Rant #2,492: I Can('t) See For Miles

You can call professional wrestling what you want--phony, ridiculous, soap opera for males--but one thing you can't call it is unsuccessful.

Led by the WWE, pro wrestling is a true global phenomenon.

Once it was on the edges of society, simply existing as a vehicle for mainly young males to get out their aggressions through their favorite wrestlers, whether you were talking about Gorgeous George or Bruno Sammartino or later, Hulk Hogan.

But through the foresight of Vince McMahon, pro wrestling moved into the mainstream in the 1990s, and it has been there since.

Even if you don't like pro wrestling, you know John Cena, the face of the sport, who does lots of television and lots of commercials.

And you certainly know Dwayne Johnson, "The Rock," who is currently the world's No. 1 movie star.

And you probably know several other lesser stars of the sport, as they turn up on TV and movies with great regularity beyond the ring.

But do you know Crazzy Steve?

I doubt it, but you are going to learn about him right now, and even if you are not a pro wrestling fan, I implore you to continue reading.

Crazzy Steve is one of the wrestling stars of Impact Wrestling, either the second or third most popular wrestling promotion in the world, way behind WWE and neck and neck with AEW in popularity.

They have their wrestling show on TV on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on the AXS Network, and the level of wrestling is quite high on this show, and many former WWE roster acts have found their way to Impact over the years.

Anyway, Crazzy Steve, in real life Canadian Steven Scott, is a former Impact tag team champion. He is known by his ring name because he comes out with wild attire, including a fake monkey around his neck, and his face is painted up as if he stuck it into a cement mixer.

Crazzy Steve is usually used as comic relief on the Impact telecasts, but his story is anything but funny.

Scott has had eyesight problems since his birth in 1984. He says that as a child, he could never see clearly, and wore thick glasses so he could see what he could. He had cataract surgery at a very young age, but his condition did not improve much, and he has never been able to see with any clarity.

He was always very athletic in spite of his eyesight, and he debuted as a pro wrestler in 2003 at the age of 19. He wrestled on the independent circuit for years, and then, in 2014, he got his big break, coming to Impact Wrestling--then TNA Wrestling--as the part of a faction called "The Menagerie."

He later was a tag team champion, but his eyesight problems persisted as he moved back and forth between Impact and the independent circuit.

He returned to Impact earlier this year, and has made his name on the show again as one of its most popular characters.

But little did any of the viewing public know what Scott was going through personally.

His eyesight has continued to deteriorate, and he announced the other day that he has been diagnosed with congenital bilateral cataracts, which has made him legally blind.

This is something he probably knew for years, but kept secret at least to wrestling fans; I am sure whatever faction he wrestled for knew about his eyesight problems.

But the bombshell that came out the other day was that he now has glaucoma, and is blind.

While he did not give the percentage of sight that he does have, he admitted that he cannot drive and that his eyesight is getting worse as he gets older.

"I am blind," he said in a recent interview with Ringside News. "That's news to some people because as of recently, I just came out advertising it. I am making that part of the advertisement to 'Crazzy Steve.' He is the real life version of DareDevil because I can't see and I'm still able to do what I do.

"Before that, I never told anybody I was blind because I didn't want that to be part of the thing. I wanted to be known as a good wrestler. I wanted to be known as somebody you can work with and is a cool character and who knows the character and meets the criteria of a wrestler. I wanted to have that first and I didn't want the tagline that he is blind.

"I guess it comes from my pride. I'm blind. I was born totally blind. At a young age, I found out I had cataracts. When I was born, I was 2 pounds and had to be put in an incubator. They removed the cataracts at a young age so I was able to somewhat see. I always had giant glasses.

"I can't drive. I also hae glaucoma. As I get older, my eyes continue to get worse. I am the Michael Jordan of not seeing. I am really, really good at it."

As pro wrestling fans know, there have been several wrestlers with obvious abnormalities who have carved out very successful careers in the sport. There have been one-legged wrestlers; there have been others who have actually come into the ring with prosthetic legs and competed on a high level.

You also might remember that right here in Rant #2,470, November 20, 2019, I wrote about another Impact Wrestling member, referee Cameron Adamson, who officiates without legs.

As extraordinary as that is, this latest news about Crazzy Steve has to rank right up there with it as a story of triumph, a story where you have to simply admire the person for not letting his handicap stop him from doing what he wants to do.

I honestly don't know how Crazzy Steve does it. You would never know that he was blind--or at best sight-impaired-- by his matches, where like all the other participants, he hits his marks perfectly and in a flawless type of way.

My grandmother battled with glaucoma for years, constantly took eye drops, and to this day I wonder how much she really was able to see.

You have to admire him, because he is so good at what he does that no one would ever know that he has such a malady.

But with deteriorating eyesight, you have to wonder how much longer Scott can wrestle. I would imagine he uses what little eyesight he has to do what he does, but by his own admission, he isn't getting better, so his career might be in jeopardy.

Whatever the case, you really have to admire this guy for what he does and how good he does it. In particular, in such a physical sport as pro wrestling, even one wrong move can result in major injuries to not only him, but to his opponent.

Yes, it is not on the up and up, but injuries do happen, and I would think Scott really has to know what he is doing to compete, and to compete on such a high level.

So here's to Crazzy Steve. Continued good fortunes to him, and I hope he can do what he does for as long as he wants to do it.