Post by andrew8798 on Sept 19, 2007 3:41:18 GMT -5
The AP ran an article about Chris Benoit's diary. Cary Icther, the attorney for father Michael Benoit, said the entries showed Benoit "wracked with grief and preoccupied with death", noting that Chris wrote the entries as if he was talking to Eddy. Ichter said he was not going to provide copies of the diary for review, but noted certain phrases, including, "I will be with you soon". He also "wrote warmly" about both Daniel and Nancy. The article again noted that the diary had been found in the trash by one of Benoit's neighbors after the police and family had left. I can only imagine that the trash in question belonged to the neighbor, because I cannot fathom the police and family doing an investigation and not finding the diary in the trash at Benoit's house.
I should note, though, that from very early on there were people talking about how it was a rinky-dink investigation (one person even used the term, ironically, "Barney Fife") and they were stunned with certain things the police did.
In another article, Ichter said: "It's plain that he was depressed. It's plain that he was beginning to exhibit some of the signs of the dementia that's associated with the brain injuries he sustained because he talks in there about not being able to remember things. Chris, at the end had become intensely paranoid, to the point that he would not take the same route to the airport on a consistent basis, to the point that he would not allow the family outside of the house".
The story also noted that it would be months before the estate battle was handled.
Kresten F. Ericksen, 47, an Ogdensburg City Councilor, was arrested this past week on charges of 2nd degree forgery in regards to an incident involving WWE and the Ogdensburg Golden Dome. Basically, the WWE ran two shows in 2006 which were to help raise money for a new scrolling marquee. Kresten, the Student Council Advisor, was in charge of paying WWE $8,000 for the show. WWE later told police that they hadn't been paid the full amount. The Student Council asked Ericksen for a receipt and he produced one claiming the $8,000 had been paid. As it turns out, the belief is that he kept approximately $4,000 and forged the receipt. The investigation is continuing and it is believed no one else will be charged.
The pretrial conference in the Phil Astin case was scheduled for Tuesday, the day we went to press.
Mike Fish of ESPN.com wrote two huge articles for the website last week. The first was entitled "Other wrestlers used Benoit's doctor for prescriptions". It mostly covered the death of Johnny Grunge Durham and his relationship to Astin. There was some new info in there that was pretty distressing. Eric Zinck, who was Durham's best friend and was providing him with a place to live when he died, went to the pharmacy to get Durham's last prescription filled. Durham was f***ed up that morning, so Zinck went without him, told the folks at the pharmacy that he needed to refill a prescription for him, and they gave it to him no questions asked -- and that includes asking for any sort of ID.
The morning Mike died, Zinck's girlfriend had stumbled over him in the hallway. They checked his pulse, and although it was "weak" they had seen him in this state many times and figured he'd recover like usual. He didn't. Durham had been using Dr. Astin for years, and before that he'd been using Dr. Robert Howard of Peachtree City, who was also busted and ended up dying in prison recently. Howard had also treated Chris Benoit and, according to Zinck, "half the wrestlers in WCW".
Dave Meltzer in the Observer also noted last week that a former WWE star had called him up and told him that although x number of names had come out in the Signature case, he believed "everyone" was a Signature client up and down the roster. I can say that there are other name wrestlers who were both Signature clients and patients of Dr. Astin that for whatever reason have not come out yet. Penny Durham talked about the issues Mike's pain pill and soma abuse caused.
It broke up their marriage and he wasn't able to keep a job, even with his father-in-law. He'd pass out constantly at home, often in the middle of playing with his children, and he'd be so screwed up during the day that he couldn't drive his father-in-law's truck to carpet installation jobs. Once, he started swerving, and when his father-in-law pulled the car over Durham opened the door, fell out, and passed out on the road. He was so big at the time, near 400 pounds of dead weight with a 56-inch waist, that he could not be moved. No one else was willing to drive with him either. The article noted that he had 11 different doctors prescribing him pills, but no one prescribed more than Astin. In 13 months, Astin wrote prescriptions for over 4,000 pills. "The doctor should have never given him anything," Penny said. "He had asthma. He had an enlarged heart. He had sleep apnea. And he was overweight. He wasn't even wrestling.
