Your Viral Dose of Reality 12.25.07: A Year Full of Excess

Posted by Jarrod Westerfeld on 12.25.2007

A Christmas gift for all my readers: the final installment of the Paul Heyman article, with a look back on the legacy of the year 2007 and the scandals of drug usage within our sporting organizations.

Some time has passed since Senator George Mitchell dropped his report upon the head of Major League Baseball, listing one of the biggest names in the sport [and] hurting Roger Clemens chances of entering into the Baseball Hall of Fame; this on the year that was also filled with news about steroids in wrestling following the tragedy of the Benoit house hold. At the end of the year all 2007 will be remembered for is the exposing of steroid issues within our society of sports (and sports entertainment).

While we sit through a litter of people proclaiming disgust against those listed on the Mitchell report as well as those they feel should have appeared on this report, we still have the fans of the wrestling industry (or just of the WWE) complaining about the steroid use that is still rampant in the industry.

Our society is drug crazed. Whether we're fighting a war on drugs or simply over flooding our media markets with commercial advertisements for the latest drug on the market aimed at ‘curing' yet another disease that isn't as life threatening as the ones we have running around that are still viewed, by most of our society, as being incurable – at least for the time being. Drugs surround us everywhere and many misconceptions are created as to what are drugs and what they do. Many young and ignorant – no, scratch that: many young and stupid people think that alcoholic beverages aren't a drug, despite the fact that they hold mind altering affects much like any other drug they are taught are bad for them. But it isn't just the young who are stupid to the realities of drugs, it's also the old – the young of yester year who tried these drugs and are now deeming them unfit for our society today.

I could argue back and forth, with myself and others, both sides of the coin on how drugs don't destroy a society like the enforcement aimed to prevent these drugs from being within that same society, but that's not for this site, as I was signed on board to talk about wrestling.

The Era of Roids

At the end of all [of] this, we're still left with the stain that this places upon societies perceptions of steroid use in baseball, if not all of sports, and in wrestling.

The fans have all made up their minds upon this issue and the collective voice is highly against the usage of these drugs, but many are still naïve to the drugs and its history. These same people are also unaware of why these substances are illegal and how the law works. In some instances, many don't even understand why these substances are illegal as they don't bother to look into the matter closely.

Yes, for baseball, steroids are a bad thing as they enhance the abilities of the players, not just their physique, allowing them to do more – swing the bat faster, better hand-eye coordination, better strength in the muscles that help for harder swings and makes them faster, and it also helps in speeding up recovery of injuries. Baseball is a sport dominated by singles achievements. Records are more important in this sport than in any other and if a substance is used to aide someone's ability to achieve one of those records then there's obviously a reason to decry foul. Natural talent can't compete with enhanced talent, thus why there is such a big deal about steroid usage within baseball. It's an unnatural edge that can't be matched and it gives these men enough opportunities to not only beat out a record, but rather crush them. Steroids in baseball are a big deal and should be viewed as such. But when it comes to wrestling, I don't see what the big problem is.

Wrestling is a totally different world where there are no records to be broken and the sport is nothing more than a performance act. There are no competitive edges within the ring only in the backrooms where politics rules the majority. Pushes within this industry aren't based upon skill in the ring but rather who you know, how you look, and how much merchandise you can push onto the fans. In this industry steroids only impact upon who becomes superstars and who is left in the past as a bitter-sweet memory that the casual fans won't care for after they're off their television screens. So in the end, I really don't see why fans look down upon the use of the substance in this industry.

To clarify my position let's get to work on the history behind anabolic steroids and their appearance on the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule III substance.

The Law is the Law – But Do the People Know the Law?

In the United States, anabolic steroids is listed as a Schedule III substance which makes the possession of the substance without a prescription a federal crime that is punishable for up to seven years. In the Library of Congress [The Library of Congress Official Website] H.R.4658 amends the Controlled Substances Act "to provide criminal penalties for illicit use of anabolic steroids and for coaches and others who endeavor to persuade or induce athletes to take anabolic steroids, and for other purposes." There is no federal penalty for failing a drug test for the substance thus all action placed against a failed drug test is based upon the consideration and judgment of the organization requesting the test – i.e. Major League Baseball players are penalized for a failed drug test at the discretion of Major League Baseball and their governing body of rules and regulations.

While many, especially in this field of journalism – and I am going to be arrogant and egotistical enough to include myself into that very field – are on the hunt to vilify the very drugs many professional athletes utilize to give themselves an athletic edge, many are unaware of why those drugs are even outlawed in the first place, or even care to research into them. This field doesn't care to further educate as much as it is trying to sell us a story. As if they were the play writes of our generation; the brilliant story tellers of present day world, they look to fabricate and spin truths and half-truths to sell us their ignorant idealisms and beliefs as if they hold any sort of merit. At some point, some idiot said that journalism is to be just another form of literary fiction where the writer controls the way we shape our society to think about certain matters, and at no point until now has anyone had the balls to step forth and expose this fraud for all the wrongs it holds and state that journalism should be the art of presenting the facts for the audience to look upon and judge for themselves.

