Drug Abuse in Pro Wrestling
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/...97307-sun.html
Column: The bell tolls for them
Wrestlers put life on the line
By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun
The wrestlers of my youth didn't die young.
The Sheik, after all the fire, the gouging and the biting, lived to 76. Bobo Brazil, whose head suffered no damage from a lifetime of Coco Butts, managed to make it to 73. Freddie Blassie bled his way all over America to the ripe old age of 85.
The wrestlers of my youth didn't do steroids.
The carnage left behind by steroid abuse in toxic combination with the hardened life of professional wrestling, painkiller usage, the number of concussions, the constant pressure and demands on big bodies, seems never-ending. The victims, too many for so small a world, are both dead and alive.
If Chris Benoit, a steroid abuser, chooses to kill himself, that is his business. He took the necessary drugs he required to make a career and then he took his life.
But when Benoit first murders his wife and smothers his seven-year-old son, that ceases to be his business. We have to ask, once again, how many wrestlers are going to die young, how many murders and suicides and lives are going to be destroyed in the name of sports entertainment.
And who, or what, or anyone, can prevent any of this from happening?
I first met Chris Benoit more than 20 years ago, backstage at the grungy place where Stampede Wrestling used to hold its Friday-night shows. Bruce Hart, son of the late Stu Hart, introduced us.
Benoit wasn't very tall, very old, very imposing or very muscled. But he knew what he wanted to be. That much was clear. He told me he was going to be a professional wrestling star and inside I kind of chuckled to myself.
How could a kid that small make it big in pro wrestling?
The workers -- as Stu Hart used to call them -- of Stampede Wrestling never were huge in stature. This was a small-time promotion. Size clearly didn't matter.
But it's amazing, looking back, to one place and one time, how much promise there was for these hungry kids and how lives have twisted because of the complications attached to those wonky dreams.
Brian Pillman, cut after playing a few games with the Calgary Stampeders, was there. Davey Boy Smith, another short stocky kid, was part of the show. The Dynamite Kid was athletic but didn't look like he weighed a pound more than 180. And, Bruce Hart's little brother Owen, who wasn't always sure he wanted to wrestle, was starting out.
Each of them would leave for the bright lights of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). Since then, so many funerals, so many tragedies, so few explanations.
Pillman, whose raspy voice I can still hear, was found dead in a hotel room in 1997. He was 35 years old and died of an apparent heart attack, steroid related.
Two years later, Owen Hart crashed to his death at 34, when a wrestling stunt went horribly wrong. His death was a tragic accident, unrelated to the drugs that were around him.
Three years later, Owen's brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith, died of a heart attack at 39. Not unlike Benoit, Smith was undersized when he tried to make his way to the big money world. The owner and promoter, McMahon, wanted everyone, including himself, to look like Hulk Hogan, everyone that big, that built: the cartoon character's larger than life.
Smith became as big as he could, as thick and as muscled. But his heart all but exploded on May 17, 2002. He didn't survive.
Another undersized wrestler of that promotion never made the big time in spite of having a great name. Biff Wellington started out in the same years as Benoit -- they were once tag-team partners -- without similar ability but with similar frame. As Benoit grew in both size and as a star, Wellington all but disappeared.
He ended up on drugs, then methadone, painkillers and when he was found dead just eight days ago, it hardly registered as news.
There wasn't a murder, a death of a child, a suicide or an ill-thought out television tribute.
Just another wrestler dead before his time. Another graduate of Stampede gone.
KILLER OCCUPATION
Professional wrestlers who have died prematurely in recent years:
2007
Chris Benoit, 40
Bam Bam Bigelow, 45
Mike Awesome, 42
Biff Wellington, 42
2006
Earthquake, 42
2005
Eddy Guerrero, 38
2004
Big Boss Man, 41
Hercules Hernandez, 47
2003
Mr Perfect, Curt Hennig, 44
Crash Holly, 32
Road Warrior Hawk, 45
2002
Davey Boy Smith, 39
Yokozuna, 34
2001
Terry Gordy, 40
Bobby Duncum Jr., 34
OTHER WRESTLERS WHO DIED YOUNG:
Andre The Giant, 46
Owen Hart, 34
Rick Rude, 40
Big John Studd, 46
Junk Yard Dog, 45
Dino Bravo, 44
Brian Pillman, 35
drug abuse in combat sports
anti-depressents and psyche meds
Last night on the news, I heard that Chris Benoit was on Zoloft.
I think these psych pharms have a big control over the media.
Cho, the VA Tech killer was on such meds too.
It's not steroids, it's these psych meda that have a recorded history of violence and suicide effects.
