WRESTLING BABYLON News

As someone who has been critical of Bret Hart for not speaking out more forcefully about steroids and drugs, I think it’s only fair to present his extended statements on the topic, which perhaps have more nuance than I’ve given him credit for. I don’t agree with Hart in a couple of key respects, but I also wouldn’t want to suggest that he isn’t calling things the way he sees them.

Hart had the following exchange recently with host Dan Lovranski of the Canadian radio show “Live Audio Wrestling” (the transcript is at http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=21455).

Do you think pro wrestling can ever successfully police itslf, or does the government have to get involved?

I think they can police it. I think there should be no tolerance. Their drug policy…You know, I’m not a big advocate for steroids, but I don’t think steroids are the major problem. I don’t think that’s why Benoit went off the deep end. I think that the serious problem is probably the hard drugs like cocaine and things like that. You know those painkillers and muscle relaxers, that cocktail of pills wrestlers take because they’re in so much pain that’s where the problem is. The drug tests don’t solve that problem because most of those drugs you take them the night before and they’re out of your system the next day. You can’t really drug test it, so I think the onus is really on the doctors, but I think they should be able to talk to these drug testing experts and there’s no reason they can’t stamp out every bad drug in wrestling, including steroids permanently. In a business where everything’s predetermined outcome and it’s basically a show, there’s no reason wrestlers should be taking steroids. I don’t know steroids are the big evil everyone says they are. I just don’t think they’re necessary period.

I found one of the most interesting parts of your book, Bret, to be the time when Vince introduced the drug tests in the early 90s and he started testing for marijuana. You said that you thought it was a big mistake because you thought it was one of the best things the guys could use to mellow out, calm down and deal with their pain. I found it very interesting that you were advocating that and that actually that might be more of a positive one.

Well you know I take a lot of flack for those kind of comments, but I agree and I’m just telling the truth. I was around and really truly saw wrestlers who would keep to themselves and go to their rooms and not really do harm to themselves, just watch a movie and do whatever it was they do. Then the drug testing came in and I saw a lot of guys outside roaming bars with alcohol slumped on a bar stool, passed out at the counter because they were all piled up. I remember saying at the time that this is not good, people are going to die. This is an epidemic and at the same time the company thinks that they’re doing the right thing, that society will judge us and say Vince did the right thing. They said they were going to stamp out all drugs including marijuana. I just sat back and watched wrestlers that are no longer with us, get caught up in taking pills and mixing them with alcohol which is where we are today. You don’t see wrestlers dying from cocaine overdoses, you don’t see wrestlers dying of marijuana overdoses, they’re dying from mixing pills with alcohol and now it’s a serious problem. I wanted to shed light on that and show that sometimes you can set out to do something right and it can turn out really, really wrong.

“I don’t know steroids are the big evil everyone says they are. I just don’t think they’re necessary.” It is hard to argue with the integrity of that position (though I think steroids are likely pretty darn bad for a lot of subtle reasons that the brief history of the drugs’ popularity don’t fully reflect).

I also think it’s fine to discuss the drug issue in terms of the whole panoply — my forthcoming Benoit book uses the word “cocktail” in the subtitle. Efforts to give supremacy to any single factor (not only drugs, but also concussions, travel, and the stress of entertaining people day-in and day-out in such a primal fashion) are bound to overstate things.

But here’s where I really disagree with Hart: “I think they can police it.” I don’t think they can police it; the money and incentives and industry structure are just too stacked against legitimate, faithful self-regulation. And I don’t know why Hart, of all people, would feel differently. I can only attribute his position to a “wrestling gene” or “X factor” that trumps even his vast body of negative experiences.

So I’m in the funny position of appealing to his authority if he agrees with me, and rejecting it if he doesn’t. I justify this “hobgoblin of small minds” within myself only when I look at the pile of bodies in wrestling. There’s a fundamental unreality in holding either than something can’t be done about it or that that something can be done about it without the intervention and oversight of an outside agency.

Irv Muchnick

Dave Sheldon, 43, who wrestled for several major promotions (though never for World Wrestling Entertainment or its predecessor), has died in Texas. There are no reports yet on the cause.

Sheldon is the 11th pro wrestler to die under age 50 in this darkest of years for the industry. His gimmicks included the “Angel of Death” and the “Russian Assassin.”

I met Sheldon, an affable 300-pounder, in New Orleans in 1987 at the National Association of Television Program Executives convention. I was writing an article about the convention for Mother Jones magazine and Sheldon was helping at the booth of Bill Watts’ Universal Wrestling Federation. I remember that he was wearing a T-shirt with the inscription “I Survived Calgary!” — a reference to his stint with the cold and lonely Stampede Wrestling circuit.

