Congress Asks Vince McMahon For WWE Testing Details & Results

[AntiLeaf33 0]

It's going to be intresting how Vince and Co. weasel their way out of this and if there will be any change in the on-screen product after this.

 

Also, I wonder how many guys are still actively taking Vitimin S after everything that is going down. I wouldn't be surprised to see some guys "deflate" a bit and then once this clears to be infalted again.

[King Cucaracha 0]

If you say the WWE is the face of wrestling and the only one that matters in this....when that list of dead wrestlers is brought up then you should accept their answer when they say 5.

 

I'm not going to touch that one because... well, I wouldn't know where to start with how wrong you are.

 

But you're missing the point. WWE is the face of wrestling. The general population hasn't heard of any other wrestling promotion besides WWE and I'd venture that about 70% still call it the 'WWF' anyway. People who aren't in 'the know' only know of the WWE. The majority of people who refer to Mixed Martial Arts don't call it 'MMA', they call it 'UFC'. And the majority of people who refer to wrestling would say 'WWE' (or 'WWF') rather than wrestling. That's the point. The other promotions are a small wheel in this, just like PRIDE or K-1 would be small wheels in any sort of MMA controversy, because they're a small wheel to the non-wrestling fans of Congress.

[Bix 0]

So...

 

Will WWE rack up lots of overtime with the shredder, or is it pointless to do so unless Aegis Labs does the same?

[Downhome 0]

The WWE has fired people for drug issues and they're then allowed to work for another promotion, if Kurt Angle or Joey Mercury turned up dead tomorrow that would some how be blamed on the WWE when they released those guys for refusing to get a handle on their problems.......that's why I said you can't have it both ways. If it's only about the WWE then when they release guys for drug problems if that guy dies it isn't their fault they tried he didn't comply he got released.

 

All of that bullshit only happened after Eddie died, and they didn't have a choice but to do something at the time. Had Eddie not died, Kurt and Joey would more than likely still be working in WWE, and we wouldn't have seen all of those suspensions that we saw last year. WWE doesn't really give a shit right now, they just did all of that to cover their ass, and then when enough of time went by, they once again just seemingly started to not give a shit again...until the Chris Benoit issue started. And anyway, even with Kurt and Joey, of course WWE could be to blame, at least in part, if anything happened to either guy. Both worked for WWE, before Eddie's death.

 

And sure, reports say that they did fire Kurt and Joey because of drugs and the such, but what exactly does that matter? In the end, we all know why they really did it, and it wasn't because WWE all of a sudden started to really care. Hell, WWE is just as guilty of signing guys who are either obviously on drugs of some sort, or who were very much known to be on shit all throughout their career. Jeff Hardy is one of the most recent ones. I believe one of his biggest problems in TNA is that he was seemingly fucked up so often.

 

It's not like Vince is going down here, he isn't distributing. They may get a list of Doctors to go after though. The most that happens is some guys get fired and the testing policy is more strict.

 

I don't think WWE or Vince is going to go down here either, but I do think that they're going to be forced to make some changes, changes that go beyond punishing someone who fails a drug test by not paying them...but still requiring them to work every week.

 

[Bix 0]

Kurt Angle and Joey Matthews still would've been fired without the policy. WWE was generally pretty vigilant about trying to help painkiller & street drug addicts post-Pillman.

[Mecca 0]

If it was because of Pillman, Guerrero whatever reason it is still a positive step. Jeff Hardy was also fired for refusing to go t rehab for his issues. He was quickly snapped up by TNA..I understand people want to blame them because they are the face but they are still more proactive than any other wrestling company is about this sort of thing. That's what I meant when I said you don't get it both ways, when a guy is fired because he needs serious help that he won't get and other promotions hire him that is not the WWE's fault, they tried.

 

Now Jeff Hardy is supposedly clean now, I don't know for sure obviously I'm not there but seeing as how they've been with street drugs he'd have been fired or sent to rehab if he wasn't.

[Enigma 0]

I think a lot of you are forgetting Kurt Angle asked for his release and wasn't fired.

 

Angle duped Vince into believing he needed time off from wrestling and got his release, and within an hour was on the phone with Jeff Jarrett.

[Mecca 0]

That's Angles story......I honestly don't buy it.

 

He tested positive for numerous things more than once and was told he needed to go to rehab he refused and was fired....that's my take.