I hope the media states this, that he was on Zoloft more. The news didn't wanna touch it about Cho.
Easier to just say "steroids", I guess.
And why hasn't Anna Nicole's doctor getting the same treatment as Benoit's?
Things just are not right.
Chosen One
More steroids and wrestlers
WWE drug crackdown
Steroid raid nabs 10 wrestlers
Is this the end of the WWE?
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — World Wrestling Entertainment has suspended 10 of its wrestlers for violations of a policy that tests for steroids and other drugs, the company said Thursday.
Stamford-based WWE says it issued suspension notices based on independent information from the prosecutor’s office in Albany County, N.Y., which has been investigating illegal steroid sales.
Neither the WWE nor the Albany County district attorney’s office would comment on the suspended wrestlers’ identities Thursday. No criminal charges were filed, they said.
Under a WWE wellness policy instituted last year that requires tests for steroids and other drugs, a wrestler faces a 30-day suspension without pay for a first violation, a 60-day suspension for a second violation and firing for a third violation. Performers are tested at least four times per year.
The current WWE drug testing policy was instituted after the November 2005 death of Eddie Guerrero.
“We are very actively working to eradicate the use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs in the WWE,” WWE spokesman Gary Davis said. “Today’s action is part of that effort.”
WWE officials met this month with New York prosecutors investigating illegal steroid sales. Albany County prosecutor P. David Soares’ office has said that pro wrestler Chris Benoit, who killed his family before hanging himself in June, and other WWE wrestlers had been clients of Signature Pharmacy of Orlando, Fla. Investigators say Benoit had a steroid and other drugs in his system at the time.
When Soares’ office began investigating the illegal sale and distribution of controlled substances, he said, his office sought the help of WWE after a number of its wrestlers appeared on customer lists of clinics connected with Signature Pharmacy.
Nine people, including three current or former physicians, have pleaded guilty, most affiliated with Internet and phone-order companies that filled orders for anabolic steroids and growth hormones through Signature and sent drugs to customers around the country, including Albany County.
Signature’s owners have pleaded not guilty.
The Benoit case prompted the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to ask WWE to turn over any information it has on steroid and drug abuse in pro wrestling. The committee has not yet scheduled a hearing on the case.
The WWE declined to reveal who had been suspended, but did say that policy would be changing. "It has been WWE's practice not to release the names of those who have been suspended, but notice has been sent to all WWE performers that names of anyone who is suspended under the Wellness Policy as of November 1 will be made public," read the press release.
At the centre of the suspensions is the release of a client list from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, which was raided by Albany County and Florida law enforcement agencies in February. Authorities allege that Signature Pharmacy illegally distributed steroids and other prescription drugs to clients who had not by examined by doctors.
In an article on ESPN.com, Shaun Assael reported the following current WWE wrestlers were named as clients of Signature:
* Dave Bautista
* Adam "Edge" Copeland (currently on injury leave)
* Chris "Masters" Mordetsky
* John "John Morrison" Hennigan
* Shoichi Funaki
* Shane Helms
Other current WWE wrestlers on the client list, as reported by the New York Daily News on its website are:
* Randy Orton
* Charles Haas, Jr.
* Robert "Booker T" Huffman
* Mike Bucci, aka Simon Dean
* Darren "William Regal" Matthews
* Chavo Guerrero Jr.
* Ken "Mr. Kennedy" Anderson
* Anthony Carelli
Also named in the ESPN article as Signature clients were Eddie Guerrero, Brian Adams (a.k.a. Crush) and Benoit.
In today's edition of the New York Daily News, the newspaper reported the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection will hold a hearing in late September into performance-enhancing drugs in professional wrestling.
The chairman of the committee, Illinois Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush, told the Daily News that witness lists have not been compiled. Letters requesting information were sent to WWE, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance.
Through their website, Sports Illustrated released further information on the WWE wrestlers that, as noted in the article, "have received steroids and/or human growth hormone through the drug network."
In the article which was published and updated before 8:00pm Thursday evening, current wrestlers Copeland, Matthews, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Helms, Hennigan, Anderson, Funaki, Haas and Edward Fatu (Umaga), along with Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Adams and recent WWE releasee Sylvain Grenier were named as having received prescriptions.
As reported by SI, prescriptions included a variety of drugs such as anastrozole, somatropin, nandrolone, stanozolol and others in a time period that ran as early as November 2003 and as recently as February 2007. The types of drugs and dates of the prescriptions varied by wrestler.
WWE has about 160 wrestlers. WWE shares closed Thursday at $14.80, down 21 cents.
-- with files from SLAM! Wrestling