"Gas Won't Help It"

[Jam]

This makes me sad. I liked it better when nobody talked about taking steroids.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=siuwQ7jtcn4

[Slim Loves Lily]

I hate Billy Gunn.

[Ridley]

chonson said:

I hate Billy Gunn.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnOGJeKMLY

[H-Fist]

Billy Gunn at least preaches the same sort of message as Jose Canseco. Whether or not he practices it is a whole other story. If somebody cycles on an anabolic steroid in moderate dosage, he won't have the same sort of health complications as will the guy who jacks himself up with Winstrol and anything else he can get his hands on.

I'm not saying that I support steroid use. But I'm a realist, and you aren't getting all the drugs out of pro wrestling. If you actually make a major effort to try, you'll destroy the business. A move toward education and responsible usage, plus better efforts to keep guys from developing drug addictions, is a better effort. Think of it as equivalent to teaching teens how to use birth control rather than giving your daughters promise rings and your sons graham crackers.

[dh03grad]

drhfist said:

Billy Gunn at least preaches the same sort of message as Jose Canseco. Whether or not he practices it is a whole other story. If somebody cycles on an anabolic steroid in moderate dosage, he won't have the same sort of health complications as will the guy who jacks himself up with Winstrol and anything else he can get his hands on.

I'm not saying that I support steroid use. But I'm a realist, and you aren't getting all the drugs out of pro wrestling. If you actually make a major effort to try, you'll destroy the business. A move toward education and responsible usage, plus better efforts to keep guys from developing drug addictions, is a better effort. Think of it as equivalent to teaching teens how to use birth control rather than giving your daughters promise rings and your sons graham crackers.

How would making a real effort to get rid of drugs destroy the business?

[H-Fist]

I should have written "business as we know it."

Steroids (not to mention painkillers, greenies, etc.) are a major part of the business and have been for a long time. To root them out, it has to be Vince McMahon leading the charge, because only WWE matters. If everyone on down realizes that they aren't going to WWE if they use the gas, then and only then would they consider stopping. Most guys who use the gas aren't doing it for the weekend warrior crowd; it's to get noticed by bigger indies and more indies and eventually WWE scouts.

And Vince could opt to do it publicly and openly, or quietly and privately.

Publicly and openly is off the table. Why? Because of the sheer number of names that would be named, including HHH, HBK, Orton, Batista, Lashley, maybe Cena. They can't risk the public (casual fan) backlash, the loss of sponsors and advertising dollars, the PR relationship with the Armed Forces, problems with international travel with admitted criminals, etc.

So it would have to be quietly and privately. And we all know that "quietly and privately" results in corruption and sweeping the problem under the rug by getting guys to cut back, use more reputable drugs and suppliers, etc. Too much of an incentive to cheat; to much of an incentive to keep the top guys' names clean and on top.

Further, look at the Bonds and Clemens situations compared to the Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire non-situations. Bonds' guy was too high-profile and got caught; one of Clemens' guys talked. Sosa and McGwire did it quietly, in middle America, without enemies. the Andro talk for McGwire and the $10000 cash in a towel Sammy lost in the DR have been largely forgotten.

So basically, quiet and private we know not to work from prior and current real world applications (baseball, football, Wellness Policy, etc.) And open, public investigations benefit no one outside of the athletes whose lives might be being extended. And, this being America, the indy wrestlers (working-class guys who live outside of the W2 wage system) aren't worth anything, and the guys on TV are worth way too much.

What I'm trying to say is that it can't be done. The old saying, Prohibition is better than no alcohol at all. Bigger, faster, stronger. This is the creed of entertainment and American society, of which wrestling is a mere microcosm. Guys will always look for an edge, and there will always be chemists and microbiologists who will refuse to recognize the ethical implications of their work. The drugs will always be a few steps ahead of the tests, and the top guys who have money will be able to afford those to help keep their spots, while the other guys scrounging for a paycheck will take the best they can afford, and hope that they get tested during an off cycle. Excelsior!

It's better to work the problem than to spout platitudes. In this case, it is better to encourage education. Steroids are only a part of the reason that athletes, especially wrestlers, need to be well versed in anatomy and physiology. I'll ask this: would you rather have 90% clean and 10% using whatever they can get their hands on, with no regard for interactions and long-term effects, or 75% clean and 25% working within different cycles of specially formulated programs designed for minimal long-term side effects and a controlled muscle mass and recovery enhancement?

Remember DARE in middle school? They do a disservice by making a blanket statement that's equivalent to, if you keep making faces like that, your face will stay that way. Until we take an honest survey of what drugs - medicinal, recreational, performance enhancing - actually are individually, we can't make any progress.

[Aaron E. Dangerously]

It's something of a Catch-22, isn't it now?

[bubbles]

Roiding up...at least it's not Heroin!

[The Ichi]

chonson said:

I hate Billy Gunn.

[H-Fist]

bubbles said:

Roiding up...at least it's not Heroin!

To be fair, well, yeah. It's a lot harder to responsibly use heroin (having been on morphine in the hospital and dealing the with withdrawl from the addiction that formed over 5 days, I have some experience with opiate narcotics) than to use steroids responsibly.

Pot: at least it's not heroin.
Nicotine: at least it's not pot!
Caffeine: at least it's not nicotine!

Some drugs are better than others. And just like I can have a beer or someone can smoke a joint (for their cancer with a prescription in a state with medicinal marijuana laws - so as to avoid the hypothetical advocacy of drug use) and do it safely, doesn't mean the same person should get loaded or high as a kite and get behind the wheel of a car.

