Irvin Muchnick Confronts Wrestling Legend Bret Hart (CNN’s Nancy Grace, 6/29/07 ): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmw7Fmhwgg
Irvin Muchnick Discusses Linda McMahon and Death in Wrestling on WTNH (news report by Mark Davis, 3/23/10): http://www.youtube.com/wrestlingbabylon#p/u/0/GHWU1eBJgyk
Irvin Muchnick Discusses Benoit on KRON 4 Evening News 10-4-09 (interview by Gary Radnich): http://www.youtube.com/wrestlingbabylon#p/a/u/1/hGuVVszpep4
Irvin Muchnick on French TV’s “L’Effet Papillon” (France’s Canal+ network, 5/25/08; script text translation at http://muchnick.net/FrenchScript.pdf): http://www.youtube.com/wrestlingbabylon#p/u/18/0KDqolTYGY8
Irvin Muchnick on “The O’Reilly Factor” (6/27/07 ): http://www.youtube.com/wrestlingbabylon#p/u/25/asTdiVWf4gM
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
WWE's Holiday Gift: 'Tables, Ladders, and Chairs'
[posted 12/4/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
World Wrestling Entertainment – company of once-and-future Senate candidate Linda McMahon – closes out 2010 with the charming annual pay-per-view event “Tables, Ladders, and Chairs.”
Let’s focus on chairs. Last year’s promotional video for the event featured wrestler Chris Jericho taking a chair shot to the skull, which released animated cuckoo birds encircling his head. But that was then – this is now. The promo for TLC ’10 shows cartoon stick figures going at it, but the chair shots are thoughtfully delivered below the neck.
WWE announced in January 2010, a convenient month after TLC ’09, that chair shots to the head were banned. This “evolving” standard was in tune with Linda McMahon’s flop of a Senate campaign.
Funny, but most of us had read Vince McMahon’s 2007 interview with CNN’s investigative documentary unit to mean that chair shots to the head were banned then. But I guess it depends on what the meaning of “is” is. (The same year, Vince and Linda’s daughter Stephanie, a WWE executive and the wife of wrestler Triple H, told Congressional investigators that she had never seen a WWE performer suffer a concussion in the ring.)
Meanwhile, in October 2008 another wrestler, Lance Cade, got nailed with a beautifully squared-up chair to the head on live television. Cade would die in August 2010 from “heart failure,” at age 29.
In Connecticut, Public Act 10-62, “An Act Concerning Student Athletes and Concussions,” passed earlier this year, has taken effect. The law requires coaches applying for certification by the state Board of Education (a body on which you may have noticed Linda McMahon serving in 2009-10, unless you blinked) to demonstrate that they have been trained in recognizing head inquiries, and establishes protocols for the return to action of athletes so injured.
There were hearings for a similar federal bill before the House Committee on Education and Labor. I am trying to find out how that legislation’s prospects might be affected by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress.
A September 23 news release by outgoing committee chair George Miller listed the National Football League among the supporters of the proposed law. World Wrestling Entertainment was not listed. WWE’s medical director, Dr. Joseph Maroon, works for both the NFL and WWE, but he told Pittsburgh City Paper last week that he thinks it’s still too early to say what the consequences are from the syndrome being called Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy.
Irv Muchnick
World Wrestling Entertainment – company of once-and-future Senate candidate Linda McMahon – closes out 2010 with the charming annual pay-per-view event “Tables, Ladders, and Chairs.”
Let’s focus on chairs. Last year’s promotional video for the event featured wrestler Chris Jericho taking a chair shot to the skull, which released animated cuckoo birds encircling his head. But that was then – this is now. The promo for TLC ’10 shows cartoon stick figures going at it, but the chair shots are thoughtfully delivered below the neck.
WWE announced in January 2010, a convenient month after TLC ’09, that chair shots to the head were banned. This “evolving” standard was in tune with Linda McMahon’s flop of a Senate campaign.
Funny, but most of us had read Vince McMahon’s 2007 interview with CNN’s investigative documentary unit to mean that chair shots to the head were banned then. But I guess it depends on what the meaning of “is” is. (The same year, Vince and Linda’s daughter Stephanie, a WWE executive and the wife of wrestler Triple H, told Congressional investigators that she had never seen a WWE performer suffer a concussion in the ring.)