[Dangerous A 0]

Angle was let go because he tested positive for steroids and his prescription expired. While he did have some very obvious painkiller issues and left some head scratching messages for Vince and John Laurinitis that were huge red flags, the deal was he was taking roids and the prescription loophole failed him when he didn't get a renewal. Had his prescription not ran out, they may have given Angle a rehab or you're gone option, which would've gotten him released anyways because Angle didn't want anything to do with rehab and was/is in denial about his problem with painkillers.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

With regard to Jeff Hardy, it's worth pointing out that at the time WWE hired him back he'd been fired from TNA twice for no shows and other disciplinary problems. Jeff has apparently cleaned up his act, at least to where he's no longer considered a risk, but at the time WWE re-hired him, he'd shown no indication at all that he was willing, or able, to do that. It's good that Jeff's turned things around, but it's telling that WWE were willing to look past Jeff's behavior at the time when they hired him on the chance he wouldn't screw up again. Yes, the gamble paid off, but it could have easily backfired.

[Epic Reine 0]

I think WWE might have offered Joe a deal, but if they did, it wasn't anything ultra-serious, and probably around the same ballpark they offered AJ and Danielson. A dev deal not worth the effort.

 

At the TIME it looked like Joe made a good decision by signing with TNA. Now? Not so much.

 

Danielson, Joe and Punk were all offered WWE deals at the same time and only Punk took it. Danielson decided to stay and help ROH and Joe went to TNA.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

You know, if someone in Congress does their research when they get the details... it's gonna be really funny to see WWE try to spin why their steroid/testosterone levels of tolerance are so high before you get "caught"

[Enigma 0]

I want someone to show the Congressional representatives the deflation/inflation of Chris Masters is mid-2006.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I want someone to show the Congressional representatives the deflation/inflation of Chris Masters is mid-2006.

And the video of Hunter mocking Masters over his lost weight.

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qTDiU6wO6yg

 

The change in his body is ridiculous.

[Enigma 0]

Every news show should play that clip everytime when someone from WWE on their shows claims that they don't encourage steroid use.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

I think WWE might have offered Joe a deal, but if they did, it wasn't anything ultra-serious, and probably around the same ballpark they offered AJ and Danielson. A dev deal not worth the effort.

 

At the TIME it looked like Joe made a good decision by signing with TNA. Now? Not so much.

 

Danielson, Joe and Punk were all offered WWE deals at the same time and only Punk took it. Danielson decided to stay and help ROH and Joe went to TNA.

 

This goes to everyone saying this. Nate, WWwhatever, and j00. You have no earthly idea what you're talking about.

 

There is a HUGE, WORLD CHANGING DIFFERENCE between being overed a low scale developmental style deal, and being offered a legitimate year round full touring contract. We're talking THOUSANDS of dollars here. Punk accepted a developmental deal because he had already done everything in ROH and he hated TNA. Danielson LEFT WRESTLING because none of the big names would look for him. Joe went to TNA because at the time they were going to god push him and allow him to do ROH and other bookings. Hence why now it wasn't such a grand ole idea when his friend Punk is getting twice the legitimate sustained push.

 

The ones who turned down those offers did so not out of loyalty, but either out of career practical sense or WWE was NOT offered them enough money. There is no such thing as loyalty in American Pro-Wrestling, the faster you accept that fact the better off you will be.

[Enigma 0]

A.J. Styles specifically said he turned his development offer down because he couldn't support his wife and child on $500 a week.

[Dangerous A 0]

I think people may be confusing developmental deals with guaranteed contracts. Developmental deal means you are in OVW or less and you may or may not be brought up and can be cut at a moments notice. A guaranteed contract means you get x amount of money from the downside portion guaranteed with the opputunity to make more, depending on appearances, slot on the card, etc. The developmental deals are good if you are young and don't have many assets that are dependent on regular income or have a family to support.

[Guest NateW]

I think WWE might have offered Joe a deal, but if they did, it wasn't anything ultra-serious, and probably around the same ballpark they offered AJ and Danielson. A dev deal not worth the effort.

 

At the TIME it looked like Joe made a good decision by signing with TNA. Now? Not so much.

 

Danielson, Joe and Punk were all offered WWE deals at the same time and only Punk took it. Danielson decided to stay and help ROH and Joe went to TNA.

 

This goes to everyone saying this. Nate, WWwhatever, and j00. You have no earthly idea what you're talking about.

 

There is a HUGE, WORLD CHANGING DIFFERENCE between being overed a low scale developmental style deal, and being offered a legitimate year round full touring contract. We're talking THOUSANDS of dollars here. Punk accepted a developmental deal because he had already done everything in ROH and he hated TNA. Danielson LEFT WRESTLING because none of the big names would look for him. Joe went to TNA because at the time they were going to god push him and allow him to do ROH and other bookings. Hence why now it wasn't such a grand ole idea when his friend Punk is getting twice the legitimate sustained push.

 

The ones who turned down those offers did so not out of loyalty, but either out of career practical sense or WWE was NOT offered them enough money. There is no such thing as loyalty in American Pro-Wrestling, the faster you accept that fact the better off you will be.

