NEWS: Congress Picks a Fight With Vince McMahon

CULTURE: Congress Picks a Fight With Vince McMahon

A month after a tragic double-murder/suicide claimed the life and family of a top superstar, World Wrestling Entertainment now faces an even bigger media crisis.

In a letter sent to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Ca), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va), the ranking minority member, have requested that McMahon turn over documents related to drug-testing within WWE by August 24th -- two days before the company presents SummerSlam -- one of the most popular pay-per-view events of the year.

Beyond invading the privacy of the personal medical history of independent contractors employed by WWE, the request for such a large swath of information by Congress occurred within days of actress Lindsay Lohan being arrested for cocaine possession and Major League Baseball superstar Barry Bonds on the verge of shattering Hank Aaron's home-run record -- yet the letter sent to McMahon explicitly details that it is the athletes of World Wrestling Entertainment who are the "multimedia stars that have an influence on the behavior and attitudes of the nation's youth."

Go figure that it would be current WWE superstars who would take the fall and provide Washington and the all-news networks with ample fodder in the months leading into the 2008 Presidential election. Mister McMahon Goes To DC, you might call it.

But what would any congressional investigation into WWE prove that isn't already blatantly obvious? That some individuals who are involved with the entertainment industry and professional sports sometimes consume performance-enhancing drugs to maintain their status in the public eye? Hardly a revelation. Moreover, the comments by Waxman et al concerning WWE influence over the 'utes' of America are laughable considering the influence of video games on youth still goes overlooked. Why is putting Vince McMahon in the hot seat more important than Congress sending a similar letter to the Entertainment Software Review Board in the wake of the video-game inspired madness of Cho Seung-Hui that resulted in 32 murders at Virginia Tech University earlier this year?

If the United States government initiates punitive action against WWE or proceeds with recommendations to change the sports-entertainment industry based upon on the media appearances of Marc Mero (a disgruntled former wrestler-turned-pitchman whose career was brought to an end when the in-ring popularity of his wife eclipsed his own) or Jacques Rougeau (a Canadian who once wrestled as a "police officer"), can fans of television and Hollywood now expect the fired personal assistants and nannies of tabloid fame to also have a seat in any government investigation into the influence and pervasiveness of performance-enhancing drugs in our culture?

Granted, Chris Benoit was batshit crazy. He made a personal choice to commit a heinous crime despite being under the influence of a doctor's regular care. Perhaps Benoit wasn't completely honest with his doctor. Perhaps the physician himself was caught up with celebrityhood. In any case, the medical establishment was unable to recognize the special needs of an athlete and inevitably the Benoit tragedy unfolded as it did. World Wrestling Entertainment is no more to blame for his actions than the production company producing Lindsay Lohan's latest film is responsible for her actions in the street. It's the price some performers are willing to pay to put asses in seats.

The idea of an athlete using any form of enhancement to improve physical performance and appearance is arguably no different than an obese person taking Cialis to enhance an erection or ink painted on body as canvas - a personal choice to be 'better' by one's own terms. You want to be good in bed, you take a pill engineered by experts. You want to be the best at your particular sport? Let chemical engineering do the trick. If history is any sort of guideline, high-octane entertainment and sport has always required different care than a traditional medical practice could ever provide. Period. Congressional investigation over.

To suggest that a selective few athletes and entertainers be made examples of for the sake of political grandstanding or as a result of a breakdown in one particular node of the medical system is a failure to recognize the unique nature of the emotional and physiological craft that goes into entertaining people on a global scale. Ultimately, protecting and promoting North American culture around the world requires a greater depth of understanding and exploration than any single government agency can possible hope to accomplish by bullying a few wrestlers around.

Even if one happens to be named Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

Congress doesn't care that WWE's wrestlers are technically independent contractors. They'll continue to stick their nose in whatever they see fit until the voting mass smacks them down. The WWE Wellness Policy isn't very vigorous and only really applies to the undercard guys, but it's better than nothing. Bud Selig had to spend years just instating a limp-dicked drug test policy in Major League Baseball, a non-predetermined sport. Why not go after him than pretending the home run kings are the only guys that ever did steroids and scapegoating them?

The Wellness plan was to screen out steroid users and catch later-life steroid health issues. It wasn't meant to prevent people that didn't test positive for anabolics from going AWOL and killing entire families.

we'll see what happens i guess
i agree with this article
there is no point in the government doing all of this
its not like steriod use is some secret that will unlock the puzzle box

they actually test for performance ehnacing drugs in WWE?

If so why as it's not like the outcomes are actually left to chance and the fitness and expertise of one wrestler over the other has any bearing on the final result.

