André the Giant. Chyna. Randy Savage. Chris Benoit. When you list the biggest names in wrestling history, a shockingly high percentage of them died at an early age. Sure, people die for all kinds of reasons, but as the BBC points out, the statistics show that wrestlers die younger and more often than other professional athletes. When the University of Michigan studied 557 former wrestlers, they found that 62 of them had died before the year 2011. What’s more, 49 of the wrestlers were younger than 50, and 24 of them weren’t even 40 yet. Meanwhile, American football players engage in an equally demanding profession, also have a high rate of head injuries, and yet die young in far smaller numbers.

There are some common trends. For example, cardiovascular disease seems to be the biggest killer of wrestlers, and it isn’t helped by either the aggressive injuries or the rock star lifestyle that the wrestling circuit promotes. Steroids, recreational drugs, and alcohol abuse has often been rampant. Another problem? No vacation. While football players run for a season, then take the rest of the year off to sip margaritas, wrestling careers don’t offer much in the way of free time. Some wrestlers have to be in the ring five or six nights a week, every week, while undergoing feverish travel routines that almost certainly contribute to sleep loss. It’s a rough life, and if you’re not careful, the consequences will catch up to you.

Even after you’ve paid for school and earned your bruises, the freshman wrestler doesn’t usually just step onto the stage of a WWE match and leave with a paycheck. As Make Change points out, wrestling isn’t a 9-to-5 job with benefits, but rather, a freelance gig that needs to be balanced with a day job (at first). The first shows you book won’t pay much, and you’ll probably be racking up debt with the constant travel, gas bills, hotel charges, costume repairs, and whatever medical needs arise after your daily dose of elbow jabs and knees to the chest. If you love it, of course, you’ll sweat it out … but yeah, you better love it.

Now, once you’ve factored in the mental, physical, and financial costs? Add in time, according to Studenomics. First off, you’ve got to spend hours at the gym bulking up. Then you’ll need to spend more hours self-promoting. Of course, there’s no assurance that all this hard work is ever going to get you past the low-paying independent circuit, which Cracked says might earn you $50 on a good night, depending on your location and popularity.

Obviously, that’s not anywhere close to the earnings made by the WWE’s John Cena, who pulls down millions between his wrestling and other projects. So sure, if you make it to the big leagues, you’ll earn a ton, but you’ll have to work hard (with no guarantees) to get there.

Hate traveling? Wrestling might not be your jam, then, because you’re going to be on the road (or in the air) so often that the idea of a steady “routine” will seem as fantastical as anything in Game of Thrones.

It’s one thing if you’re a new wrestler just hitching a ride to any available shows you can find on Craigslist, but even big league WWE wrestlers have to constantly hop on planes, do midnight drives, and see new cities like there’s no tomorrow. Just ask Neville, according to Wrestling Inc., who wrestles his way through early morning flights without skipping a beat. Then there’s Chris Jericho, who shared with his Instagram followers how over the course of nine days, he was scheduled to fly between Tampa, Detroit, Kansas City, London, Hong Kong, Manila, Shanghai, Baltimore … and then back to Tampa. Doesn’t sound like there’s any time for sightseeing in that whirlwind.

To be blunt, the WWE has never been known for possessing much social awareness or sensitivity, but the organization has a particularly poor history when it comes to the treatment of women. Objectification, sexist taunts, body shaming, and misogynistic stereotypes have been baked into the formula for a long time, and while recent moves like marketing products at female fans are a step forward, the organization still has a long way to go. As Cultured Vultures explains, the sort of stories and characters available to female wrestlers are still dramatically limited compared to the opportunities afforded to men, which has been attributed both to a lack of female presence behind the camera — e.g., no women writers — and the generally misogynistic attitude held by WWE owner Vince McMahon, who once forced a female wrestler to strip on stage as a punishment. Yes, he was playing the “villain” in that scenario, but the sexist undercurrent isn’t hard to spot.

Another clear indicator that sexism in the WWE is still a big problem? The pay gap. If you’re a big name female wrestler, the Daily Beast reports that your male coworkers will be making at least 36 times more money than you on average. Hmm, definitely not okay. So yeah, while the WWE has made a lot of surface overtures about empowering women, the results (still) show otherwise.

There’s no denying that the WWE has a long, uncomfortable history of exploiting racist and/or xenophobic stereotypes as a way to sell tickets. For example, the Guardian points to many villain characters, such as the so-called Iron Sheik, who traded on anti-Muslim stereotypes to get the audience rooting for an “all-American” blond, white, male hero. Just as damaging has been the treatment of black wrestlers, who have been portrayed as cannibalistic headhunters from Uganda, voodoo priests, and pimps.

Though smaller wrestling organizations have tried to shift the industry away from such vulgar stereotypes, the WWE still has a long way to go. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that one wrestler went on a scripted tirade filled with racist stereotypes about Asians. Now, this sort of blatant prejudice is obviously not okay, but as the Atlantic points out, the racism in WWE storylines is usually more subtle (though equally damaging). For example, most of the WWE’s black wrestlers are usually positioned as “jobbers,” meaning their job is to lose matches in order to bolster the profile of a villainous opponent. It almost invariably ends up being a white man who finally wins against the heel, a problematic narrative that quietly asserts a notion of white supremacy without outright stating it. The WWE often pretends that these racial stereotypes are employed for satirical purposes, but in reality, the organization has a serious race problem and needs to do more about it.