Meanwhile, in October 2008 another wrestler, Lance Cade, got nailed with a beautifully squared-up chair to the head on live television. Cade would die in August 2010 from “heart failure,” at age 29.
In Connecticut, Public Act 10-62, “An Act Concerning Student Athletes and Concussions,” passed earlier this year, has taken effect. The law requires coaches applying for certification by the state Board of Education (a body on which you may have noticed Linda McMahon serving in 2009-10, unless you blinked) to demonstrate that they have been trained in recognizing head inquiries, and establishes protocols for the return to action of athletes so injured.
There were hearings for a similar federal bill before the House Committee on Education and Labor. I am trying to find out how that legislation’s prospects might be affected by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress.
A September 23 news release by outgoing committee chair George Miller listed the National Football League among the supporters of the proposed law. World Wrestling Entertainment was not listed. WWE’s medical director, Dr. Joseph Maroon, works for both the NFL and WWE, but he told Pittsburgh City Paper last week that he thinks it’s still too early to say what the consequences are from the syndrome being called Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy.
Irv Muchnick
Threats to This Blog
[posted 12/4/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
From June 13, 2009, through December 3, 2010 (yesterday), the comments form at this blog has received a series of 17 anonymous communications from three Internet Protocol addresses at Verizon Wireless. I believe these all may have come from the same Verizon customer. Because the messages recently intensified in frequency and language, and possibly crossed from rhetorical rants to threats of physical harm or death, I turned the file over to Verizon, the San Francisco office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Berkeley Police Department.
Here is a log of the messages:
- June 13, 2009 (7:20 PM), Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.194.101 , pool-173-56-194-101.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- June 13, 2009 (7:22 PM), Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.194.101 , pool-173-56-194-101.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- June 13, 2009 (7:28 PM), Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.194.101 , pool-173-56-194-101.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- June 13, 2009 (7:45 PM), Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.194.101 , pool-173-56-194-101.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- June 22, 2009, Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.194.101 , pool-173-56-194-101.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- October 17, 2009, Author “TED,” Email, IP: 173.56.202.119 , pool-173-56-202-119.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- October 28, 2010, Author “ted,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 12, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 15, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 18, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 20, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 22, 2010 (2:46 PM), Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 22, 2010 (2:50 PM), Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 27, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- November 29, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- December 1, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
- December 3, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email, IP: 173.52.247.125 , pool-173-52-247-125.nycmny.east.verizon.net
From June 13, 2009, through December 3, 2010 (yesterday), the comments form at this blog has received a series of 17 anonymous communications from three Internet Protocol addresses at Verizon Wireless. I believe these all may have come from the same Verizon customer. Because the messages recently intensified in frequency and language, and possibly crossed from rhetorical rants to threats of physical harm or death, I turned the file over to Verizon, the San Francisco office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Berkeley Police Department.
Here is a log of the messages:
- June 13, 2009 (7:20 PM), Author “TED,” Email
- June 13, 2009 (7:22 PM), Author “TED,” Email
- June 13, 2009 (7:28 PM), Author “TED,” Email
- June 13, 2009 (7:45 PM), Author “TED,” Email
- June 22, 2009, Author “TED,” Email
- October 17, 2009, Author “TED,” Email
- October 28, 2010, Author “ted,” Email
- November 12, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 15, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 18, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 20, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 22, 2010 (2:46 PM), Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 22, 2010 (2:50 PM), Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 27, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- November 29, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- December 1, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
- December 3, 2010, Author “mcmahon 4 life,” Email
Not Yet Clear Whether Connecticut Investigation of WWE Is Wide-Ranging and Significant
[posted 12/3/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
Connecticut Labor Department attorney Heidi Lane and spokesman Paul Oates have talked me through some of the intricacies of state law with respect to the current reported state audit of World Wrestling Entertainment.
I reemphasize that the department does not itself say that WWE is under investigation. That is my own independent conclusion, though a fair one – since the company itself revealed it in the course of Linda McMahon’s unsuccessful Senate campaign against Richard Blumenthal, other sources confirm it, and Oates “neither confirms nor denies” it.
