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TIME Magazine's blogger, Michael Scherer, has acknowledged my blog earlier this week critical of him for saying "the steroid stuff is not really the most interesting part" of Rep. Henry Waxman's stack of interview transcripts with the McMahons and others in the pro wrestling industry. He wrote:

MORE: Wade Keller, the editor of Pro-Wrestling Torch, who probably learns more about wrestling before lunch before I have gathered in a lifetime, points out correctly that Waxman is not the first to put to paper the mechanics of behind-the-curtain wrestling production, a craft that has been documented in fan publications and wrestler memoirs for years. (Had a McMahon ever knocked Hogan's wrestling skills in public before?) That said, Waxman's historical record is still quite astounding, and great reading, and it will be a valuable historical and journalistic reference for years to come.

I do agree that Waxman's historical record is a great read and valuable historical and journalistic reference. My main problem with his blog is that, having read the transcripts of Stephanie McMahon's interview in particular, and the rest of the interview transcripts and data and letters in general, that he wasn't more "fascinated" by these facts:

-Wrestlers have been dying of drug-related causes in an industry that has had either no drug testing or, as characterized by the Congressional committee, inadquate drug testing.

-Forty percent of WWE wrestlers failed a drug test when they were given advanced notice. In 2006. After Benoit's death.

-Benoit tested positive for steroids multiple times and wasn't suspended or sent to treatment.

-Vince McMahon claimed drug testing was instituted because wrestlers were falling asleep backstage before matches, not because of the deaths of some of his contracted wrestlers or long-time former contracted wrestlers due to years of drug use, much of which was inherently - intentional or not, by design or not - rewarded by WWE's method of business, much of which was deemed by wrestlers, on an individual but not rare basis, as a price to be paid to get through the grueling WWE schedule.

-WWE has not given its talents any systematic scheduled time off in a system that takes pride in producing "no reruns" and multiple live TV shows year-round, every year. WWE has not acknowledged that the lack of sustained time off is a mental and physical detriment, and that the pride of living up to the lifestyle and dues paid by previous generations has stopped a significant number of wrestlers from speaking out about this policy - in part because when you're young you don't feel the effects and when you're old you want to live up to your past performance and not show signs of weakness (and keep earning money). Despite the layman logic, at the very least, that systematic stretches of several weeks of at once would provide physical and mental relief, not to mention a much better home life for married wrestlers with children, WWE continues to only give selective sustained time off to certain talent on a seemingly rare basis, often by request or when warning signs are great of wear and tear (such as with Benoit shortly before his suicide and his murdering of his wife and young son), rather than instituting the very practical policy of preventive medicine, so to speak, of making sure all full-time wrestlers have at least three weeks twice a year to just kick back and not worry about "keeping up their look" or "recovering from bumps" or mentally just being "on" and letting them spend time at home or take an extended vacation with their family, and physically give their bodies a break from the grind. Only when a wrestler succumbs to injury do they get time off, and that usually constitutes stressful, grueling rehab of the injury. To me, that pops out as more interesting than how a script for Raw is revised the afternoon of the show. But that's just me.

-In a time period after Chris Benoit's death, a wrestler who was suspended in WWE was, at WWE's discretion, able to continue wrestling under the ridiculous notion that it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the wrestlers, the promotion, and the fans to take him off TV in the middle of a storyline. Even more fascinating is that these pro wrestlers are paid on an arbitrary basis, so saying they are working without pay means zilch. It's not like an NFL player who, if he is suspended for four games, loses one-fourth of his regular season salary in a career with limited years on the field. In WWE, wrestlers are paid without a set formula, so WWE - in theory - systematically could deny a wrestler any PPV bonus or TV pay for a 30 or 60 day suspension, but then increase his pay by 10-30 percent on the next several TV and PPV events to make up the difference.

WWE's policy has put itself in a position to look as bad as an organization that actually encouraged wrestlers to take steroids and privately wished them to remain on steroids in order to keep up their look. A wrestler could be sent a message in this mythical corrupt drug testing set-up to stay on steroids, because if he got suspended, he wouldn't face the public ridicule of being taken off TV mid-storyline and he wouldn't actually lose any money (wink wink) as his PPV checks would shoot up above the normal pattern of the past.

WWE, if their intentions are good, has put itself in a position with such a ridiculous policy, to appear no better than that mythical promotion that would be literally covertly encouraging their top stars to stay on steroids This corrupt policy would be in place specifically because of the lack of fear of being called on it due to the decades-long pattern of mainstream media writers being more caught up in the "scripted" nature of this pseudo-sport than the big-business, life-and-death ramifications of rampant drug use over the years, including - as revealed in the fascinating documentation provided by Waxman - in just the last few years.

-Scherer's fascination with the information about the inner-workings of the business is understandtable. But it's like writing a story about a cute little dance a bank robber did outside of a bank and ignoring the bag of money in his hands, the victims inside the bank, and the incompetence of the police in catching him. The dance may have been cute and interesting, but there's a larger story there that deserves the attention of someone with Michael Scherer's background writing for excellent publications such as Mother Jones, Salon.com, and TIME.

TIME magazine's blogger.

Chairman Waxman's documentation

[Vince McMahon art by Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

PWTorch editor Wade Keller has covered professional wrestling full time since founding Pro Wrestling Torch in 1987. He has interviewed for Torch Talks and other stories pro wrestling's biggest names including Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Rock, Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, and many others. Most of those interviews are available in the PWTorch VIP archives, perpetually available to PWTorch VIP members.

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

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