Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Geraldo Rivera At Large on Fox News had a small segment over the weekend on the passing of Brian "Crush" Adams, including a brief interview with former World Class Championship Wrestling TV Producer Mickey Grant about the wrestling industry.
After a video feature on Adams' passing,, Rivera asked World Class Championship Wrestling TV Producer Mickey Grant if WWE was blind and in denial to steroid abuse. Grant said that there are usually 80 wrestlers in the WWE stable, many millionaires. He said they "have the ability to know how to work around their steroids. They can drink different detox medications to get it out of them. A lot of the injectable steroids are out of your system in about 48 hours." Grant said that the only thing that WWE could really do is start testing performers about every day. Grant said his suggestion would be to look at who's cut and big (saying "that's about 40 of them") and then you can test.
When asked if Vince McMahon was to blame, Grant said, "Ultimately, it's the person doing the drug." Rivera disagreed and noted that in 10 years, "you have almost 60 wrestlers dead before the age of 50". Rivera made the analogy that if it was baseball, there would be demands for Congressional investigations. Obviously, he didn't know about the letters from Congress. Rivera said there were Prosecutors from different States "looking into this." That's a new one.
Rivera said the wrestling industry was in denial. Grant agreed that it was in denial. He said that in the 1960s through the 1980s, a performer's in-ring ability got them job. He said that the steroid look became prevalent in the 1990s. That would be wrong, because the larger physiques were going as far back as Superstar Graham and it would be impossible to say steroids had nothing to do with the success of the performers from the 1980s boom, including World Class' Kerry Von Erich. By the early 1990s, WWF was scrambling to clean up due to the George Zahorian trial and the impending Vince McMahon steroid distribution trial, right down to dismissing their top babyfaces in Davey Boy Smith and Ultimate Warrior on suspicion of using HGH to get around testing. So, Grant's timeline is off.
Grant said that the entire situation is hard on the WWE corporation because of the injury rate and the denial is in society as a whole, not just professional wrestling.
Grant's appearance plugged a documentary on the life of late World Class star Chris Adams' titled "Gentleman's Choice", which is seeking distribution theatrically and via DVD.