Why would he be giving this guy a muscle relaxer? I mean, he was giving it to him like candy." Durham would sometimes fill Vicodin prescriptions every four days, even at the same pharmacy. The article noted that Penny was considering filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Astin, and that Michael Benoit was considering a lawsuit as well but was likely going to wait until the trial was over. Lex Luger said Astin was just a good old guy who never talked to guys about steroids or anything. He said Astin was "a little star struck" and enjoyed interacting with the guys. He didn't use the term "mark doctor" but he may as well have. Zinck said, "He just prescribed what he thought we needed. Or if we asked to go up in the medication, he didn't question it. He just went up in it".
The Luger story was fascinating. Luger, 49, needs a hip replacement and now walks with a cane. He says he can't believe he's alive and nearly overdosed many times. He is also a man of God now, and very forthright about his drug use, steroid use, arrests, and the death of Miss Elizabeth. "I take a lot of responsibility for that -- my influence in her life. Her little heart and body couldn't take what I was doing."
She died of acute drug toxicity in 2003. Luger said the 1,000 illegal pills that were found in his house were in a bag that he'd forgotten was there. He said Liz had sent it over from his previous residence. "I didn't know I had it, and I would never have kept that stuff in my house. I would have had a friend keep it for me. Athletes won't keep it in their house. They'll go over to their friends' house and get their shots and stuff."
He now lives with a pastor at his church and does motivational stay-off-drugs speeches. He said he first got on steroids after he played football at Penn State and the University of Miami and was offered a CFL tryout. He met a guy in the gym who gave him Dianabol, and the rest is history. He said he was never a hardcore steroid user like some guys in wrestling who never cycle off. He did Deca and testosterone 12 weeks on and 12 weeks off and was blessed with a super fast metabolism that kept him lean. Well, you can never argue that Lex Luger didn't have fantastic genetics. In fact, the article here included a photo of him, and at 49 with a bad hip he's still very lean and muscular, and the interview took place over the course of several hours in a buffet.
This also, he said, was why he was still alive. "I metabolized drugs quickly. That is not good, but it saved my life a bunch of times. I went in deep a bunch of times with pills and alcohol." He had nice things to say about Sting, ("one of the few that stuck by me when my life was a wreck"), and, yes, Dr. Astin. He said Astin never provided him with steroids and merely helped him manage pain. "I was under pain-management therapy or hydrocodone, just legal amounts. I need to have hip surgery that I've been putting off. I do a little hydrocodone and some Advil and Aleve, buddy. That is all I take. That's why I was seeing him -- a little bit of pain management." He said the wrestlers had little problem beating drug tests in the 90s. Good to know things never change.
He claimed there was a place in Atlanta that he could go to now and get a three month supply of testosterone and human growth hormone, and that there was a guy in California that was currently supplying drugs to "hundreds of wrestlers and other pro athletes". He finished up saying, "I was a pill-popper. And I abused alcohol toward the end, real bad. And I got caught with steroids in my house. I am a convicted felon. I deserved it. And I take accountability for that. I am trying to help others avoid what happened in my life, and my family and friends that I devastated. I dishonored my profession. I dishonored my community, all because I couldn't control myself and got this sick other lifestyle and drug abuse. I want to help our young kids stay away from that".
There are no plans at this point for a Shawn Michaels return. Obviously when he went down everyone was talking about him being back by November. Problem is, it's 2007 and he's a family man and he's enjoying his time at home with his family. He's also said to be very content with his career, particularly the entire first half of this year when he was the main guy responsible for the best six months of weekly high-level in-ring action that there has perhaps ever been in any promotion in the world.