Questions still remain with respect to the size and scope of the audit, and how and to what extent the public will become aware of its outcomes.
The investigation is being conducted out of the department’s Unemployment Insurance Tax Division, which I am informed is prohibited from disclosing information concerning individual employers.
Lane explained to me that there are several different laws in Connecticut dealing with misclassification of employees. WWE is not a target of a potential “stop work order” – a category created by statute in 2007 to thwart employers who knowingly misrepresent employees as independent contractors or provide false, incomplete, or misleading information to an insurance company on the number of employees for the purpose of paying a lower Workers’ Compensation premium.
A new law, passed earlier this year and stemming from recommendations of the Joint Employee Commission on Misclassification, increased the penalties for failure to have Workers’ Compensation for employees. That took effect in October.
Lane told me: “The Unemployment Insurance Tax Division in the course of its everyday functions performs thousands of audits yearly and hundreds of them concern misclassification issues. Misclassification investigations are started in a number of ways. If an individual files a claim for unemployment benefits and he or she does not have wage credits because their employer treated them as independent contractors instead of employees, the division will undertake an investigation to determine if the claimant is an employee or independent contractor. At times, these investigations may turn into full audits of the company. This division is also responsible for performing random audits pursuant to the federal requirements.”
In the case of WWE, I believe the investigation flowed from a “random audit.” Lane said the UI division has received three specific “referrals” for investigations, and earlier said that there have no Form DOL-83 referrals (a recently enacted procedure) listing World Wrestling Entertainment.
If an administrative ruling or negotiation conducted within the state government bureaucracy were to lead to a structural change in WWE’s practices – that is, if wrestlers stopped being classified as independent contractors and started being called employees, with employee-level benefits – then I’m sure we’d all know about it quickly. That is not the kind of secret that could stay hidden long from the pages of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter or Pro Wrestling Torch.
Short of such an outcome, however, I’m not sure what would be accomplished.
A month from today Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general, will become Connecticut’s junior United States senator, and at that point any involvement on his part in the state probe would officially become informal. (Blumenthal already has said that he had nothing to do with the state audit.) My view is that, in terms of both transparency and substance, his implied obligation to the voters to look into reform of the pro wrestling industry’s occupational health and safety standards goes beyond whatever is happening right now in discussions between the Connecticut Labor Department and WWE’s lawyers.
Irv Muchnick
Connecticut Labor Department attorney Heidi Lane and spokesman Paul Oates have talked me through some of the intricacies of state law with respect to the current reported state audit of World Wrestling Entertainment.
I reemphasize that the department does not itself say that WWE is under investigation. That is my own independent conclusion, though a fair one – since the company itself revealed it in the course of Linda McMahon’s unsuccessful Senate campaign against Richard Blumenthal, other sources confirm it, and Oates “neither confirms nor denies” it.
Questions still remain with respect to the size and scope of the audit, and how and to what extent the public will become aware of its outcomes.
The investigation is being conducted out of the department’s Unemployment Insurance Tax Division, which I am informed is prohibited from disclosing information concerning individual employers.
Lane explained to me that there are several different laws in Connecticut dealing with misclassification of employees. WWE is not a target of a potential “stop work order” – a category created by statute in 2007 to thwart employers who knowingly misrepresent employees as independent contractors or provide false, incomplete, or misleading information to an insurance company on the number of employees for the purpose of paying a lower Workers’ Compensation premium.
A new law, passed earlier this year and stemming from recommendations of the Joint Employee Commission on Misclassification, increased the penalties for failure to have Workers’ Compensation for employees. That took effect in October.
Lane told me: “The Unemployment Insurance Tax Division in the course of its everyday functions performs thousands of audits yearly and hundreds of them concern misclassification issues. Misclassification investigations are started in a number of ways. If an individual files a claim for unemployment benefits and he or she does not have wage credits because their employer treated them as independent contractors instead of employees, the division will undertake an investigation to determine if the claimant is an employee or independent contractor. At times, these investigations may turn into full audits of the company. This division is also responsible for performing random audits pursuant to the federal requirements.”
In the case of WWE, I believe the investigation flowed from a “random audit.” Lane said the UI division has received three specific “referrals” for investigations, and earlier said that there have no Form DOL-83 referrals (a recently enacted procedure) listing World Wrestling Entertainment.
