411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: “The Steroid Trials”

-Season Finale as this wraps up Season 3 and I would assume we are getting a season 4 next year. Before any talk of that let’s wrap this one up with Vince McMahon’s steroid trial. Let’s get to it!

-As a reminder Chris Jericho is the narrator for this season.

-Through the 80s and 90s the WWF was a merchandising machine running on the back of Hulk Hogan. News broke that Vince McMahon pushed steroids on his wrestlers and oh boy do we have some talking heads for this one. The Government wanted to make an example out of Vince and he faced 8 years in prison. Paranoia also set in as everyone was under scrutiny. JR: “The Federal Government came to take down the pro-wrestling business. Little did they know they had to deal with Jerry McDevitt and Vince McMahon, who promptly kicked their ass.” Let’s Go!

-We start with Jerry McDevitt, super lawyer for WWE, as he shows us his office. He mentions he has been working with WWE for 30 years ranging from Chris Benoit issue to the unfortunate death of Owen Hart.

-JR tells us Jerry is one of the most intelligent men he has ever met and he would reach out to Jerry to save his ass if he needed a lawyer. Wade Keller of The Pro Wrestling Torch is next and he was on site for the entire McMahon steroid trial.

-Dave Meltzer next and you knew he had to be part of this one and he starts strong by saying Vince is nowhere near where is he today if you take Hulk Hogan out of the picture. He calls Hogan one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling and the 80s boom exploded on his back.

-John Arezzi, Pro Wrestling Spotlight, calls himself a wrestling historian and talks about wrestling becoming more cartoonish with massive human being like Warrior and Warlod. Speaking of which here is Terry Szopinski (Warlord) and this is quickly becoming my favorite episode of this series. He flexes for us and John tells us that an estimate was 90% of the wrestlers were on roids. Steroids were legal if provided as a prescription by a doctor.

-WWE had a doctor for just those situations in Dr George Zahorian. John tells us Dr Zahorian was assigned to ringside at all the shows in Allentown as a doctor had to be on hand in Pennsylvania. It was job as a state rep to make sure the wrestlers were healthy. Warlord tells us that the good Dr. had a medical bag with all kinds of roids, pain pills and whatever else they needed.

-Brian Blair next and he talks about the pressure to look the best you can and do all you can to keep your spot. Steroid abuse was in all sports as we see news footage of Olympians being stripped of their medals.

-There was a lot of hysteria about steroids and it was viewed as athletes using them for a reason they weren’t created, but steroids never had to be labeled with the side effects. It wasn’t until 1990 when The Anabolic Control Act was passed and steroids became a controlled substance which distributing and trafficking was similar to doing the same with cocaine.

-With the new law the FBI targeted weight lifting coach, Bill Dunn. He flips and makes a deal to give up his distributor, Dr Zahorian. We hear the wire tap that Dunn wore when he had a meeting with Zahorian. A Federal Official mentions what is happening to a colleague who happened to be tied to WWE and he quickly lets Vince McMahon know. The Feds probe Zahorian’s office and on the wall is the famous photo of him standing between Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon. The evidence starts to build and is leading to WWE’s doorstep.

-Blair says he had a knock on his door and it’s The FBI who ask him about 3 packages he got from Dr Zahorian. They knew what was inside as they were seizing packages at The FedEx mail center and took pictures before repacking and sending off. Damn! They made Blair a deal to testify against Zahaorian and they would leave him alone and that was good enough for Blair. Hulk Hogan was also one of the 5 wrestlers that were set to testify against Zahorian.

-Commercials!

-Jerry McDevitt is enlisted to get Hogan excused from testifying. Jerry says the Government wanted a high profile trial to show people they meant business with steroids. He knew they would get the 10 counts on Bill Dunn to stick. He says none of the wrestlers did anything wrong. Piper was at Zahorian’s trial but Hogan was given a pass. McDevitt says Hogan had a doctor/patient relationship due to him and his wife consulting with Zahorian about fertility issues and putting him on the stand would get into his medical privacy right.

-Phil Mushnick and oh man, it’s about to go down. You know he is going to rage and crusade against the WWE is this one. He has had it out for wrestling for decades as he feels he is on some righteous quest to rid the world of pro-wrestling. He immediately starts by saying Hogan was excused because it may hurt his career and he thinks it should have hurt Hogan’s career. McDevitt brings up the story of Ronald Reagan having to testify in an Oliver North case and yet Hulk Hogan doesn’t. McDevitt shot back that maybe Reagan had the wrong lawyer. AWESOME!

-After 3 hours of deliberation Zahorian is found guilty though nothing happens to the WWE. They did have to answer for Zahorian selling drugs to Hogan and Vince, so they hold a press conference in 1991 and Vince tells the media the WWE will be a standard bearer for drug free sports and entertainment. Amazing! The Steroid Policy is announced the same night Hulk Hogan appears on Arsenio Hall. McDevitt says he can’t say what he told Hogan because that is between him and a client. Hogan admits to using steroids 3 times in the early 80s for a bicep injury and continues by saying he is not a steroid user or abuser. Meltzer points out how bad it made Hogan look and nobody believed him. Apparently Vince told Meltzer that he told Hogan to just come clean and tell the truth.