He has given indications that he isn't in a rush to come back, and the feeling is that Hunter took him to Ohio Valley last week in part to try to get the business back into his blood again. If he comes back this fall, the plan is to plug him into a feud with Orton, which of course would make sense since Orton put him out with the concussion gimmick months back (in reality Shawn needed knee surgery). But there are no guarantees.
I should note, though, that from very early on there were people talking about how it was a rinky-dink investigation (one person even used the term, ironically, "Barney Fife") and they were stunned with certain things the police did.
In another article, Ichter said: "It's plain that he was depressed. It's plain that he was beginning to exhibit some of the signs of the dementia that's associated with the brain injuries he sustained because he talks in there about not being able to remember things. Chris, at the end had become intensely paranoid, to the point that he would not take the same route to the airport on a consistent basis, to the point that he would not allow the family outside of the house".
The story also noted that it would be months before the estate battle was handled.
Kresten F. Ericksen, 47, an Ogdensburg City Councilor, was arrested this past week on charges of 2nd degree forgery in regards to an incident involving WWE and the Ogdensburg Golden Dome. Basically, the WWE ran two shows in 2006 which were to help raise money for a new scrolling marquee. Kresten, the Student Council Advisor, was in charge of paying WWE $8,000 for the show. WWE later told police that they hadn't been paid the full amount. The Student Council asked Ericksen for a receipt and he produced one claiming the $8,000 had been paid. As it turns out, the belief is that he kept approximately $4,000 and forged the receipt. The investigation is continuing and it is believed no one else will be charged.
The pretrial conference in the Phil Astin case was scheduled for Tuesday, the day we went to press.
Mike Fish of ESPN.com wrote two huge articles for the website last week. The first was entitled "Other wrestlers used Benoit's doctor for prescriptions". It mostly covered the death of Johnny Grunge Durham and his relationship to Astin. There was some new info in there that was pretty distressing. Eric Zinck, who was Durham's best friend and was providing him with a place to live when he died, went to the pharmacy to get Durham's last prescription filled. Durham was f***ed up that morning, so Zinck went without him, told the folks at the pharmacy that he needed to refill a prescription for him, and they gave it to him no questions asked -- and that includes asking for any sort of ID.
The morning Mike died, Zinck's girlfriend had stumbled over him in the hallway. They checked his pulse, and although it was "weak" they had seen him in this state many times and figured he'd recover like usual. He didn't. Durham had been using Dr. Astin for years, and before that he'd been using Dr. Robert Howard of Peachtree City, who was also busted and ended up dying in prison recently. Howard had also treated Chris Benoit and, according to Zinck, "half the wrestlers in WCW".
Dave Meltzer in the Observer also noted last week that a former WWE star had called him up and told him that although x number of names had come out in the Signature case, he believed "everyone" was a Signature client up and down the roster. I can say that there are other name wrestlers who were both Signature clients and patients of Dr. Astin that for whatever reason have not come out yet. Penny Durham talked about the issues Mike's pain pill and soma abuse caused.
It broke up their marriage and he wasn't able to keep a job, even with his father-in-law. He'd pass out constantly at home, often in the middle of playing with his children, and he'd be so screwed up during the day that he couldn't drive his father-in-law's truck to carpet installation jobs. Once, he started swerving, and when his father-in-law pulled the car over Durham opened the door, fell out, and passed out on the road. He was so big at the time, near 400 pounds of dead weight with a 56-inch waist, that he could not be moved. No one else was willing to drive with him either. The article noted that he had 11 different doctors prescribing him pills, but no one prescribed more than Astin. In 13 months, Astin wrote prescriptions for over 4,000 pills. "The doctor should have never given him anything," Penny said. "He had asthma. He had an enlarged heart. He had sleep apnea. And he was overweight. He wasn't even wrestling.