We have idiots on this very site who look to vilify superstars for steroid use the same way the rest of the media looks to vilify Barry Bonds who has never tested positive for any substances, and has broken no rules of the sport of baseball seeing as drug testing within Major League Baseball are still fairly new. We live in a society that loves to judge regardless of fact and in complete contradiction to those facts.

Even scarier now is the myth formulating in some minds that Barry Bonds is being prosecuted for his drug use. This myth shares the same similarities around the Clinton administration and the belief that he was being indicted for extramarital affairs. What the ignorant and blind don't get is both men were, and in the case of Bonds about to be, brought before a court room was perjury. Their integrity as honest men was, and is, being placed on trial not the merit of the lies they placed in front of a judge.

As far as the law is concerned Barry Bonds is an upstanding citizen as he has never been seen with any anabolic steroids or human growth hormones (HGH) in his possession, let alone in his possession without a prescription. We can all still make the assumptions he took the substances and lied about it during his day in court but that's all they would be, assumptions.

Legislation of the substances in America has been around since the 1980's after Ben Johnson's 1988 Summer Olympic victory in Seoul, but was not on Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (in the Anabolic Steroids Act) until 1990. This all in spite of the American Medical Association (AMA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) opposing the scheduling, citing " the fact that use of these hormones does not lead to the physical or psychological dependence required for such scheduling under the Controlled Substance Act."

Most of this information, if not all of it, can be found on the internet, especially over at Wikipedia.org. [To read all about Anabolic Steroids as found on Wikipedia.org, follow this link.]

The presence of steroids within sports and body building has been ongoing since the 1940's, and the presence of it in the wrestling industry since "Superstar" Billy Graham, if not even longer before him during the days wrestling was still growing up out of the carnival scene. Many have been listed as being the casualties of the substance and we've seen the list as presented by Marc Mero, and his fabulous new cat-like face that is completely incapable of displaying any range of emotion, but what is usually left out of the news reports is the other culprits that led to those deaths; that played the role of Steve Nash, if you will, in taking down so many of those lives well before their 50th birthday. What the media tries to dress the list up as being is a checkered note of fallen names to one drug substance, and one drug substance alone – rule out the mixed cocktails of prescription pain killers and illegal narcotics of cocaine, heroin and a variety of over the counter pharmaceutical glamour drugs. The American media loves the horror story of steroids, and the American public certainly has bitten into the lies enough to never second guess it; sort of a blind patriotism that resonates with the way we're told to operate under our current system of governments – a sort of "don't rock the fucking boat" mentality that is not only ass-backwards but goes against the best interest of society and its peoples.

The culprit isn't so much the drugs as it is the business and how its run, allowing men of power to push others around into options that lead down the strayed path of drug usage to get through the day. No one is forcing these men to run the lifestyle that they chose before their untimely death, but the business and the men running the promotions certainly didn't help matters to pull these souls away from the choices they were making.

Appraisal of an Enabling Saint? (Part 3)

At what point did steroid abuse within the world of wrestling actually begin to start hurting the integrity of this (pseudo) sport? It's not like other sports where there are legitimate records that could be tainted due to performance enhancement drugs, so how does a steroid using wrestling athlete hurt the industry, or anyone else for that matter? The drug use we all should be worried about is the abuse of recreational and prescription drugs within any industry, especially in this industry.

Instead of a legion of fans swarming to get upset over Jeff Hardy's failures to clean up his life, as he continues to battle with heroin use and his desire to not check into any rehabilitation centers offered up by the WWE or suggested by his friends and family, we see news of a series of superstars being suspended for purchasing steroids off a gray market online store, which is currently undergoing a federal investigation into their practices, sending up the signal flares that instigate the anger and hateful collective voices of the fans who want to vent out against these (once) suspended talents.

We cry these crocodile tears for wrestlers who pass on under a WWE contract from drug abuse, but the most we'll really care about, in terms of drug usage, is when a series of performers has to be suspended for purchasing steroids off an online website, despite never showing signs of failing any drug test put in front of them. Are the drug tests in the WWE subject to ridicule because of their leniency to bigger named superstars? Of course they are, but the same could be said of MLB's drug testing which has, to date, never produced a big name superstar as being an abuser of steroids, or at the very least, tested positive for the use of the performance enhancer. Everyone loves to hold to the claim of Barry Bonds being a cheater and as the sole spokesperson of steroid use, but never once did he test positive for the substance, it is only assumed by the public – no rules were broken during his time of play, but everyone still thinks of him as the amoral monster who has destroyed the integrity of the game, despite the facts that clearly point these people as being assumptive tits who are, by their very nature, wrong.

And as everyone is crying those phony tears about superstars, but never bats an eyelash when a local wrestler passes away who has done more for their community than these celebrities who barely passed through their town for touring dates, a scapegoat must be molded and illustrated for the world to see as the enabling monster who has led to the destruction of these people – these cherished idols. Usually that scapegoat interchanges between the company that housed these fallen ‘heroes' in the WWE to the man who runs that house, Vince McMahon.

