I'm not crazy about having chairshots to the head be a regular part of brawls in wrestling. I also want to be clear that the last few years I have editorialized strongly against unprotected chairshots to the head. I have received some comments from wrestlers and fans questioning why I didn't speak out against the chairshot Triple H gave Undertaker to the head at WrestleMania. The reason is, I've never been outspoken against protected chairshots.

I'm not crazy about them. I think there's 1,001 ways to tell the same story without using that move, so I think it'd be great if wrestlers never used that move because there's always a risk that the hand going up to protect the skull doesn't absorb all or most of the blow.

There's also the risk that other wrestlers on the indy scene or just "backyard wrestlers" will emulate the protected chairshots, minus the protection. But I believe I'm being consistent in not be outraged at the idea that now and then, under very special circumstances where the move is a vital part of the match and the recipient sells it - and when there's only one, not two or ten or twenty - a chairshot directed at the head will be part of a match.

I don't think it makes any sense to have protected chairshots to the head a routine part of any wrestling company's matches. When I say my stance isn't zero-tolerance, I have no problem with WWE's zero-tolerance policy (or supposed policy; it's tough understand how Triple H, maybe second or third in line in terms of influence in that company, didn't know to follow it).

But it's important to keep in mind that while there's absolutely zero room for unprotected chairshots under any circumstances ever, there are a lot of dangerous moves in wrestling that are probably in the neighborhood of the danger involved in being on the receiving end of a protected chairshot once every five or ten years in a wrestling career (meaning if there was a meaningful chairshot aimed at the head once a year on WWE TV, the same wrestler wouldn't be on the receive end of it more than once every five or ten years). Just the every day bumps wrestlers absorb in the course of a standard match add up more than a single strategic, meaningful, rare protected chairshot. If I ran a company, I'd vote against ever going there. But as for taking an editorial stand strongly against it, I have some wiggle room here.

Now, having said that, WWE has a zero tolerance policy of any chairshots to the head - protected or not. So Undertaker and Triple H, as locker room leaders and veterans who set the tone for the company, were wrong to include that in their match, whether they had gotten it cleared ahead of time or not. Given how arbitrary WrestleMania paydays are - Vince McMahon decides what each wrestler gets, basically - the news of WWE fining them doesn't really mean anything.

Even if they get fined 100,000, since their WM payment is decided after the fact based on buyrate and Vince's whims (unless the policy changed recently), they're not going to feel much of a sting, as they might just as well assume they got 100K more in their pay to make up for it. This is the problem when the fining system isn't public in terms of the amount and the fines stay within WWE rather than going to, say, a head trauma organization studying the effects of concussions.

Since WWE has a no chairshot policy, and Triple H and Undertaker violated it, then WWE would make a big statement by donating their fines to a head trauma charity.

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