sausage Grinder” Meyer. The match ended in a disqualification when Sausage Grinder felt he was disrespected by a squirrel in attendance and attacked the entire audience.

By C. D. McGruff
Senior “Raslin" Reporter

Montreal, Canada - The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced today that it, at long last, will take up the thorny issue of wiener dog wrestling and its involvement with illegal doping. The long-simmering debate continues on whether it should remain a sanctioned sport or penalized in light of the performance-enhancing drug issues.

Wiener dog wrestling is nothing new. The first tournament was held during the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. It proved to be so popular a quick-thinking vendor came up with a new item called the hot dog to commemorate the sport.

Soon after, the Wiener Dog Wrestling Foundation (WWF) was formed. Tournaments have been standard Saturday night fare all across the Midwest and Southern parts of the United States ever since.

Richard Handler, wiener enthusiast, and longtime sports writer, has covered the sport for decades. “I grew up in here Morrowville, Kansas, and we love to see the wieners wrestle. I reckon that’s why the Hall of Fame is here. Growing up, it was all I could think about, and when given the opportunity to write for “Pure Bred Wrestling” magazine, I jumped at the chance.”

For many years, “doggie-style” wrestling, as it is often called, consisted of three two-minute periods where the object was to pin the opponent’s shoulders to the mat for three seconds. Competitions took place on an open mat, with each competitor wearing singlets and ear protection.

The sport has had a few ups and downs since then. In the late 70s, Greco-Roman-style wrestling was introduced. In this form of the sport, the back legs cannot be used to throw or trip a competitor. It lasted less than a season as no wiener dog could pin the other.

“Beginning in the late 90s, we began to see a drop in attendance,” said Handler. “I blame the internet. Fans were bored with good, clean wrestling matches. In an effort to save the sport, some unscrupulous promoters came in from Las Vegas. The first thing they did was move the sport from a mat to a ring. You know, the kind with ropes around the edges.”

As the sport continued to adopt the flash and showmanship of “professional wrestling,” the fans began coming back. It was not a seamless adoption, however. Older wrestlers that came up in the traditional sport could not understand why their opponents were wearing leather masks and capes or why managers could get away with distracting the referee to hide blatant cheating. Many believe that was the last generation of wrestlers to wear the traditional singlet.

Even so, wiener wrestlers were becoming stars in and out of the ring with endorsements, appearance fees, and cameos in movies. Competitors like Bruno “The Body” Von Weinerhousen, Cooper “Who’s a Good Boy” Docsun, or “The Mongolian Stomper” were household names. Yet, as with other sports, once fame and fortune were to be had, performance-enhancing drugs followed. This is where WADA steps in.

“As an organization, WADA has no opinion on which wrestling style wiener dogs adopt,” said a WADA spokesman. “We just want to see a clean sport. If you’d ever seen a wiener dog in a steroid-induced rage, you’d understand why.”

As for the contestants themselves, are they happy? They typically are on the road for more than 300 days flying from city to city in a carry-on kennel. As one ardent fan put it, “Wiener dogs were bred to hunt badgers. Literally, anything is better than going headfirst down a badger hole.”

WWGN