Steroid Issue NOT Going Away

----As I had stated many times during the coverage of Chris Benoit, the steroid issue or controversy is just not going to go away this time. If the government gets into this like they did with baseball and there are plenty of ex-wrestlers out there that are ready to grind their axes – this is just going to get worse. There are probably at least a dozen “Jose Consecos” that I can name right now that are ready to step up and tell their story – what roids they did and who shot them up with them.

----Vince McMahon apparently had a meeting in the last few weeks where he told the boys – if you are on something – get off of it!! Will he be taking his own advice?? Will he force others – some of the top names like HHH to be drug free?? I know this is a horrible question to ask, but can this business ever be COMPLETELY drug free?? Is the NFL, NBA or MLB COMPLETELY drug free? Society is not drug free, so to assume that we can make wrestling drug free would be a joke.

----I want to state something that it seems that every news media is really screwing up on – Vince McMahon, WWE and STERIODS was not the cause of Chris Benoit’s death. Benoit went completely nuts and killed his family and himself.

----If someone said the cause of wrestlers dying was because of steroids, then they would probably not be 100 % right either. But, for just a moment look at just the facts –

*62 major league wrestlers have died in the last 10 years before the age of 50.
*Of this list, 37 were known to be regular steroid users.
*37 of them also had issues with painkillers or recreational drugs.
*13% heart attacks
*8% suicides

----Combine the travel, the steroids, the painkillers and little weed and crack rock ever now and then – there is a problem. No other major organization – not even the movie industry have this kind of death rate.

----My gut feeling on all of this [and this is if the government does get involved] is that the next 3 years will see this business evolve into something totally different than what we see on TV today. Will Vince try to call for the pure athletic style and not worry about the bodies?? Or will he go back to the big gimmicks style where the body is not even an issue?? Or what if he just goes totally in another direction and the actually wrestling becomes more secondary than it is now – we get 15 minutes of wrestling and 105 minutes of soap opera. Finally, will the fans continue to watch the superheroes when they look just like you and me??

Thanks to Wrestling Observer Newsletter for stats.