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By Wade Keller, Torch editor

Whoever thought of, approved of, and went along with the apparent "storyline" that Jeff Hardy was found unconscious are all scumbags.

On the same website, with the same style headline, in the same context, that WWE reported the deaths of Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, WWE hinted that Jeff Hardy might be about to die - or already dead.

WWE fans woke up today and got this news:

BOSTON – Jeff Hardy was found unconscious in a stairwell at his hotel in Boston today, and was rushed to the nearest emergency room.

Due to privacy issues, WWE is not releasing the name of the hospital.

WWE.com will have more information if it becomes available.

It's written like an AP story. It's got the dateline, an excuse for them not to release the name of the hospital in Boston, and a promise of more information "if it becomes available."

I love that last line. As if WWE might not get more information about a top star who was rushed to a hospital. "We might update this story, we might not; it depends on whether we get more information." It's really sloppily written. Which would be understandable if the writers at WWE.com were worried for Hardy and couldn't think straight. But what was worse was the headline on the main page that led to this story.

"How will this affect Survivor Series?" said the headline.

Some WWE fans had to be wondering why Survivor Series would be of concern when they were worried that another thirtysomething wrestler might be dead or dying.

WWE played off of those fears, exploited the deaths of Benoit and Guerrero and so many others, capitalized on that ticking clock in every wrestling fans' mind that hints that it's "just a matter of time," if history is any indication, before they wake up to another headline of another favorite wrestler dying.

This is not surprising coming from the McMahon family, who act with such poor judgment some times it really defies basic human decency. For instance, they've often capitalized on the scene right after Owen Hart died where the camera focuses on the announcers who paste on the same facial expressions and body language they had after Owen crashed to the mat and was almost assuredly dead. They've turned that into a new promoting tactic, using a scene that had not been used before Owen's real-life tragedy, to try to get fans emotionally distraught and concerned for the condition of a wrestler who was simply injured in an angle.

WWE plays with people's emotions in sad, vile, despicable ways. It's either done unconsciously, which might be the scarier of the two options because it'd show how disconnected from decent human behavior they are, or in calculated fashion to try to blur the line and blunt the impact of past and, sadly, potential future tragic deaths.

And no, the annual pat-ourselves-on-the-back "Tribute to the Troops" specials do not "make up for this" or "prove this is an exception to their grand humanitarianism." No, it wasn't "obviously a storyline." That would depend on wrestling fans, after seeing a headline and graphic very similar to the Benoit and Guerrero announcements, noticing the line about being concerned about its impact on Survivor Series and concluding that's so absurd a thing to say that it must be a storyline. It worried people. Their fans. The ones who they want to bond with wrestlers on a personal level - and often succeed in doing so.

I want to be proud to be a wrestling fans. I want to be proud of the industry that I've dedicated much of my professional life and personal pastime to. Once again, the McMahon family show such bad judgment and indecency that I am ashamed. I'm ashamed of the McMahons and the judgment of those with power to sway their hideous ideas that capitalize on the deaths of wrestlers in the past. Ashamed of their willingness to blur the line between real death and storyline near-death experiences. Ashamed of those around them who fear for their jobs so much that they rationalize to themselves why this is okay and people like me are just overreacting. Ashamed of every wrestler - whose real tears on the special episodes of Raw dedicated to paying tribute to the dead wrestlers they loved - who stands by this weekend allowing their tears and their dead friends to be exploited.

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