 

The fact that career practical sense comes into play clearly shows that there is a world outside of WWE. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense to turn down WWE and stick with a group like TNA or ROH. It doesn't matter if WWE offers developmental deals or lowballed money figures at first. People make it seem like WWE is the place to and there's always the opportunity to make more money as time goes on.

 

Comparing wrestling to baseball or whatever is pointless. Ofcourse minor league players want to play for MLB for more money and recognition. With wrestling it's different. WWE is the most well known wrestling fed, but they are not the only wrestling fed that exists. Wrestlers can still make a good living and gain recognition outside of WWE.

[justcoz 0]

Of course drug abuse will never go away. It's a problem that permeates society and culture and extends far beyond what we are talking about here. What we are discussing is the rabid steroid/PED abuse that is plaguing the industry and leading to an alarming amount of deaths.

 

WWE is wrestling. It is the industry. TNA, ROH and the rest of the indies are not even blips on the radar screen. America's wrestling product is WWE and it has to be cleaned up. Everyone single wrestler in the US has the goal to make it to the WWE and the easiest way to do that is to get big. Clean up WWE and the industry's clean. Simple as that.

 

I get where you are coming from but I disagree. It's incredibly naieve to act as if TNA and ROH guys are only abusing steroid/PED's because of the industry standard set by WWE. Athletes and bodybuilders do steroids. It makes them look and perform better. It wasn't as if Misterio, Eddie, Benoit, etc. touched steroids for the first time in WWE. Konnan is another classic example. His body is ravaged from roids and he spent four months of his career in WWE but blames his personal choice on WWE for pressuring guys to look a certain way? Sure, the deck was stacked against the 'little men' but I can guarantee you that part of their reasoning was them personally having a little guy inferiority complex in a locker room of big dudes (ie Vanilla Midgets), their own desire to look more chisled and ripped and to heal and train through injuries. Guys aren't spending 3 hours in the gym everyday just to look good for Vince McMahon and anyone that picks up a weight looks in the mirror for results.

 

Case in point, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero got noticed for their talent and athleticism. Steroids weren't going to turn them into Hulk Hogan physically. They were still going to be considered little guys no how much they bulked up. They had earned reps internationally and were picked up by all three major U.S. companies. What was the point? Chances are WWE wanted them because they were good workers, fast, exciting and had their own type of charisma, particularly Eddie who was a great promo/skit guy. Vince was never going to look at Eddie Guerrero and mark out like he did for Superstar Billy Graham. So what was their point?

 

We can't tell what talent in TNA or ROH are roided up. The people that we've referred to as 'little guys' like Eddie, Chris, Rey, HBK, Bret Hart, Chris Candido, Jamie Noble, etc. were all roided up. Petey Williams could be roided up for all we know. Roddy Piper was on roids in the 80's, didn't look like it. Hell, we just found out Johnny Grunge was on roids!

 

If congress only cleans up WWE and focuses just on steroids and not pain pills nothing will be accomplished. Indies and TNA have a faster harder match pace than WWE. Guys are more likely to get hurt. That's the reason for the "WWE Style" that most people around here have complained about. There will still be pain killer misuse and abuse in other companies. Maybe even roids and GHB. And wrestlers will still die whether WWE is clean or not.

[justcoz 0]

With regard to Jeff Hardy, it's worth pointing out that at the time WWE hired him back he'd been fired from TNA twice for no shows and other disciplinary problems. Jeff has apparently cleaned up his act, at least to where he's no longer considered a risk, but at the time WWE re-hired him, he'd shown no indication at all that he was willing, or able, to do that. It's good that Jeff's turned things around, but it's telling that WWE were willing to look past Jeff's behavior at the time when they hired him on the chance he wouldn't screw up again. Yes, the gamble paid off, but it could have easily backfired.

 

My hunch is that they took Matt's word that he was clean, probably met and conversed with Jeff, asked him directly about his behavior in TNA and said here is you chance, clean up or shut up, we'll push you right off the bat because you were always our chosen HBK to Matt's Marty Janetty. Now the million dollar is question is whether or not he pissed in a cup before his name was signed to the dotted line?

[justcoz 0]

I think a lot of you are forgetting Kurt Angle asked for his release and wasn't fired.

 

Angle duped Vince into believing he needed time off from wrestling and got his release, and within an hour was on the phone with Jeff Jarrett.

 

You really believe this?

 

[TheFranchise 0]

I think a lot of you are forgetting Kurt Angle asked for his release and wasn't fired.

 

Angle duped Vince into believing he needed time off from wrestling and got his release, and within an hour was on the phone with Jeff Jarrett.

 

You really believe this?

But he heard it on the Internet!