If an administrative ruling or negotiation conducted within the state government bureaucracy were to lead to a structural change in WWE’s practices – that is, if wrestlers stopped being classified as independent contractors and started being called employees, with employee-level benefits – then I’m sure we’d all know about it quickly. That is not the kind of secret that could stay hidden long from the pages of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter or Pro Wrestling Torch.
Short of such an outcome, however, I’m not sure what would be accomplished.
A month from today Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general, will become Connecticut’s junior United States senator, and at that point any involvement on his part in the state probe would officially become informal. (Blumenthal already has said that he had nothing to do with the state audit.) My view is that, in terms of both transparency and substance, his implied obligation to the voters to look into reform of the pro wrestling industry’s occupational health and safety standards goes beyond whatever is happening right now in discussions between the Connecticut Labor Department and WWE’s lawyers.
Irv Muchnick
Further Reading on WWE Wellness Policy, Concussions, Dr. Joseph Maroon, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
[posted 12/2/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
The cover story in the current Pittsburgh City Paper on the World Wrestling Entertainment wellness policy is very poor, possibly the least informative and coherent article of that length yet published on this subject. Writer Charlie Deitch lays out the company line while omitting huge swaths of pertinent history – such as the elimination of steroid testing for ten years, the non-suspension of star Randy Orton after he appeared on the Signature Pharmacy customer list, the hole-riddled testimony of the McMahon family to the staff of the Waxman Committee, and the full background stories of very recent dead wrestlers Umaga and Lance Cade.
Really, a line-by-line critique would give City Paper’s effort here more attention than it deserves. Those of you who would like to read it for yourselves can go to http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A88609.
Those of you interested in hard reporting on the Pittsburgh doctors who administer for profit, while arguably somewhat ameliorating, the WWE death mill, see the links below from this blog over the last year.
Irv Muchnick
December 14, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: LINDA McMAHON’S WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR MET WITH CHRIS BENOIT BRAIN EXPERTS IN 2008
***
December 30, 2009
PAGING DR. JOSEPH MAROON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR FOR SENATE CANDIDATE LINDA McMAHON’S WWE
***
March 18, 2010
WHERE DOES WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR FIT IN SHAKEUP OF NFL’S CONCUSSION COMMITTEE?
***
March 18, 2010
EDDIE “UMAGA” FATU AUTOPSY: 406 POUNDS, ENLARGED HEART
***
March 19, 2010
WATCH THE CARDIOVASCULAR CONSULTANT FOR LINDA McMAHON’S WWE PIMP AN UNREGULATED SUPPLEMENT ON YOUTUBE
***
March 19, 2010
HOW NOT TO GET A GIG WITH WWE’S CRACK MEDICAL TEAM
***
March 30, 2010
UMAGA AUTOPSY TURNS FOCUS TO LINDA McMAHON’S WWE CARDIO PROGRAM AND DOCS
***
March 31, 2010
WWE DOCS GOVERNED BY “PRIVATE” PITT MED CENTER ETHICS POLICY
***
March 31, 2010
WWE MEDICAL TEAM BIOS – 5 OUT OF 8 ARE FROM PITT MED CENTER
***
April 6, 2010
WWE CARDIOLOGIST BRYAN DONOHUE’S SUPPLEMENT COMPANY HAS PR FIRM THAT DOESN’T DISCLOSE HIS EQUITY INTEREST
***
June 20, 2010
DR. JOSEPH MAROON SIGHTING IN EXCELLENT NEW HAVEN REGISTER ARTICLE ON WWE AND STEROIDS
***
June 28, 2010
BRAIN INJURIES IN LINDA McMAHON’S WWE AND THE NFL – WHERE SPORTS AND “SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT” OVERLAP
***
July 7, 2010
NFL EXPLAINS: MAROON STILL ON COMMITTEE, ONLY CONCUSSION “LEADERSHIP” HAS CHANGED
***
August 18, 2010
TREATMENT OF WWE PERFORMER CHARLIE HAAS IS A STUDY OF LINDA McMAHON’S CHARACTER
***
September 9, 2010
MORE ON THE 2008 MEETING OF LINDA McMAHON’S WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR AT THE WEST VIRGINIA BRAIN INSTITUTE
***
October 14, 2010