Similarly, someone on a controlled cycle of anabolic steroids for medicinal purposes is different than the guy injecting horse steroids for athletic enhancement. If we get guys closer to the medical use than to the walking chemistry lab body builders and Barry Bonds, then we are doing a good thing.

[Jack]

Until someone invents a way of wrestlers being able to wrestle without getting hurt or needing to look physically impressive or spending a long time away from home, they'll do drugs.

[Libertine]

tryme said:

Until someone invents a way of wrestlers being able to wrestle without getting hurt or needing to look physically impressive or spending a long time away from home, they'll do drugs.

Second Life Wrestling Federation!

[thesunbeast]

drhfist said:

I should have written "business as we know it."

Steroids (not to mention painkillers, greenies, etc.) are a major part of the business and have been for a long time. To root them out, it has to be Vince McMahon leading the charge, because only WWE matters. If everyone on down realizes that they aren't going to WWE if they use the gas, then and only then would they consider stopping. Most guys who use the gas aren't doing it for the weekend warrior crowd; it's to get noticed by bigger indies and more indies and eventually WWE scouts.

And Vince could opt to do it publicly and openly, or quietly and privately.

Publicly and openly is off the table. Why? Because of the sheer number of names that would be named, including HHH, HBK, Orton, Batista, Lashley, maybe Cena. They can't risk the public (casual fan) backlash, the loss of sponsors and advertising dollars, the PR relationship with the Armed Forces, problems with international travel with admitted criminals, etc.

So it would have to be quietly and privately. And we all know that "quietly and privately" results in corruption and sweeping the problem under the rug by getting guys to cut back, use more reputable drugs and suppliers, etc. Too much of an incentive to cheat; to much of an incentive to keep the top guys' names clean and on top.

Further, look at the Bonds and Clemens situations compared to the Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire non-situations. Bonds' guy was too high-profile and got caught; one of Clemens' guys talked. Sosa and McGwire did it quietly, in middle America, without enemies. the Andro talk for McGwire and the $10000 cash in a towel Sammy lost in the DR have been largely forgotten.

So basically, quiet and private we know not to work from prior and current real world applications (baseball, football, Wellness Policy, etc.) And open, public investigations benefit no one outside of the athletes whose lives might be being extended. And, this being America, the indy wrestlers (working-class guys who live outside of the W2 wage system) aren't worth anything, and the guys on TV are worth way too much.

What I'm trying to say is that it can't be done. The old saying, Prohibition is better than no alcohol at all. Bigger, faster, stronger. This is the creed of entertainment and American society, of which wrestling is a mere microcosm. Guys will always look for an edge, and there will always be chemists and microbiologists who will refuse to recognize the ethical implications of their work. The drugs will always be a few steps ahead of the tests, and the top guys who have money will be able to afford those to help keep their spots, while the other guys scrounging for a paycheck will take the best they can afford, and hope that they get tested during an off cycle. Excelsior!

It's better to work the problem than to spout platitudes. In this case, it is better to encourage education. Steroids are only a part of the reason that athletes, especially wrestlers, need to be well versed in anatomy and physiology. I'll ask this: would you rather have 90% clean and 10% using whatever they can get their hands on, with no regard for interactions and long-term effects, or 75% clean and 25% working within different cycles of specially formulated programs designed for minimal long-term side effects and a controlled muscle mass and recovery enhancement?

Remember DARE in middle school? They do a disservice by making a blanket statement that's equivalent to, if you keep making faces like that, your face will stay that way. Until we take an honest survey of what drugs - medicinal, recreational, performance enhancing - actually are individually, we can't make any progress.

I really do agree with most of what you have said, except the part of steroids not ever being cleaned from wrestling (or WWE). I believe that all of wrestling won't have the drugs cleaned out, but I do believe that WWE will be cleaned of all steroids colpletely. As a matter of fact, I think they are right now. The only thing though, is that I believe that it's only temporary. The guys that will keep their spot in WWE are the guys with immense charisma and talent, because those guys will get noticed more than the steroid freaks anyway.

The thing is, is that the true charisma guys come very few and far between. The guys like Mr. Perfect, Jake Roberts, Rick Rude, Ted DiBiase, Undertaker, The Rock, ect...Now, I'm sure all those guys were on steroids, but the thing is, is that they never actually needed steroids to keep their spots. If they were around now, and were in the WWE, then all the guys on the indies would probably lower the steroid usage because taking them wouldn't matter, they still wouldn't get the job with WWE anyway.

There are indy guys right now taking massive amounts of steroids, not realizing that it's only holding them back from WWE. I say that, unfortunately, It will only be temporary, and that once the media dies down, the steroids will start up again.

By the way, D.A.R.E is actually correct about drugs, weather anyone hates the hokeyness or not. They say "just say no to drugs" which, basically, is the bottom line, and correct. The "take them sometimes" philosophy dosen't work, because "sometimes" dosen't last forever, because you are moving to something. You are either going to be a full time user, or quit tottally. If you quit tottally, you probably shouldn't have taken them in the first place, and if you become an addict, well then, you probably shouldn't have taken them in the first place.

[texaswhopper]

"Remember DARE in middle school? They do a disservice by making a blanket statement that's equivalent to, if you keep making faces like that, your face will stay that way. Until we take an honest survey of what drugs - medicinal, recreational, performance enhancing - actually are individually, we can't make any progress"


I do remember DARE. I still see the shirts at the Salvation Army Store.

It taught me very little but I still never used drugs. I didnt need DARE. I just knew not to take them. I learned that cops doing speeches can be very boring. At the time I was in school no one wanted to listen to a bunch of preaching cops. I remember stupid Corporal Bill Corrie and how much he really didnt care about the message he was trying to get to us. He generally disliked young people and it was apparent. You could see it in his face.