Hitting The Fan

Yesterday WWE announced that they had suspended ten wrestlers who had violated the Wellness Policy, based on information from the Albany District Attorney's office. No word on if the wrestlers will be taken off TV or if this will be one of those suspensions where they appear on TV but just don't get paid.

In addition, Sports Illustrated, ESPN.com, and the New York Daily News have listed names of WWE wrestlers who received steroids and HGH (some received them after the Wellness Policy started) from Signature Pharmacy, which is being accused of selling the drugs to patients who hadn't been examined by a doctor. Among those listed in the stories were Edge, Booker T (say it ain't so), Batista (I'm shocked), St. Louis' own Randy Orton (he makes us prouder each day), John Morrison (I knew he couldn't get those abs from just doing sit-ups), Funaki (why?), Chris Masters (of course), and Ken Kennedy (who had just claimed that he was clean since the Wellness Policy started).

I have a feeling that Spike Dudley will be the World Champion by October.

Hogan Update

It turns out that right before Nick Hogan crashed his car on Sunday, he was racing someone in a silver Dodge Viper-- like the one that is owned by the Hogan family. Ruh ro! Hmmm, who could that have been?

To add to that, according to pwtorch.com, if Nick's passenger dies, he could be charged with vehicular manslaughter and be sentenced to up to 15 years in the hole. Bad times. Looks like not even the Legdrop of Doom can get him out of this mess.

Bad Times

In the aftermath of the Benoit tragedies, the news seems to keep going downhill for the world's biggest wrestling organization:

- Former WWE Champion (and arguably their freshest and best character) Edge will be out longer than expected with a torn pectoral muscle. He now is expected to be out around five months. This is worse than the Cardinals losing Chris Carpenter for a year.

- Ratings for Raw and ECW have been down for three weeks. Smackdown has remained the same, but hey, nobody watches that anyway.

- The stars of Jackass, including Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O, were supposed to be in a match at the SummerSlam pay-per-view in August but they pulled out after the Chris Benoit situation allegedly because they didn't want to be associated with the product at this time. Wow, the guys who once did a movie where one of them took an open dump in a hardward store didn't want to have their reputation soiled by associating with wresting. Ouch.

- According to a report at pwtorch.com, some WWE officials such as Shane and Stephanie McMahon, John Laurinatis, and Kevin Dunn each recently got rid of a nice chunk of WWE stock. Sort of like rats jumping off of The Titanic. Stay tuned.....