If the government wants to hold professional wrestling organizations responsible for the illegal drug use of their performers, then major film studios should also be held accountable for the illegal drug use of their performers.

Yea, I love it how Videogames are always thrown under the bus whenever a tradegy occurs. And not the parenting, or other influences that may have happened.

Not to mention, Cho Seung-Hui was playing a videogame that was CLEARLY labeled Mature by the ESRB. (Which is called Counter-Strike, which is a modification based upon Half-Life, which is rated Mature.)

Also, Wrestling would have a larger impact on the youth of today than videogames.

The WWE is broadcast on local and network tv!

As opposed to having to purchase a console for $400 and games that cost $60.

The politician is targeting something that pertains to the "Youth" of America, not Videogames which pertain to the 18-25 voting demographic. I mean, afterall, who wants to alienate their future voters?

This article is insinuating that the WWE is somehow some innocent bystander while all of its athletes are pumping steroids. It also falsely seems to assume that doctors just weren't able to suit his needs, instead of attacking doctors who handed out steroids to him that were something like 10-20 times more than a human should ever have in their body. Is this author of this stupid enough to assume that the doctor was not getting his cut prescribing ridiculous amounts of steroids to Chris Benoit?

Insinuating the McMahon family is innocent is absolutely fucking ridiculous, and it seems to ignore that wrestlers are having strokes in their 30s and 40s and dying left, right and center. Go look at the heroes you watched when you were 7 and see how many of them are alive today. Look at guys like Benoit who were cruiser weights a few years back, and now look like fucking comic book characters. Do you think they all just want to die early, or that they're told that if this isn't the type of thing they're willing to do, they're not going to make it very far?

The authors views are naive and exist in a fairy tale world where Science can just pump people up to magical sizes with no consequence. The WWE prays on the ignorance of a lot of its athletes, and their vulnerability, in order to get them to do ridiculous things to their bodies that dramatically shorten their life spans. Look at the history of the fucking company: wrestlers are basically sideshow freaks that the McMahon family controls like they're twisted Circus owners. If any one here believes that wrestlers aren't pumping more needles than Kurt Cobain, I imagine they've never worked out and don't know anything about what real human bodies look like.

Believe me, folks; real people don't look like fucking comic books.

It shouldn't even matter if wrestlers are taking steroids. It's not exactly a competitive sport. I don't mean to say that it isn't physical...but the outcomes are pre-determined.

Juicing will hit you more home runs, score you more touchdowns, make your hits harder and your times faster...but it won't win you any pro wrestling matches. Winners are determined by writers based on popularity, in ring ability, work ethic, etc. Size obviously is a plus, but it wouldn't be cheating, it'd be a personal choice made by the performer. I smoke cigarettes even though I know the health risks. I'll stop when I feel like it.

Why doesn't congress check out bodybuilding competitions? Those fuckers are jacked on cattle steroids.

For the record, Chris Benoit tested negative for anabolic steroids. The same steroids that everyone was blaming for the murder, weren't there. He had high levels of testosterone. Big fucking deal, did you see that guy? How could he NOT have high levels of testosterone? Growth hormone is perfectly legal.

Is Adam "Pacman" Jones or Michael Vick gonna start a major investigation into Pro Football? Were these men on ROIDS when they were doing what they did?!?! Who cares?! A douchebag is a douchebag on or off steroids.

Sorry for the rant. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I agree with this writer.

Sure the Republican isn't just targeting him because his middle name is "Kennedy?"

But wouldn't steroids increase "in-ring abilty" one of the factors you mention helps advancement? Hasn't it been well documented that bigger, more jacked-up wrestlers get rewarded? Why do you think they're taking them? The lack of consistency in who is prosecuted is troubling but the deaths in wrestling are no less valid because you feel it's not competitive.

BAstards always go after the video games. If someones fucking crazy, then theyre fucking crazy. Video games didnt do it. If anything videogames are a great way to help curb violence, its much better to take out your violent urges on pixels as opposed to a real human being.

ps- if my spelling or grammar is bad, its cuz im pretty damn drunk, so, yeah, hooray for booze.

Well, in ring ability is actually not speed, strength, or stamina. It's knowing the ins and outs of wrestling moves, selling moves properly, and ability to improvise and keep things moving. All of which have nothing to do with steroids.

As far as the deaths you talk about, most of them have no relation to steroids whatsoever. A majority of the dead ex-pro wrestlers either overdosed, committed suicide, or had accidents. I agree that the amount of deaths are alarming, but that doesn't mean that everyone is dying from steroids. Rock stars die early all the time, maybe congress should start forcing record labels to drug test all of their performers.