-Vince was called to answer for a range of scandals on Phil Donahue with a panel that included with Dave Meltzer and John Arezzi. Still shocking that Vince agreed to appear on that show and it’s mind boggling to see him and Dave sitting side by side. Arezzi catches Vince in a lie and Dave is quick to point out the lie as well as the audience laughs at all of it. Vince had a look like he wanted to kill Arezzi.

-Apparently two gentlemen went to Arezzi’s apartment and told his mother to let John know he lives in a dangerous neighborhood. McDevitt basically calls bullshit as he says the problem with these guys is they have a vivid imagination. “Nobody would care enough about John Arezzi to send black suited guys to his house.” Ouch!

-McDevitt goes on about Phil writing hit pieces on the WWF and how he said Vince was worse than Hanibal Lecter. We get a back and forth between Phil and Jerry and it’s great! Jerry was in WWE HQ and on April 2nd the subpoenas started coming and Vince asked Jerry to represent him. Jerry knew the subpoenas meant a witch hunt was coming.

-Commercials!

-The Grand Jury Investigation begins and Jerry told Vince to hunker down as they were going to look for anything to get a conviction or at minimum some kind of plea to a lower charger. McDevitt wanted to learn everything he could about steroids as knowledge was key. Phil says that McMahon accused him of being an FBI informant. McDevitt says the media demonizes the target to build sympathy and in exchange the FBI gives the media inside sources. Phil’s version is that he is an informant in the sense he writes something and the FBI reads it just like any other reader.

-Phil says that McMahon had him trailed to get dirt on him and he even had drinks with one of the guys. He told the guy he smoked a lot of pot in college so run with that.

-The Feds turn to Vince’s limo driver, James Stewart, who is going to testify that he delivered steroids to Hogan. McDevitt is asked why Stewart didn’t testify on the stand and Jerry says it was due to Stewart suing WWF for something else and McDevitt caught him dead to rights committing perjury. The Government wasn’t dumb enough to put someone who committed perjury on the stand. “James Stewart, nor his representatives could be reached for comment.”

-The WWF overhauls the wrestlers you see on TV. JR says Vince wanted to push younger stars and Keller says Vince didn’t want a leaner Hogan as his mean star. Hogan ends up leaving the WWF. In November 1993 the hammer drops as Vince McMahon gets indicted. Jerry and Vince get the news while walking in a restaurant and seeing it on a TV. Everyone cheered for Vince as they wanted him to kick the government’s ass and McDevitt says they were happy to get their day in court to get this over with once and for all.

-The trial is a circus as you would expect and we see photos of a young Shane and Stephanie. Vince shows up in a neck brace and everyone thinks it is for sympathy. Meltzer calls Vince the babyface in the fan’s eyes. McDevitt says the brace was real as Vince did have neck surgery and he opted to have surgery during the trial because he wasn’t on WWF TV during that period.

-Sean O’Shea is leading the prosecution team and among the wrestlers set to testify is Hogan and Warrior. McDevitt’s relationship with Hogan meant he could be kicked off the case, but you aren’t pulling one over on him, so Laura Brevetti is hired to represent Vince McMahon personally and she would cross examine Hogan. Also with McDevitt representing WWF it let them get two openings and two cross examinations. This is next level stuff and no wonder these lawyers get paid so well.

-Warlord was brought in and he says the best thing he did was tell the truth. Vince never told him he didn’t have a job if he didn’t take steroids and he tells us he never bought steroids from Zehorian because he charged 4 times what he could get them from someone else. Well, I guess that’s a fair point. McDevitt says that was the problem with The Government’s case as a lot of wrestlers admitted to getting steroids before even coming to the WWF. Warlord calls the whole thing a witch hunt.

-Commercials!

-Nailz gives his testimony and tells the jury Vince ordered him to take steroids. McDevitt showed the jury a video of Nailz performing and he was a guy covered by an orange prison suit so why would they need him to be ripped. Also why risk it at a time Vince knew Feds were looking at him on a guy that doesn’t show off his body. The defense then asks Nailz if he has any animosity towards Vince and he answers no. Meltzer then brings up they mentioned Nailz didn’t know what animosity meant, so they asked if he hated Vince and to that he replied, “yes.” That is remarkable and so amazingly awesome! I love this episode and where was Court TV to cover this trial non stop?

-We see video of Warrior leaving the court and he thinks the whole thing is weak and credits Vince for taking wrestling to heights it had never seen. The prosecutors are desperate so they bring in Zahorian from his prison cell to testify against Vince. His testimony keeps referencing a latter which nobody on the defense has ever seen, so the judge orders it to be turned over. McDevitt reads the letter from Zahorian as he was passed around to various solitary confinements for 44 days and then gets asked about his relationship with Vince in respect to steroids. Zahorian has no clue what they are talking about so they throw him into another hell hole. This is all just making Vince look like the biggest baby face to ever baby face to the jury. They bring George back again and have a recording of him speaking to Dunn about selling steroids to a kid and now George remembers a meeting with McMahon. The sole conversation was George selling steroids to wrestlers and Vince never told him to stop. Dr Zahorian denied his treatment was malicious and it didn’t affect his testimony.

