OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical, humanistic, and economic burden associated with professional wrestling.

METHODS: A targeted literature review was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and the grey literature between 2000 and 2021 using keywords for professional wrestling. Studies reporting outcomes for professional wrestling in adults were included. Studies reporting outcomes for children and adolescents or other types of wrestling (e.g., arm, sumo, Greco-Roman, freestyle), were excluded. No geographic limits were placed on the literature searches.

RESULTS: The available literature suggests that professional wrestlers face a significant clinical burden and experience a number of different types of injuries during their careers. Head injuries can lead to headaches, amnesia, brain swelling, acute subdural hematomas, and epidural hematomas. Longer careers are associated with an increased likelihood of head trauma and repeated head trauma can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In addition to head injuries, spinal stenosis, cervical spine degeneration, spinal cord compression, and vertebral fractures also occur in professional wrestlers. While injuries to the head and spine are common, other less common injuries such as tears of the latissimus dorsi tendon also occur. A high mortality rate has been reported in professional wrestlers. Male professional wrestlers 30 to 49 years of age have significantly higher mortality rates compared to rates published by the CDC. The increased mortality rate is largely due to cardiovascular disease: professional wrestlers are 15.1 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than the general population.

CONCLUSIONS: Studies have reported a clear clinical burden and identified a number of injuries that are sustained by professional wrestlers. While these injuries are likely associated with decreased quality of life, high costs, and high resource utilization, these outcomes are not well-characterized in the literature.