KELLER'S TAKE KELLER: Parsing Vince & Linda McMahon's CNN interview, part two (PWTorch Newsletter #999) Nov 20, 2007 - 8:11:42 PM

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VIP EXCLUSIVE - From PWTorch Newsletter #999...

BBL editorial
Headline: McMahon Parsing, pt. 2
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
Originally Published: November 24, 2007
PWTorch Newsletter #999

It's not often Vince and Linda McMahon sit across from someone whose livelihood doesn't depend on making sure they don't rock the McMahon boat or upset their mood. CNN's Drew Griffin asked some tough questions for a recent documentary he produced. Let's pick up where we left off last week and parse what they said in a rare long - form McMahon interview.

-Vince on wrestlers being considered compliant with the WWE Wellness Policy if they produce a prescription for what they're on: Well, let me ask you a question: If you have a prescription, and it's a legitimate prescription from your personal physician, then why wouldn't it pass? If you have an infection or you have a sleep problem, you have whatever your problem is, and your physician, a legitimate physician, not one on the Internet, prescribes something for you, then surely that would be accepted in our policy as well as any other policy you can possibly scrutinize.

Vince McMahon knows that there are quacks and star - struck mark doctors out there who will prescribe whatever their famous client wants, even risking their license or freedom (such as Dr. George Zahorian). Taken to the extreme, a wrestler could pass a drug test if they had deadly levels of prescription drugs in their system as long as there was a script for it. That's not how any other major legitimate testing program works. It's not safe. It's not realistic. That it's part of WWE's policy is considered a joke by those who know the history of drug testing athletes.

-On not knowing several WWE contracted wrestlers were taking a bunch of prohibited drugs acquired through an internet pharmacy (which is explicitly against WWE's Wellness Policy) during an 18 months span when they were being tested, and they weren't caught and suspended: True.

That's all Vince said. It's the most damning piece of evidence of WWE's Wellness Policy being terribly flawed, suggestive of it almost being a sham. There really isn't much for him to say. Linda chimed in with a save and said the following:

-Linda: Well, that's exactly true. They weren't found positive for testing. The reason we suspended them was because they had obtained their prescriptions through an Internet pharmacy, and that's, as Vince said, clearly laid out. That is absolutely not allowed in our policy. Our policy is not a ‘gotcha' policy. We have a wellness program. We're not looking to just say gotcha. We want to protect the health and well - being of the men and women who are part of World Wrestling Entertainment. That's why prescriptions from legitimate doctors, from your treating physician, are acceptable if judged to be so by our medical review officer and Dr. David Black who administers the program.

-Then Vince added: And not withstanding that, I would take exception to the media, or some quack suggesting that our wellness policy doesn't stack up to anyone's including those in sport. First and foremost, let me emphasise, we are an entertainment company. We're not sport. We don't compete. There's no cheating involved. It's not like the recent Olympic fiasco in which you have to return gold medals. There's no betting on what we do. We're Hollywood, we're scripted entertainment, our performers happen to be athletes, and some of them great athletes, but we're different than any sport. Nonetheless, I would suggest that our policy would hold up very well compared, compared to anyone's in sport.

It doesn't take a "quack" to wonder how in 18 months of being tested, all of these contracted performers were taking drugs that didn't lead to them being caught and suspended. This is the moment where the McMahons don't come across as wanting an effective policy, but instead want a policy they can point to as good enough for who they are and what they do. The refreshing answer to this question would have been: "Yes, they weren't caught by our system, and that is of great concern to us. We are augmenting our policy because of that revelation to be sure that those drugs in those quantities don't slip under the radar in the future, whether prescribed by the Internet or a family physician." Instead, it was a bunch of mumbo - jumbo about how their standards should be different than sports because there's no "cheating" or "betting" on WWE matches. You know, as if the reason WWE critics believe they should have a test that lives up to their self - proclaimed hype is because it's "unfair" for some to be on steroids because it skews betting or match outcomes. Hardly. There is concern because wrestlers are dying young, one after another for more than ten years, of causes often enough linked to consequences of The Lifestyle that the industry asks of its performers. Athletes deaths from years of drug abuse are just as real in scripted entertainment as they are in competitive sports. As a footnote, I loved Vince's phrasing, "Our performers happen to be athletes." It's as if being an athlete is just a coincidence, but not a requirement, for being a wrestler in WWE. Oh, as for Linda, why isn't WWE's program a "gotcha policy"? Don't they want to catch drug abusers? How is protecting the health of WWE contracted performers not synonymous with, you know, trying to catch people breaking the rules (i.e. "gotcha")?.......

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