DEATHS IN LINDA McMAHON’S PRO WRESTLING INDUSTRY DO NOT = STEROIDS. THE DEATH PANDEMIC IS “STEROIDS-PLUS”
***
October 14, 2010
WRESTLING JOURNALIST MELTZER: WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR’S QUOTE IS “MIND-BOGGLING”
***
October 16, 2010
WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR “DISHONEST,” SAY 76% IN WRESTLING OBSERVER READER POLL
***
November 8, 2010
ROAD MAP TO NEW GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS OF PRO WRESTLING
***
November 20, 2010
CONCUSSION ISSUE REACHES CRITICAL MASS IN AMERICAN CULTURE AND POLITICS
The cover story in the current Pittsburgh City Paper on the World Wrestling Entertainment wellness policy is very poor, possibly the least informative and coherent article of that length yet published on this subject. Writer Charlie Deitch lays out the company line while omitting huge swaths of pertinent history – such as the elimination of steroid testing for ten years, the non-suspension of star Randy Orton after he appeared on the Signature Pharmacy customer list, the hole-riddled testimony of the McMahon family to the staff of the Waxman Committee, and the full background stories of very recent dead wrestlers Umaga and Lance Cade.
Really, a line-by-line critique would give City Paper’s effort here more attention than it deserves. Those of you who would like to read it for yourselves can go to http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A88609.
Those of you interested in hard reporting on the Pittsburgh doctors who administer for profit, while arguably somewhat ameliorating, the WWE death mill, see the links below from this blog over the last year.
Irv Muchnick
December 14, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: LINDA McMAHON’S WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR MET WITH CHRIS BENOIT BRAIN EXPERTS IN 2008
***
December 30, 2009
PAGING DR. JOSEPH MAROON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR FOR SENATE CANDIDATE LINDA McMAHON’S WWE
***
March 18, 2010
WHERE DOES WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR FIT IN SHAKEUP OF NFL’S CONCUSSION COMMITTEE?
***
March 18, 2010
EDDIE “UMAGA” FATU AUTOPSY: 406 POUNDS, ENLARGED HEART
***
March 19, 2010
WATCH THE CARDIOVASCULAR CONSULTANT FOR LINDA McMAHON’S WWE PIMP AN UNREGULATED SUPPLEMENT ON YOUTUBE
***
March 19, 2010
HOW NOT TO GET A GIG WITH WWE’S CRACK MEDICAL TEAM
***
March 30, 2010
UMAGA AUTOPSY TURNS FOCUS TO LINDA McMAHON’S WWE CARDIO PROGRAM AND DOCS
***
March 31, 2010
WWE DOCS GOVERNED BY “PRIVATE” PITT MED CENTER ETHICS POLICY
***
March 31, 2010
WWE MEDICAL TEAM BIOS – 5 OUT OF 8 ARE FROM PITT MED CENTER
***
April 6, 2010
WWE CARDIOLOGIST BRYAN DONOHUE’S SUPPLEMENT COMPANY HAS PR FIRM THAT DOESN’T DISCLOSE HIS EQUITY INTEREST
***
June 20, 2010
DR. JOSEPH MAROON SIGHTING IN EXCELLENT NEW HAVEN REGISTER ARTICLE ON WWE AND STEROIDS
***
June 28, 2010
BRAIN INJURIES IN LINDA McMAHON’S WWE AND THE NFL – WHERE SPORTS AND “SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT” OVERLAP
***
July 7, 2010
NFL EXPLAINS: MAROON STILL ON COMMITTEE, ONLY CONCUSSION “LEADERSHIP” HAS CHANGED
***
August 18, 2010
TREATMENT OF WWE PERFORMER CHARLIE HAAS IS A STUDY OF LINDA McMAHON’S CHARACTER
***
September 9, 2010
MORE ON THE 2008 MEETING OF LINDA McMAHON’S WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR AT THE WEST VIRGINIA BRAIN INSTITUTE
***
October 14, 2010
DEATHS IN LINDA McMAHON’S PRO WRESTLING INDUSTRY DO NOT = STEROIDS. THE DEATH PANDEMIC IS “STEROIDS-PLUS”
***
October 14, 2010
WRESTLING JOURNALIST MELTZER: WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR’S QUOTE IS “MIND-BOGGLING”
***
October 16, 2010
WWE MEDICAL DIRECTOR “DISHONEST,” SAY 76% IN WRESTLING OBSERVER READER POLL
***
November 8, 2010
ROAD MAP TO NEW GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS OF PRO WRESTLING
***
November 20, 2010
CONCUSSION ISSUE REACHES CRITICAL MASS IN AMERICAN CULTURE AND POLITICS
Saturday, December 4, 2010
How Vince and Linda McMahon’s WWE Beat the 1990s Steroid Charges: A Resource Guide
[posted 11/30/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
“Tampering Cloud Over Wrestling Big’s Trial,” by Jack Newfield and Phil Mushnick, New York Post, November 22, 1995 — full text viewable at http://muchnick.net/nyposttext.pdf
