Thursday, March 5, 2015

Kimber Lee Is Okay

She's a wrestler, and she's okay
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
Kimber Lee provided an update on her health after the nasty-looking chairshot/powerbomb combo she took from Chris Dickinson to end the latest Beyond Wrestling Fete Music card this past Sunday via a video released via the Beyond YouTube channel. You can peruse it after the jump:



For those who can't view the video or don't like playing YouTube vids at all, Lee basically said she felt fine after taking the moves and only sought medical attention to be sure. The doctors cleared her to return to the ring immediately, which is reassuring. Overall, it looks as if the powerbomb half of the combo was a bit overblown by many observers, including yours truly, but again, I would also stress that Lee and Dickinson were both incredibly lucky that she didn't hit the ringbell. Hopefully, Denver Colorado (the man, not the place!) will find a different spot to put the bell to negate any future incidents before they can begin.

The chairshot, however, is still inexcusable. What WASN'T shown on the video, however, was Lee plastering Dickinson with a fully unprotected chairshot to the head. So it's not just Dickinson who is at fault here. Dickinson, from my personal experience, is a meathead who doesn't let bumps or bruises get in the way of trying to put on what he thinks is a good match, and Lee is a shitload tougher than most of the male wrestlers I know on the indies. But regardless of what their makeups are, they need to protect themselves and each other. I continue with my strenuous objections to chairshots to the head, protected or otherwise, and Colorado has actually recognized the danger himself. He has said both parties will be penalized, although he gave no details.

But as a makegood, Colorado has set aside all proceeds from preorders on King of Arts to be donated to the Boston University School of Medicine for research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. The charity drive will last until around 2 PM Eastern on Friday, so if you want some quality wrestling where the money will go to a good cause, preorder the show now.

The art of wrestling is to make people believe what they're watching is real even if it's not, and sometimes, everyone can get caught up in the wave no matter how many times they convince themselves they're the smartest people in the room. While I wholly disagree with the use of chairshots, it seems that Lee and Dickinson did a darn good job of working everyone into a frenzy in an age and a scene where it's increasingly hard to do so. It would be hollow to say everyone needs to take a step back without acknowledging that, yeah, I fell for it too, especially on the powerbomb part. But then again, nothing in life, especially not in wrestling, is in black and white.