No one ever lifts a finger to argue that Vince is at least implementing some sort of change to the industry, while the rest of the industry, around him, refuses to change its tones about drug use amongst its performers. No one ever bothers to argue how, in the environment that was the height of wrestling's popularity, guys like Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman didn't help the situation to allow implemented change that would introduce stringent drug policies within the industry. In fact, no one cares enough to even note how those two played a role in delaying the forward progress of a drug policy within the wrestling industry.

Much like with the sport of hockey the warring companies had to fight over free talents and couldn't afford to turn away workers just because of their personal habits outside of the ring. In some cases these habits were encouraged, or simply ignored because of the status of the worker and the amount of money they drew in for the company. You couldn't afford to turn away talents for fear that the competition could steal them up and use them in a manner that would hurt their own appeal and lure fans away. Turning the blind eye was a very big part of wrestling and it is still part of the practice within the back as clearly demonstrated with Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton – Orton more the interesting case as he was involved in the listed members who shop from Signature Pharmacy but was never punished alongside fellow friend of Triple H, Batista.

But while everyone looks to pin this whole incident on one man they fail to note those who didn't help with the improvement of these issues that would cost us so many entertainers' lives. It isn't as clean cut as one man who is to be held responsible for this issue. Simple people want to hold simple answers to everything, and most of these simpletons believe the simplest answer is that this is all Vince McMahon's fault – he's the reason drug use in wrestling is so rampant, especially steroid use.

In no way am I going to slant the facts to prove that Paul Heyman is the sole reason drug use is so rampant in the wrestling industry but we're also not going to ignore everything he's done that also attributed to the issues that we now have to endure. He's not the sole problem he's part of the bigger problem, one that dates back to the days of the Crocketts, the Gagnes, the Von Erichs, the McMahons – where the problem was really rampant thanks to promoters fighting over talents, pushing them into the decisions that would lead them into the life of drugs, or ignore their problems and their drug usage. This was a problem instigated by the promoters who showed one consistent truth: they didn't give a flying squirrel fuck about the well-being of their wrestlers, only about the money they could draw in.

What separates Heyman from that list is the environment his product presented that reinforced the dependency of these narcotics for these performers. The undesirables of the wrestling industry having to do more and be something radically different [from the rest], to be recognized by the fans, that would lead them to be dependent upon pain killers and recreational drugs that would numb out the agony. Life on the road added to this stress, despite ECW doing fewer shows on the road than the ‘big boys' of wrestling. The hard shots, the big bumps, they all added to the toll that would push these men to pop more pills, take more shots and push the envelope of their drug use. Additional pain required additional numbing which can only be sufficed by more "medication," the trend that would continue after Heyman's influence upon the American wrestling scene.

What adds to Heyman's legacy that contributes to this issue is what he did to get these people notoriety that would end up strengthening their need to numb the pain for day to day living. And while Heyman and [Eric] Bischoff never get to share in the blame alongside Vince [McMahon], the real culprits who help instigate this issue are the wrestling fans themselves – but I digress.

Never mind the previous trial between the government and the [then] WWF about steroid use within their organization while congress turned a blind eye to the rest of the industry as if they weren't important enough to go after for the same charges, what really places Heyman on the same pedestal of guilt as Vince was his turning of a blind eye to the issues of his workers. That's what all promoters do; they turn a blind eye to an issue that should be most evident to them seeing as they know these people personally and see them far more often than us fans.

It's as if the people blindly believe everything our media feeds us; that the only bad guy within the industry is Vincent McMahon, owner of the WWE, and drug enabling, self-centered, egocentric asshole entrepreneur of low class entertainment variety. Heaven forbid that the media do their job and actually get something as important as facts to back up their narrow minded, agenda driven messages of attack on this industry and the fans within it. Heaven forbid we see less Phil Mushniks within this world and see more men who come off as intelligent behind a news desk, much like Keith Olberman.

A Media Controlled Society

It's pretty apparent that the public doesn't formulate their own opinion, it's formulated, packaged and sold to them through the medium of infotainment centers claiming to be informative news programs, but all they are is additional sources of entertainment and distractions to the realities of our world and social issues. It also extends itself to dumbing down a people to prevent them from thinking for themselves and being informed consumers, in this instance, the product being steroids and the misinformation being made available not only by our media news outlets, but by our own government.

The effects of steroids upon the heart are a serious threat but that is an effect found in any athlete, so it's only suspected that the substance speeds up the process. Like with any other substance that is used or abused there are serious effects upon the human body, no drug can enter into the body and not leave it altered in some way or another. For the most part, there are more long term users of the substance still alive than those who have simply died – and by that I mean only from the substance of steroids, not a listing of steroids with other narcotics that would probably take down an entire farm ranch of cattle.

I have no problem with steroid use in wrestling – it's the other drugs that infiltrate this industry that worry me the most, and it should be the same for others considering how many of our fallen heroes we've lost to those substances.

Until next time, have a jolly holiday season and a happy new year.