“The Fixer: Journalist. Private Eye. Mole. Snitch. It’s All in a Day’s Work for Marty Bergman, the Zelig of New York’s Information Highway,” by William Bastone, Village Voice, December 19, 1995 — full text viewable at http://muchnick.net/bergmanarticle.pdf
“Steroid issue not going away,” editorial, Connecticut Post, July 27, 2010, http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Steroid-issue-not-going-away-592567.php
12/22/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 2 – 1992 Drug and Sex Scandals),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-2-%E2%80%94-1992-drug-and-sex-scandals/
12/23/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 3 – 1994 Drug Trial),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-3-%E2%80%94-1994-drug-trial/
12/24/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 4 – The Defense Lawyer, the ‘Fixer,’ and the Playboy Model),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-4-%E2%80%93-the-defense-lawyer-the-%E2%80%98fixer%E2%80%99-and-the-playboy-model/
4/11/10, “Did Linda McMahon Obstruct Justice? Open Questions From the New London Day Investigation,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/did-linda-mcmahon-obstruct-justice-5th-in-a-series-%E2%80%93-open-questions-from-the-new-london-day-investigation/
4/20/10, “Steroid Doc Prosecutor Accused of Tipping McMahons Says, ‘No Comment,’” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/steroid-doc-prosecutor-accused-of-tipping-mcmahons-says-%E2%80%98no-comment%E2%80%99/
4/21/10, “Linda McMahon Memo Story Leaves Just a Few Open Questions – The Five W’s,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/linda-mcmahon-memo-story-leaves-just-a-few-open-questions-%E2%80%93-the-five-w%E2%80%99s/
4/27/10, “Linda McMahon and the Annals of Jurisprudence,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/linda-mcmahon-and-the-annals-of-jurisprudence/
“Tampering Cloud Over Wrestling Big’s Trial,” by Jack Newfield and Phil Mushnick, New York Post, November 22, 1995 — full text viewable at http://muchnick.net/nyposttext.pdf
“The Fixer: Journalist. Private Eye. Mole. Snitch. It’s All in a Day’s Work for Marty Bergman, the Zelig of New York’s Information Highway,” by William Bastone, Village Voice, December 19, 1995 — full text viewable at http://muchnick.net/bergmanarticle.pdf
“Steroid issue not going away,” editorial, Connecticut Post, July 27, 2010, http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Steroid-issue-not-going-away-592567.php
12/22/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 2 – 1992 Drug and Sex Scandals),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-2-%E2%80%94-1992-drug-and-sex-scandals/
12/23/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 3 – 1994 Drug Trial),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-3-%E2%80%94-1994-drug-trial/
12/24/09, “Linda McMahon’s Husband Vince Fought the Law, and the Law Lost (Part 4 – The Defense Lawyer, the ‘Fixer,’ and the Playboy Model),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-husband-vince-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-part-4-%E2%80%93-the-defense-lawyer-the-%E2%80%98fixer%E2%80%99-and-the-playboy-model/
4/11/10, “Did Linda McMahon Obstruct Justice? Open Questions From the New London Day Investigation,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/did-linda-mcmahon-obstruct-justice-5th-in-a-series-%E2%80%93-open-questions-from-the-new-london-day-investigation/
4/20/10, “Steroid Doc Prosecutor Accused of Tipping McMahons Says, ‘No Comment,’” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/steroid-doc-prosecutor-accused-of-tipping-mcmahons-says-%E2%80%98no-comment%E2%80%99/
4/21/10, “Linda McMahon Memo Story Leaves Just a Few Open Questions – The Five W’s,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/linda-mcmahon-memo-story-leaves-just-a-few-open-questions-%E2%80%93-the-five-w%E2%80%99s/
4/27/10, “Linda McMahon and the Annals of Jurisprudence,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/linda-mcmahon-and-the-annals-of-jurisprudence/
How the McMahons’ WWE Beat the Rap in the 1990s (Part 2, the Steroid Charges)