 

[Bix 0]

We can't tell what talent in TNA or ROH are roided up. The people that we've referred to as 'little guys' like Eddie, Chris, Rey, HBK, Bret Hart, Chris Candido, Jamie Noble, etc. were all roided up. Petey Williams could be roided up for all we know.

Are you implying that Petey Williams DOESN'T look roided up? He totally does. It's really, really obvious. It's really obvious for all of the former Team Canada, between their physiques and the fact that whoever their source is gives them nasty stuff that destroyed their hairlines really fast.

 

ROH has a bunch of guys who are really obviously roided up. Tank Toland (duh), B.J. Whitmer, Brent Albright, and Austin Aries (though he has shrunk recently) stand out. I'm sure there are a bunch more. Note everyone whose backs are broken out from the same icky steroid source.

 

Also, all of your WWE "little guys" were really obviously on steroids at various points so I'm not sure what you're trying to say anyway.

[10 Pounds 0]

Once again, that daggum no-good government is coming to take down the McMahon's honest mom n' pop family shop.

[Downhome 0]

From PWInsider:

 

Sean Thornton reporting. ... There is a reference to Bobby Lashley being much smaller in the current WWE magazine. HHH is the "guest editor" of this issue and throughout the mag he is putting little comments next to pics and parts of interviews. There is a section where they interview Bobby Lashley and on that page is a picture of Lashley from his college wrestling days. Right above it HHH wrote, "Oh My god, someone left Bobby in the dryer!" I thought I'd pass that along since it's been discussed a lot on audio recently and found it interesting that they make such a comment in their own magazine.

[Enigma 0]

I think a lot of you are forgetting Kurt Angle asked for his release and wasn't fired.

 

Angle duped Vince into believing he needed time off from wrestling and got his release, and within an hour was on the phone with Jeff Jarrett.

 

You really believe this?

 

 

Dave Meltzer believes it.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I always got the impression from the Observers of that time that Meltzer didn't know what to believe from crazy Kurt.

[justcoz 0]

I think a lot of you are forgetting Kurt Angle asked for his release and wasn't fired.

 

Angle duped Vince into believing he needed time off from wrestling and got his release, and within an hour was on the phone with Jeff Jarrett.

 

You really believe this?

 

 

Dave Meltzer believes it.

 

No he doesn't.

 

Hi Dave, I want to correct something "Mr. Negative" Bryan Alvarez always insists on mentioning and once again brought up Sunday on Wrestling Observer Live and that's the supposed confirmed story that Kurt Angle was "fired" from WWE. This is incorrect and was improperly stated by WWE to try to make things look like he didn't quit and instead WWE used his health issues to try and say they didn't think he could compete at 100% so they released him.

 

In reality what happened (and this has been repeated by Angle himself many times) is he got tired of the insanely hectic schedule and had a meeting with Vince McMahon and asked for his release. Vince bulked and a dispute between Angle and management ensued in the office leading ultimately to Angle's release where ever since he has looked way better in terms of health and physical ability than his last month with WWE's ECW just based on the simple fact he is not on that hectic schedule anymore. After the Benoit tragedy and exposing of how WWE goes into damage control mode I think it’s safe to say we know who is telling the truth now with Angle’s issues regarding WWE but for some reason right after everyone immediately dismissed him as being insane and took WWE's side.

 

I just wanted to clear that up and anything said by Mr. Alvarez is purely out of spite towards TNA and Kurt Angle. His negativity is ruining the show and I think it suffers with him on it. You should do the show by yourself and it would regain a lot of credibility.

 

Wrestlingobserver.com Reader,

 

Brian Reinbolt

 

DM: Kurt Angle was fired. I was told three days before he came to the office for the meeting that he'd be fired by the end of the week. He probably quit at the same time. Those things often happen for both sides to sae face.

[justcoz 0]

We can't tell what talent in TNA or ROH are roided up. The people that we've referred to as 'little guys' like Eddie, Chris, Rey, HBK, Bret Hart, Chris Candido, Jamie Noble, etc. were all roided up. Petey Williams could be roided up for all we know.

Are you implying that Petey Williams DOESN'T look roided up? He totally does. It's really, really obvious. It's really obvious for all of the former Team Canada, between their physiques and the fact that whoever their source is gives them nasty stuff that destroyed their hairlines really fast.

 

ROH has a bunch of guys who are really obviously roided up. Tank Toland (duh), B.J. Whitmer, Brent Albright, and Austin Aries (though he has shrunk recently) stand out. I'm sure there are a bunch more. Note everyone whose backs are broken out from the same icky steroid source.

 

Also, all of your WWE "little guys" were really obviously on steroids at various points so I'm not sure what you're trying to say anyway.

 

Bix, you know that we are agreeing, right?