Alex Marvez's weekly look at professional wrestling

Steroids and scandal have had little impact on pro-wrestling fans.A recent ESPN Sports Poll shows that grappling's popularity increased in 2007 for the second consecutive year. Roughly one-fourth of the 27,633 people surveyed by poll provider TNS Sport considered themselves fans.The rise comes despite a slew of negative press about the wrestling industry and its drug problems following last June's murder-suicide involving World Wrestling Entertainment star Chris Benoit and his family. "I've been baffled over the past few months how little effect the Benoit tragedy had on the wrestling business," said Bryan Alvarez, a part-time pro wrestler who also writes the Figure Four Weekly newsletter (www.F4wonline.com). "This death was so tragic and high-profile that I thought it might actually be the one that changes things. It wasn't."Congress looked like they might be interested in investigating and there was pressure on WWE to at least monitor their locker room to a somewhat stiffer degree. But in the end, all the top guys ended up looking the same (physiquewise) and Congress moved onto baseball."Benoit, a former WWE champion and one of the industry's most respected technicians, killed his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, before hanging himself inside their Atlanta-area home. Alvarez had become friendly with Benoit and was regularly interviewed about the deaths on cable-television news shows."It appears many average fans found the idea that Chris Benoit did this so outlandish that the full scope of it never fully registered in their heads," Alvarez said. "They just moved on as if he'd died in the same way Eddy Guerrero or Brian Pillman had died."It's a great tragedy because it downplays the fact that two innocent people were viciously murdered. But at the same time, I can't fault wrestling fans for doing whatever they have to do to cope because something like this should never have happened."Pro wrestling gained popularity in 28 of 32 groups categorized by age, race and gender. It was most popular in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic, with 43 percent of those surveyed declaring themselves fans."It seems a lot more school-age kids are getting into it because of guys like Rey Misterio, John Cena and even Hornswaggle," Alvarez said. "Of course, the downside is that kids have to rely on adults to buy pay-per-views and merchandise and such. There are no guarantees that kids won't outgrow it in a few years."One demographic where pro wrestling's popularity slightly dipped (from 31.3 to 30.6 percent) was between ages 25 and 34. Alvarez believes that stems from the emergence of mixed-martial-arts fighting, particularly the Ultimate Fighting Championship."I'm surprised the drop wasn't bigger," said Alvarez, who has written about pro wrestling and MMA since 1995. "It seems a lot of wrestling fans as they get into their early 20s graduate to UFC. They are more likely to buy UFC pay-per-views than your average WWE B-show."Wrestling will continue to boom for at least the short term with "Wrestlemania 24" on March 30 expected to become one of the largest-grossing events in WWE history. The event also has drawn a slew of other promotions to Orlando, Fla., hoping to attract some of the 60,000-plus fans expected to attend "Mania" to their shows.One of them is Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, which will hold its first live telecast of "Impact" (9 p.m. EDT Thursdays, Spike TV) next week from Universal Studios as well as television tapings the following two days.X...X...XThings have gone from bad to worse for Jeff Hardy.Shortly after being suspended from WWE for 60 days following a second failed drug test, Hardy's home in North Carolina burned to the ground last weekend while he was away. His dog died in the blaze. Hardy also didn't have home insurance. The fire's cause is unknown.X...X...XGary Hart, a renowned manager and matchmaker in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack at age 66. Hart, whose real name was Gary Williams, had successful runs in Florida and Texas feuding with Dusty Rhodes and the Von Erichs, respectively.A Hart autobiography he recently completed will be published later this year.(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro-wrestling column for Scripps-Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com.)