[posted 11/30/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
(YESTERDAY: Part 1, the Sex Charges, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/how-the-mcmahons%E2%80%99-wwe-beat-the-rap-in-the-1990s-part-1-the-sex-charges/)
Before circling back to the conclusion of yesterday’s post, we should reemphasize the single biggest factor in the 1994 acquittal of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute steroids. That was the 1989 tip to Vince and Linda McMahon of the investigation of their Pennsylvania ring doctor, George Zahorian, who would be convicted and go to federal prison in 1991.
Even without the later machinations of defense counsel Laura Brevetti’s “fixer” husband, Martin Bergman – which started with planted smears of prosecutors in the New York media and continued all the way through to witness-tampering – the McMahons would have been nailed if not for the early warning to them that Dr. Zahorian was “hot” and needed to be removed as a WWF-appointed attending physician under Pennsylvania’s newly deregulated state athletic commission procedures.
Dave Meltzer, publisher of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, who has covered the industry and the trials longer and harder than anyone, says, “The key to the acquittal is Linda being tipped off and Zahorian never being hired. Zahorian actually hired and working for the company, and they’d have lost the case.”
Linda McMahon’s December 1989 memo instructing executive Pat Patterson to fire Zahorian surfaced during the recent Senate campaign through the reporting of Ted Mann of the New London Day. But with investigations of what is now World Wrestling Entertainment reviving at both the state and federal levels, more needs to be known about how the government sabotaged the 1990s case. Linda has said that James West, then the U.S. Attorney in central Pennsylvania who was coordinating the Zahorian prosecution, told one of the McMahons’ lawyers, Jack Krill, at “a fundraising event.” West vaguely denied that to Mann and then told me that he didn’t want to talk about the past. Sorry, Mr. West; the past has become prologue.
Incoming senator Richard Blumenthal, coming from the state attorney general’s office, should understand as well as anyone that the integrity of new attempts to reform pro wrestling requires setting the record straight on past efforts. The McMahons habitually and erroneously cite their acquittal as vindication, and one of the things allowing them to continue to run an entertainment death mill is the public absence of an institutional memory. The historical questions “how?” and “why?” still matter.
*****
To resume the narrative started here yesterday, WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt and his team scored an important victory in their fight for survival when the government decided to abandon the allegations of sexual abuse inside the company and to focus on the steroid charges. But, of course, the McMahons still wanted acquittal at trial and they couldn’t rest on the assurance that their better-late-than-never separation from Zahorian would be enough for a not-guilty verdict.
Fixer deluxe Bergman went so far as to meet with star prosecution witness Emily Feinberg, Vince’s ex-secretary, and bait her with suggestions of six-figure payments for tabloid TV interviews. Incredibly, this story, which was exhaustively documented in 1995 by both the New York Post and the Village Voice, got censored in the 2010 Senate campaign coverage everywhere except on this blog.
A final and decisive factor in the 1994 acquittal was simply the bungling of the prosecutors: on at least one of the counts, they hadn’t even established proper jurisdiction for the trial in the Eastern District of New York. You have to wonder if Bergman’s smears in The New York Observer of Sean O’Shea, chief of the Business/Securities Fraud Unit for the U.S. attorney there, had rattled him. Another possibility: The Justice Department bureaucracy as a whole was conflicted or half-hearted about the McMahon prosecution once the decision was made to confine it to steroid charges, and the result was the undermining of its own case, consciously or otherwise.