In 1993 Sheldon was booked in the main event in the Dallas Sportatorium against Kerry Von Erich. But on the day of the show Von Erich, who had just been indicted for cocaine possession while doing probation on other drug charges, shot himself to death.

Irv Muchnick

Blog reader Jake Butikas (a writer who also manages Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ MySpace page) further points out that Batista has been bothered throughout his WWE career by torn triceps tendons. (Jake Butikas is not the same correspondent as in the previous post.) We’ve noted earlier that this is one of those injuries — like John Cena’s recent torn pectoral — that seem to happen a lot to steroid freaks but not at all to anyone else.

One of these Batista triceps incidents was said to have occurred in a match with Mark Henry. An earlier one happened in 2003, and it was reported at the time on the WWE’s website that during rehab Batista “re-tore his tricep in a freak accident while jogging with his wife.” Bear in mind that the tricep is in the back of the upper arm.

A witch hunt, indeed.

A blog reader points out that my earlier item about Dave Bautista’s interview with Mike Mooneyham is, if anything, far too gentle.

“Batista” calls the steroid investigation “somewhat of a witch hunt. Our company [WWE] has done everything it can to take care of it. Our wellness program is no joke and it’s serious.”

He insists that painkillers are the issue. I agree that they are an issue and another ingredient of the lethal cocktail. But if you look at the postmortem info on his good friend Eddie Guerrero — among many others, including Chris Benoit, who “passed” his wellness test — you have to be in complete denial if you think steroids aren’t a major factor in wrestling deaths.

Let’s again hope that the Congressional staffs pick up on these fundamental facts and inconsistencies.

Irv Muchnick

Mike Mooneyham of the Charleston Post and Courier has an interesting interview with Dave “Batista” Bautista, WWE star and author of the new book Batista Unleashed. See http://web.charleston.net/news/2007/nov/25/batistas_climb_top_took_toll/.
What is perhaps most interesting is the reality-phobia that, paradoxically, defines both pro wrestling and today’s publishing industry.

“Batista made the decision not to tackle the hot-button topic of steroids in his book,” Mooneyham writes, and quotes the author explaining thusly: “It’s a real touchy subject right now. We were afraid of what people would read into it. I thought it would be a better discussion for people to have with myself rather than reading it [in a book].”

Try deconstructing those three sentences for a minute. They make “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” look straightforward.

Since Bautista is so eager to have that “better discussion” outside the covers, I assume he will welcome a subpoena from the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

Irv Muchnick

Both WRESTLING BABYLON (http://www.amazon.com/Wrestling-Babylon-Piledriving-Drugs-Scandal/dp/1550227610/sr=1-1/qid=1162384171/ref=sr_1_1/102-2628163-5820164?ie=UTF8&s=books) and BENOIT (http://www.amazon.com/Benoit-Wrestling-Horror-Destroyed-Crippled/dp/1550228129/ref=pd_rhf_p_1) are selling strong at both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

http://wrestlingbabylon.com

“Doping still an issue in wrestling,” http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2007-11-18-drugs-wrestling-cover_N.htm

Both of the House committees that began investigating WWE over the summer are cited and quoted. So the hearings that Congressman Bobby Rush told the Baltimore Sun would combine baseball and wrestling may not be the only set of hearings facing the latter.

Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, has decided to follow through on hearings to address the drug problems in pro wrestling, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Rush said in an email to the Sun: “Given recent developments — the impending Mitchell report [on Major League Baseball] and reports of widespread abuse in professional wrestling — I believe it’s time we get a formal update on what progress is being made to eradicate steroids from all sports and sports entertainment.”

According to the Sun, whose story is at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-sp.bondscongress17nov17,0,390135.story, Rush was stirred to take action following the indictment earlier this week of baseball’s Barry Bonds on charges that he lied to a federal grand jury and obstructed justice during an investigation of the BALCO laboratory in California.

In July, shortly after the murder-suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and son, the ranking Republican member of Rush’s subcommittee, Cliff Stearns of Florida, was the first legislator to call for hearings on the wrestling industry’s pandemic of drugs and death. Another House committee, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also has corresponded with World Wrestling Entertainment and suggested hearings.

TO: Congressman Henry Waxman, Congressman Tom Davis, Congressman Bobby Rush, Congressman Cliff Stearns

FROM: Irvin Muchnick

RE: CNN’s “Death Grip: Inside Pro Wrestling”

I address this to you in your respective capacities as chair (Mr. Waxman) and ranking minority member (Mr. Davis) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and chair (Mr. Rush) and ranking minority member (Mr. Stearns) of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. Both of your committees have corresponded with World Wrestling Entertainment about the pandemic of drugs and death in the professional wrestling industry with a view toward conducting hearings on the matter.

I am sure, therefore, that your staffs screened last week’s piece by CNN’s Special Investigations Unit, Death Grip: Inside Pro Wrestling. Allow me to offer one observer’s rundown of how the principals fared.