Why would he be giving this guy a muscle relaxer? I mean, he was giving it to him like candy." Durham would sometimes fill Vicodin prescriptions every four days, even at the same pharmacy. The article noted that Penny was considering filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Astin, and that Michael Benoit was considering a lawsuit as well but was likely going to wait until the trial was over. Lex Luger said Astin was just a good old guy who never talked to guys about steroids or anything. He said Astin was "a little star struck" and enjoyed interacting with the guys. He didn't use the term "mark doctor" but he may as well have. Zinck said, "He just prescribed what he thought we needed. Or if we asked to go up in the medication, he didn't question it. He just went up in it".
The Luger story was fascinating. Luger, 49, needs a hip replacement and now walks with a cane. He says he can't believe he's alive and nearly overdosed many times. He is also a man of God now, and very forthright about his drug use, steroid use, arrests, and the death of Miss Elizabeth. "I take a lot of responsibility for that -- my influence in her life. Her little heart and body couldn't take what I was doing."
She died of acute drug toxicity in 2003. Luger said the 1,000 illegal pills that were found in his house were in a bag that he'd forgotten was there. He said Liz had sent it over from his previous residence. "I didn't know I had it, and I would never have kept that stuff in my house. I would have had a friend keep it for me. Athletes won't keep it in their house. They'll go over to their friends' house and get their shots and stuff."
He now lives with a pastor at his church and does motivational stay-off-drugs speeches. He said he first got on steroids after he played football at Penn State and the University of Miami and was offered a CFL tryout. He met a guy in the gym who gave him Dianabol, and the rest is history. He said he was never a hardcore steroid user like some guys in wrestling who never cycle off. He did Deca and testosterone 12 weeks on and 12 weeks off and was blessed with a super fast metabolism that kept him lean. Well, you can never argue that Lex Luger didn't have fantastic genetics. In fact, the article here included a photo of him, and at 49 with a bad hip he's still very lean and muscular, and the interview took place over the course of several hours in a buffet.
This also, he said, was why he was still alive. "I metabolized drugs quickly. That is not good, but it saved my life a bunch of times. I went in deep a bunch of times with pills and alcohol." He had nice things to say about Sting, ("one of the few that stuck by me when my life was a wreck"), and, yes, Dr. Astin. He said Astin never provided him with steroids and merely helped him manage pain. "I was under pain-management therapy or hydrocodone, just legal amounts. I need to have hip surgery that I've been putting off. I do a little hydrocodone and some Advil and Aleve, buddy. That is all I take. That's why I was seeing him -- a little bit of pain management." He said the wrestlers had little problem beating drug tests in the 90s. Good to know things never change.
He claimed there was a place in Atlanta that he could go to now and get a three month supply of testosterone and human growth hormone, and that there was a guy in California that was currently supplying drugs to "hundreds of wrestlers and other pro athletes". He finished up saying, "I was a pill-popper. And I abused alcohol toward the end, real bad. And I got caught with steroids in my house. I am a convicted felon. I deserved it. And I take accountability for that. I am trying to help others avoid what happened in my life, and my family and friends that I devastated. I dishonored my profession. I dishonored my community, all because I couldn't control myself and got this sick other lifestyle and drug abuse. I want to help our young kids stay away from that".
There are no plans at this point for a Shawn Michaels return. Obviously when he went down everyone was talking about him being back by November. Problem is, it's 2007 and he's a family man and he's enjoying his time at home with his family. He's also said to be very content with his career, particularly the entire first half of this year when he was the main guy responsible for the best six months of weekly high-level in-ring action that there has perhaps ever been in any promotion in the world.
He has given indications that he isn't in a rush to come back, and the feeling is that Hunter took him to Ohio Valley last week in part to try to get the business back into his blood again. If he comes back this fall, the plan is to plug him into a feud with Orton, which of course would make sense since Orton put him out with the concussion gimmick months back (in reality Shawn needed knee surgery). But there are no guarantees.