Marty Bergman was investigated for witness tampering in the Emily Feinberg matter, but he was never charged. By leaking the story to the Post and the Voice, prosecutors may have been taking their payback against him and the McMahons as far as they wanted it to go: exposing these out-of-bounds defense tactics without further exposing the humiliation of their failed prosecution.
Irv Muchnick
NEXT: Additional related reading from this blog’s archive.
(YESTERDAY: Part 1, the Sex Charges, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/how-the-mcmahons%E2%80%99-wwe-beat-the-rap-in-the-1990s-part-1-the-sex-charges/)
Before circling back to the conclusion of yesterday’s post, we should reemphasize the single biggest factor in the 1994 acquittal of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute steroids. That was the 1989 tip to Vince and Linda McMahon of the investigation of their Pennsylvania ring doctor, George Zahorian, who would be convicted and go to federal prison in 1991.
Even without the later machinations of defense counsel Laura Brevetti’s “fixer” husband, Martin Bergman – which started with planted smears of prosecutors in the New York media and continued all the way through to witness-tampering – the McMahons would have been nailed if not for the early warning to them that Dr. Zahorian was “hot” and needed to be removed as a WWF-appointed attending physician under Pennsylvania’s newly deregulated state athletic commission procedures.
Dave Meltzer, publisher of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, who has covered the industry and the trials longer and harder than anyone, says, “The key to the acquittal is Linda being tipped off and Zahorian never being hired. Zahorian actually hired and working for the company, and they’d have lost the case.”
Linda McMahon’s December 1989 memo instructing executive Pat Patterson to fire Zahorian surfaced during the recent Senate campaign through the reporting of Ted Mann of the New London Day. But with investigations of what is now World Wrestling Entertainment reviving at both the state and federal levels, more needs to be known about how the government sabotaged the 1990s case. Linda has said that James West, then the U.S. Attorney in central Pennsylvania who was coordinating the Zahorian prosecution, told one of the McMahons’ lawyers, Jack Krill, at “a fundraising event.” West vaguely denied that to Mann and then told me that he didn’t want to talk about the past. Sorry, Mr. West; the past has become prologue.
Incoming senator Richard Blumenthal, coming from the state attorney general’s office, should understand as well as anyone that the integrity of new attempts to reform pro wrestling requires setting the record straight on past efforts. The McMahons habitually and erroneously cite their acquittal as vindication, and one of the things allowing them to continue to run an entertainment death mill is the public absence of an institutional memory. The historical questions “how?” and “why?” still matter.
*****
To resume the narrative started here yesterday, WWF lawyer Jerry McDevitt and his team scored an important victory in their fight for survival when the government decided to abandon the allegations of sexual abuse inside the company and to focus on the steroid charges. But, of course, the McMahons still wanted acquittal at trial and they couldn’t rest on the assurance that their better-late-than-never separation from Zahorian would be enough for a not-guilty verdict.
Fixer deluxe Bergman went so far as to meet with star prosecution witness Emily Feinberg, Vince’s ex-secretary, and bait her with suggestions of six-figure payments for tabloid TV interviews. Incredibly, this story, which was exhaustively documented in 1995 by both the New York Post and the Village Voice, got censored in the 2010 Senate campaign coverage everywhere except on this blog.
A final and decisive factor in the 1994 acquittal was simply the bungling of the prosecutors: on at least one of the counts, they hadn’t even established proper jurisdiction for the trial in the Eastern District of New York. You have to wonder if Bergman’s smears in The New York Observer of Sean O’Shea, chief of the Business/Securities Fraud Unit for the U.S. attorney there, had rattled him. Another possibility: The Justice Department bureaucracy as a whole was conflicted or half-hearted about the McMahon prosecution once the decision was made to confine it to steroid charges, and the result was the undermining of its own case, consciously or otherwise.
Marty Bergman was investigated for witness tampering in the Emily Feinberg matter, but he was never charged. By leaking the story to the Post and the Voice, prosecutors may have been taking their payback against him and the McMahons as far as they wanted it to go: exposing these out-of-bounds defense tactics without further exposing the humiliation of their failed prosecution.
Irv Muchnick
NEXT: Additional related reading from this blog’s archive.
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