CNN / Time Warner

As any hour-long report on such a complex subject would have, CNN’s contained trivial errors of fact and interpretation. For example, it confused the monitoring stage of the WWE Wellness Policy (drug-testing) with a “first strike.” And it suggested that a guy called C.M. Punk, who is on WWE’s third-tier brand, was on the cusp of becoming the hottest thing since Australopithecus Africanus did boffo box office at Olduvai Gorge.

More seriously, CNN quoted WWE’s top star, John Cena, out of context in his response to the question of whether he had ever done steroids. Cena gave two answers. One was “Absolutely not.” The second was “This is a crazy question…. My answer to that question, have you ever used steroids, is the only thing I can say: I can’t tell you that I haven’t, but you’ll never be able to prove that I have.” In the first airings of Death Grip, CNN showed only Cena’s second answer. After WWE, at its website, broadcast the entire footage of the Cena interview (which WWE had independently taped with a hidden camera), CNN edited the piece to include Cena’s first answer as well.

According to the reputable newsletter Pro Wrestling Torch, CNN also allowed the subject of its investigation to dictate one of the important terms of its coverage. CNN had arranged to interview Dave Meltzer, publisher of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the industry’s Bible, but canceled the interview after WWE chair Vince McMahon threatened not to accede to CNN’s request to interview McMahon himself, or have access to other WWE personnel, if Meltzer appeared on the same program.

Perhaps most inexplicably of all, CNN interviewed me for two hours and used only ten seconds. My wife will swear on a stack of Wrestling Observer Newsletters that I have never, ever allowed anything less than a pearl of wisdom to escape my lips.

Bottom line: Just another day at the “infotainment” office. As Mark Knopfler might put it, CNN is the monkey and WWE is the organ grinder. Go ahead and “punish the monkey.” Now about the organ grinder …

WWE

In April, wrestler Chris Benoit passed his drug test under the WWE Talent Wellness Policy. On a weekend in late June, Benoit strangled his wife to death with a telephone cord. Then he gave their seven-year-old son a high dose of his own sedatives, presumably so that the son wouldn’t feel a thing while Benoit proceeded to strangle him to death. Then Benoit hanged himself from a pulley on gym equipment.in the basement of their home. The postmortem toxicology report showed that Benoit’s system contained – depending on interpretation – between five and ten times the normal level of testosterone. Evidence accrued by the federal government in the indictment of Benoit’s physician, Dr. Phil Astin, shows that Benoit was being prescribed a ten-month supply of steroids every three to four weeks.

On CNN, reporter Drew Griffin asked Vince McMahon if Benoit had come up clean in his April drug test, or if he had drugs that had been excused by a doctor’s prescription. (The latter is the main loophole of the Wellness Policy, which was ably exposed by the entire report.) Here is McMahon’s response:

You’ve have to ask Dr. [David] Black [administrator of the Wellness Policy] that. If he were on some prescriptions prescribed by a legitimate physician, then surely, that would be an exception. If he had an infection or whatever it may be, I have no idea… I can’t speak for the doctor. All I can tell you is from a general standpoint our drug program adviser found or did not find in his last test, and from a standpoint of the criteria established for Chris Benoit and everyone else. Benoit tested negative.

At another point McMahon said: “Well, let me ask you a question. If you have a prescription, and it’s a legitimate prescription from your personal physician, then why wouldn’t it pass? Vince’s wife Linda McMahon, the CEO of WWE, said: “Our policy is not a ‘gotcha’ policy. We have a wellness program. We’re not looking to just say, ‘gotcha.’ We want to protect the health and well-being of the men and women who are part of World Wrestling Entertainment. That’s why prescriptions from legitimate doctors, from your treating physician, are acceptable if judged to be so by our medical review officer and [Black].”

At yet another point, Griffin asked McMahon about the suspension of ten WWE wrestlers who showed up on the customer list of a gray-market Internet pharmacy under investigation by the district attorney in Albany, New York. McMahon said, “So we took action immediately. Same day.” In fact, WWE took action weeks after receiving the information, after your two House committees had publicly raised the prospect of hearings. Further, as the CNN reporter pointed out, “They weren’t actually caught by the WWE’s drug policy. They were caught by some local prosecutor.”

In conclusion, I believe the CNN program further highlights the need for additional investigation by your committees, including public hearings. Within this industry, it has been well known that a cocktail of drugs – some of them implicitly encouraged by management – combined with unsafe working conditions are the proximate cause of the early deaths of literally hundreds of performers over the last generation. It is a death rate astronomically higher than that of, say, football players or rock stars (to use one obvious sports and one obvious entertainment analogy). Like many other fans and non-fans alike, I hope you pursue this issue to its source: the need for the return of a sensible measure of oversight to a currently unregulated industry.

Thank you for your attention.