Plus, there are a lot of smaller guys that have made major names for themselves. They might not be contenders for the "Heavyweight Champ", but they can hold all of the other belts. The lack of size doesn't keep them back. The right gimmick, the right moves, and years of training got them to the top. They didn't do it by juicing.

So apparently you're very educated in the deaths of professional wrestlers. How many of these 70+ wrestlers that have died young can you blame steroids for? None. Maybe they used steroids in the past, but they weren't killed by them. How many on this list were even working with WWE when they died? 5 and only 1 of those were linked to previous heavy steroid use.

And the way you write "10-20 times more than a human should ever have in their body" you're insinuating that Chris Benoit was using all of those steroids. When in fact, he hadn't been using ANY of the anabolic steroids found in his home.

I was somewhat with you until you said "video-game inspired madness of Cho Seung-Hui." It's a pretty well known fact that Cho Seung-Hui was not an avid gamer, as he did not own any videogame consoles, and according to his college roommate, never used his PC for anything other then writing his really awful plays.

Reading this article was tuning into fox news. Loosely based on reality with a side stab and video games and youth culture.

blah......

Man, you dropped the ball when you brought video games into it. Just shift the blame from something you care about to something you dont. Not a good idea my friend...

as much as i deteste the WWE and all of its offspring, what happens there is none of congress' business. their buisness is to vote n improving the nation, judicial investigations should be set up by the judicial branch. congress should be more concerned about passing laws against those who are moraly and financially bankrupting our country---their doners.

ummm...who the fuck cares? This isn't about whether matches are fair or fixed or whatever. It's about the fact that the WWE profits while encouraging its "contractors" to pump themselves full of steroids. Its about the insane death toll that's occurred with wrestlers over the past 25 years. As soon as baseball/football players start dropping like that, maybe they'll be investigated (and, hell, baseball already is) too. I know you love your "sport" and hate to have people talking bad about it, but really-this isn't a complicated issue. Even a wrestling fan should be able to figure it out.

Yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on that. When people die of a heart attack at 39 like Davey Boy Smith or 38 like Eddie Guerrero or 42 like the Big Bossman you can't just say that steroids played no part in that. You're only making that argument because it doesn't say "cause of death: 'roids" on their death certificate, but that doesn't mean that Steroids didn't cause or contribute to the condition that cause their demise.

Seriously, it's one thing to say that the steroid issue is being overblown or whatever, but to argue that it's never contributed to a single death. Get real.

Thank you. When someone dives off a water-tower because they are tripping on acid, 'tripping on acid' isn't listed as the cause of death. The cause of death is 'hitting the ground way too fucking hard' But that doesn't mean acid didn't play a part in it.

And why in the world is Congress asking for this? I guess I am still pretty fucking stupid when it comes to the role of our government, because I had no clue they could do something like this.

*note that I just called myself really fucking stupid for not knowing that, so no one else really needs to, unless you just really feel like trashing me today, and if you really need to, go ahead because I probably deserve it for not knowing it anyways*

Don't forget that he tried Lindsay Lohan and Barry Bonds before he turned his attention to video games. He's just flailing around looking for something else to pass the buck to. It's not so much that he mentioned video games as a possible bad influence that bothers me as saying "influence of video games on youth still goes overlooked", like video games aren't getting constantly thrashed by lawmakers already. It's a total disconnect with reality.

But then I remember it's SG news.

So.....if he wasn't using those steroids, who was? I'm just curious, since steroids aren't really common household objects nor are they decorative.

"Believe me, folks; real people don't look like fucking comic books."

Hell, apart from the late '80's/early-to-mid '90's, comic book characters don't look "like fucking comic books."

And the author of this article apparently doesn't peek out of the rock very often, as the so-called 'effect' of videogames on youth has been looked at time and again, ad nauseum. You know: Joe Lieberman, Jack Thompson, Hilary Clinton, and so on. And you know what they've found? Nothing conclusive. Even the studies that have shown a causal link between game violence and actual violence have been blown to shreds, because they don't screen their subjects (i.e., they pick kids who are already 'problematic'). And citing the 'video-game inspired madness of Cho Seung-Hui"? Are you kidding me? Other people have already pointed out that he didn't play many games. And how many different excuses have come up about why he did it?

-rejected by a girl he liked
-video games
-the movie "Oldboy"
-socially repressed
-he was just plain nuts

Maybe, the author of this article should not be so hard up to point the finger away from his/her favorite pasttime.

I don't think Cho listened to Marilyn Manson, but I'm going to go ahead and shift the blame from video games to Manson. This is how this game works right, you just keep shifting blame until something fits?