A Message to Joanie Laurer: Please Get Help NOW!

It's been a while since i've been around, but i'm trying to get more regular about my column, and I can't think of a more perfect day to do it. Because yesterday, the wrestling world saw a former WWE Intercontinental champion have a breakdown which was broadcast for all the world to see.

Yesterday, Joanie Laurer was on "The Howard Stern Show" to promote her apperance on VH1's has-been reality sitcom, "The Surreal Life". Her appearance happened prior to 10 AM eastern time, and for all intents and purposes, Laurer sounded drunker than a pickled beet, and showing it off for all the world to see.

Now why she would put herself in this position is already hard to fathom; Howard and company have mercilessly slammed her, her music, her recent sex tape release "One Night In China" with former fiancee Sean "X-Pac" Waltman, and her personality. But she did, and surprisingly, by all accounts, Howard must have seen something was wrong with her, because he treated her with kid gloves. And when she mentioned that she was uncomfortable and felt overheated, Howard told her to take off her dress. She apparently proceeded to do so and spent the rest of her time in the studio more or less naked. When she said she was embarrassed, Howard told her to put the dress back on, but she didn't make any move to do so.

By all accounts, Joanie spent the first part of the interview rambling about her life, how she had wrestled men, telling stories about people no one knew, and sounding really sloshed, sitting there in her underwear, and even telling Howard that if he had a line of Coke she would do it for him, even though she didn't normally do that kind of thing.

And as if things couldn't get any worse, it did when former fiancee Waltman called in to speak with Howard.

The show immediately deteriorated into an arguement between Laurer and Waltman, and his first public statements about what she did that made him have her arrested on New Years' Day, including smoking pot in front of his kids, and he accused one of her friends of trying to get his son to smoke pot with them. (Well, what's the matter, Sean? Can't handle the "Like Father Like Son" adage? You're not exactly an angel, remember?)

In any case, you can read the full account of what happened at any of the major wrestling news sites, including here on PWInsider, but one thing about today is painfully obvious: Joanie Laurer needs help, and she needs it NOW.

Less than four years ago, Joanie was on top of this business, as high as a female performer could get, and she had gone where no one before her had gone, becoming the first female WWE Intercontinental Champion. She was well liked by her fans and by the public in general. But she opted to leave when WWE wouldn't give her more of a challenge (and a hefty pay raise). And ever since then, Joanie has been on a slow downward spiral, a spiral which hit rock bottom on yesterday's Stern show.

One thing about the conversation between Howard, Joanie, and Sean struck me as intensely scary - when Joanie asked Sean if he still loved her, even after all she'd done, his reply was "Yes."

Love can be very blind sometimes, but this time, it might be very dangerous as well. Joanie proved yesterday she is extremely unstable, and in all honesty, i'm a longtime fan of hers. We all KNOW i'm a longtime fan of Waltman. And i'm worried for both of them. Worried for him because she's already proved on several well-publicized occasions in the not too distant past that she can overcome him and his considerable martial arts skills by blindsiding him, and one of these days, she might go too far, and the results could be very nasty, and possibly even deadly. And i'm worried for her because she doesn't seem to care about life anymore.

So anyone out there who really CARES about Laurer, what she brought to the wrestling world, and the place of respect that people seem to have forgotten that she truly does deserve - her family, her former bosses at the WWE, her fans, her ex-fiancees (BOTH of them) - I don't care what you have to do, but you have got to get Laurer into rehab, and it's got to be NOW. Laurer is clearly on a self-destructive road, and she sounds well aware of it. And if someone doesn't intervene IMMEDIATELY, the wrestling world is going to have at least one - and possibly two - more fatalities to deal with and give muckraking Mushnick over at the New York Post a field day. And it's going to be sooner rather than later.