Sports Illustrated reporters Luis Fernando Llosa and L. Jon Wertheim have revealed huge new details on pro wrestlers connected to the Signature Pharmacy drug investigation:
Eddie Guerrero – Received nandrolone, testosterone (principal male sex hormone, from the androgen group, and an anabolic steroid) and anastrozole (used to counter affects of steroids such as water retention and breast enlargement) two weeks before his November 13, 2005 death
Chris Benoit – February 2006 (the Wellness Program was implemented on February 27) – Received anastrozole and nandrolone (an anabolic steroid occurring naturally in the human body in small quantities)
Chavo Guerrero – Between April 2005 and May 2006 – Somatropin (human growth hormone), nandrolone and anastrozole, among other drugs
Shane (Gregory) Helms – Between November 2003 and February 2007 – Testosterone, genotropin (HGH) and nandralone, among other drugs
Randy Orton – Between September 2004 and February 2007 – Somatropin, nandrolone and stanazolol (a synthetic anabolic steroid derived from testosterone)
John Hennigan (Morrison) – Between June 2006 and February 2007 – Somatropin, anastrozole, testosterone, stanazolol and chorionic gonadotropin (a hormone produced naturally during pregnancy, HCG stimulates the production of testosterone suppressed as a result of steroid use)
Ken Anderson (Kennedy) – Between October 2006 and February 2007 – Anastrozole, somatropin and testosterone
Shoichi Funaki – March 2006 – Somatropin
Brian Adams (Crush) – December 2006 (he retired in 2001 and wasn’t under WWE contract at the time) – Nandrolone, testosterone and somatropin
Charlie Haas – August 2006 and January 2007 – Anastrozole, somatropin, stanazolol, nandrolone and HCG
Eddie Fatu (Umaga) – Between July 2006 and December 2006 – Somatropin
Darren Matthews (William Regal) – Between November 2004 and November 2006 – Stanozolol, somatropin, genotropin and anastrozole
Adam Copeland (Edge) – Between September 2004 and February 2007 – Somatropin, genotropin and stanazolol
Sylvain Grenier – Between February 2005 and July 2006 – Somatropin, nandrolone, genotropin and stanazolol
The full story can be found at SI.com (which reported in March that Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Orton, Helms and Edge were linked to steroids or HGH in the “Operation Netroids” investigation).
To recap, the following wrestlers were named as having connections to Signature today in the New York Daily News:
Randy Orton
Charles Haas, Jr.
Adam “Edge” Copeland
Robert “Booker T” Huffman
Shane “Gregory” Helms
Mike “Simon Dean” Bucci
Anthony “Santino Marella” Carelli
John “Johnny Nitro”/”John Morrison” Hennigan
Darren “William Regal” Matthews
Ken “Mr. Kennedy” Anderson
Chavo Guerrero
Eddie Guerrero
Chris Benoit
Eddie “Umaga” Fatu (added to updated version of article)
Shoichi Funaki (added to updated version of article)
Additionally, these names were revealed by ESPN.com:
Dave Bautista
Chris “Masters” Mordetsky
Shoichi Funaki
Adam Copeland
John Hennigan
Shane Helms
Chris Benoit
Eddie Guerrero
Brian “Crush” Adams
Here are some other notes on the situation, from Dave Meltzer at WrestlingObserver.com:
– The SI.com story must have included new evidence because the Observer received government evidence in May listed Edge as “not having received anything doctors were under investigation for in several years.”
– With Morrison and Umaga champions, and Orton in a major RAW program, Meltzer surmises that the suspensions were likely not made until Wednesday (after the Smackdown and ECW tapings) at the earliest, but most likely were made today.
– Grenier was fired for unrelated reasons.
– All of the wrestlers listed in the SI.com story would have to be suspended by WWE due to flagrant violation of the Internet prescription ban in the Wellness Program, except Benoit (he received the drugs possibly before the program was implemented) and Eddie Guerrero (the Program wasn’t in place at the time).
To that last point, ten wrestlers named in the SI.com article are on WWE’s active roster (despite Edge and Helms’ injuries):
1 – Chavo Guerrero
2 – Gregory Helms
3 – Randy Orton
4 – John Morrison
5 – Ken Kennedy
6 – Funaki
7 – Charlie Haas
8 – Umaga
9 – William Regal
10 – Edge
While this is not a confirmed list of the 10 wrestlers WWE has suspended for 30 days, assuming that most of those names are correct, the next month of WWE programming will most likely have to be re-written. On Fox News Channel’s On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (video), WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt said that they met with the D.A. in Albany a couple of weeks ago (who he said was also meeting with the major sports leagues) and told him that if it was confirmed that WWE wrestlers received shipments from Signature, the company would act on it, and that’s what they did. He confirmed that ten wrestlers have been suspended without pay, and that there may be two additional suspensions tomorrow once WWE talks with the talent to confirm the information. This was the first Wellness Program violation for nine of the ten, and the second for one, with wrestlers serving a 30-day suspension for a first strike, and 60 days for the second. He said that they will name talent that is suspended in the future as a deterrent, and that when WWE changed the policy, it was “a fair notice issue to us” to start naming names beginning November 1 rather than right away. McDevett said that policemen, firemen and pro athletes were also receiving drugs from Signature, and that he heard the NFL will be making an announcement soon. He said that he thinks clinics/doctors are big part of the problem, and that “the drug of choice, if you will, for any athlete who wants to avoid a drug testing policy is human growth hormone” which there is no test for. “It’s a problem all leagues have, it’s a problem we have, it’s a problem anybody has who is engaged in drug testing, and there’s no scientific method to detect when an athete takes human growth hormone.”
Finally, there is a good overview of this story at SLAM! Wrestling.
Note: We reached out to WWE for clarification, but have yet to receive a response.