-Emily Fineburg, Vince’s assistant, was brought to testify and was crossed examined by Brevetti. Meltzer marvels as the cross examination as Brevetti had a response for everything Emily said. He never thought about it until he learned her husband was a reporter representing himself as working for 60 Minutes. Phil wouldn’t give him any information and called 60 Minutes who stated he wasn’t a producer. The husband was pumping Emily for information for a possible book deal and then relaying it to his wife. McDevitt denies all and says if there was witness tampering it would have been brought out on the stand. Vince addressed the allegations on air and crushed the yellow journalists that have been pushing lies and witness tampering. “Gentlemen, is that the best you can do?”

-Dr Zahorian sold steroids in PA, but the prosecutors had to prove steroids were being sold in The Eastern District since Vince was indicted on Long Island. Phil has no clue why they indicted Vince there and not in Connecticut where all the paper trails led. They tried to prove a driver delivered steroids to Hogan in MSG or Nassau Coliseum, but the dates never matched when Hogan was in either place. That charge was tossed out and Dave wonders why that charge was even there in the first place.

-Hogan is the next on the stand and he was granted immunity for anything that he admitted to as far as his steroid use. Hogan was now in WCW and there was a rift with Vince, so everyone assumed he was going to bury Vince.

-Commercials!

-Showtime as Hogan is put on the stand. Hogan is the star witness and he is the one that can seal the deal and send Vince to prison. We get audio of Hogan on Torch Talk and he says if they were going to put Vince in jail then all of wrestling needed to go. “You know he didn’t sell them, he didn’t inject me, like he didn’t do it.” Keller tells us Hogan shocked everyone as he framed it that he and Vince were gym buddies and they would exchange steroids with each other. That doesn’t make Vince a drug dealer. Jerry: “Hogan is the big dog and when he walks in and says it has nothing to do with a conspiracy, there goes their case.” Hogan says Vince didn’t go to jail because of him. Meltzer says Hogan’s testimony helped Vince, but Vince didn’t see it that way.

-McDevitt is asked why he didn’t have Vince testify and Jerry asks, “What would Vince say?” They had nothing on him. Sean goes nuclear with his closing arguments as he cuts a heel promo on Vince as he has no evidence and just wants to paint him as the devil. Meltzer calls it a great heel promo and Keller sums it up as Sean saying Vince was using wrestlers as slabs of meat. McDevitt gets emotional as he remembers seeing a young Steph crying in the hall because of what Sean was saying about her father. Jerry calmed her and told her that he still had his turn to speak.

-Jerry brings up that many of the wrestlers were taking Anavar (oral tablets that contains 2.5 mg of anabolic steroid oxandrolone, a synthetic derivative of testosterone) and it was found later to be unfit for human consumption and was to be pulled from the market. It demonstrates how inept they were at regulations and the jurors wanted to know if this was true. Sean didn’t want it coming out it hadn’t been pulled like it was supposed to and The Judge told them that it wasn’t removed from the market. Jerry also framed it as a family business being picked on by The Government. Jerry: “Maybe, I am an optimist, but I didn’t spend one minute of my time thinking about losing.”

-Commercials!

-The jury deliberates and Jerry says he could feel Linda’s heart beating next to him when the jury returned. He mentions in Federal Court it is 90% that end in conviction or settlement and only 2-5% where someone is acquitted. He mentions they didn’t have to call a single witness and it is a ballsy strategy as either he is a genius or an idiot. The verdict against Vince first comes back not guilty and McDevitt was worried they would stick WWF with something, but that didn’t happen either. The pop was huge and there is a court room drawing on McDevitt’s wall of him, Linda, and Vince hugging to a massive ovation from those in the court.

-Dave mentions all the guys were on steroids, but there was no conspiracy. The testimony proved what everyone knew and that was everyone was on steroids. John mentions Vince only became more full of himself and he dodged a big bullet.

-Jerry wraps up that they had dinner to celebrate and he joked with Vince he could take the brace off and Vince did so, but then put it back on as he legit needed it. He calls his bond with Vince unbreakable. What they went through together proves life long loyalty and nothing will break it.

-This was easily my favorite episode on this entire series. McDevitt was the star of this one and chewed up all the scenery around him. The prosecutors come off as rather dumb and it’s amazing how they bumbled this one and I am curious if they felt Vince would just be scared and opt for a plea, but we all know Vince is a fighter and will go down swinging. What also made this one enjoyable was that it wasn’t as heavy as previous episodes and it was a break from all the tragedy. Every talking head brought something to this one and the back and forth with Phil and Jerry was tremendous. Dave and Wade gave some good insight as they were there for the trial and I want to find more information about this circus if it is out there. Definitely check this one out as this season closed out with a bang! Thanks for reading!