This Week in ‘E – Dr. Astin Goes to Jail

Columns

Dr. Astin goes to jail, Kid Rock gets erased from WWE history and Ric Flair threatens to return to the ring. Please Ric, just leave the memories alone.

Opening Witty Banter
Another WWE pay per view is in the books and a card that actually looked better than average on paper actually ended up kind of middling. As for me so far I’m loving my new job and the weather is getting better so life is getting better on my end for the time being.

Let’s take some ‘E…

The News of the Week
On March 12 it was announced that Dr. Phil Astin, former personal physician of Chris Benoit, has been sentenced to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to a 175-count federal indictment in relation to distribution of prescription drugs.

After his prison sentence is finished he will have to serve 250 hours of community service and three years of supervised release. His sentence was lighter than the recommended 11 to 13 year jail sentence. More than 50 of the counts each carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Astin pled guilty on January 29 to the indictment.

“I take full responsibility,” Astin told the judge Tuesday. “I am sorry I hurt so many lives. I was thinking that I was looking after my patients.”

U.S. District Judge Jack Camp said despite the fact that Astin helped hundreds of patients during his tenure, he could not overlook the fact that at least two patients died as a result of Astin’s misconduct.

“The fact that two people did die outweighs other conditions that I must consider,” Camp said.

The father of Chris Benoit, Michael Benoit, was on an Edmonton AM radio station today and is hoping that his family will now have access to Chris’ medical records.

“Now, since the trial is over, perhaps that will be made available to us,” said Benoit. “Perhaps that will provide more insight to how the doctor was treating my son, whether or not he was doing the proper follow-up, and making sure that what he was prescribing was doing any good, or if my son just kept asking for it. I’m really not sure.”

The sentence seems a little light to me and chances are he won’t serve half of that, but at least there is a little bit of closure to the whole story, almost two years after the fact,

Kid Rock’s entire performance has been cut out of the WrestleMania XXV DVDs. Apparently all the divas for the battle royal just randomly appear in the ring for their match.

I am assuming they did not want to pay Rock for licensing fees and the fact that his concert completely killed the crowd before the show hardly even got going. I appreciate the idea of WrestleMania having some musical performances to make it seem special but a five song, 25 minute mini-concert was much too long.

In a recent radio interview, Ric Flair mentioned that he the desire to return to the ring is getting stronger and claims he is still better than 90% of the current roster.

Okay I think I can speak for virtually everyone else who is a long-time wrestling fan, Ric Flair please stay out of the wrestling ring! He is one of my favorites (like virtually everyone else) but there is no need for him to return to the ring and tarnish his legacy like Foley has or even Hogan has. Flair already stayed longer than he should have and received the greatest retirement send off that any wrestler will probably ever see. Please don’t tarnish the retirement that WWE and Shawn Michaels gave you. Be a manager or on-air figurehead or whatever, just don’t get back in the ring. Be a mentor for your troubled son and help him survive the wrestling industry while being “The Nature Boy’s kid.”

According to new Comcast marketing campaigns for WWE pay per views, The Great American Bash will now be renamed simply “The Bash.”

Don’t like it, but I believe when I see it. It doesn’t surprise me that WWE would change the name of an old WCW mainstay to reflect their current timeframe. Plus I guess it might be hard to market “Great American Bash” in foreign markets.

Wrestler of the Week
Week of May 11 – 17: Edge
A lot kind of happened this week in WWE without anything actually really happening. There was a pay per view but nothing really happened and there was some decent action on Superstars and SmackDown but nothing really stood out. Guys like Orton, Morrison, Mysterio and others had a good week, but no one really stood out as a clear winner. So I have to give some love to Edge who main evented last night’s pay per view with a clean-ish victory over Jeff Hardy. Plus he had a fantastic dueling promo with Chris Jericho on SmackDown and then beat him by DQ in the show’s main event. With his current three week reign as World Champion he is well on his way to eclipsing about half of his previous Title reigns in longevity.

RAW’s On Tonight!
Randy Orton came out of Judgment Day as Champion and John Cena (aka SuperCena) dethroned the Big Show. Are the two RAW superpowers on a collision course or is there more to left in the rivalry between Orton and Batista? I’m guessing the battle of Evolution isn’t quite over but I’m hoping that Ric Flair stays the hell out of the ring. Plus The Miz looks to continue his one-man crusade against John Cena, The Brian Kendrick looks for a tag team partner to battle The Colons and it looks as if Santino Marella and Chavo Guerrero are on a collision course in an epic undercard battle. All this and more on an all new edition of RAW.

On Last Week’s Episode…
SmackDown, at least for the time being, has taken over the mantle as being the best wrestling show on television. Clarke brings the coverage.

ECW finally saw the re-debut of D.H. Smith, and in the perfect way possible, teaming with cousin Natalya and best friend Tyson Kidd in a new Hart Trilogy. Innarelli had the live recap and Bones brought his own thoughts.

RAW was pretty terrible last week, especially as a go-home show before a pay per view. Marshall provided the live recap and anti-thoughts while Kirschner also left his thoughts.

How They Rated
Superstars (5.7.09) – 1.0

SmackDown! (5.8.09) – 1.9

A.M. RAW (5.10.09) – .8

RAW (5.11.09) – 3.3

ECW (5.12.09) – .93

This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Wiswell looks at how Mr. JL’s ROH Title reign can be saved.

In Case You Didn’t Spend the $40
PK brought the live coverage for last night’s Judgment Day pay per view.

Here’s the quick ‘n’ dirty from Chicago:
Umaga pinned CM Punk after a Samoan Spike.
Christian pinned Jack Swagger to retain the ECW Championship.
John Morrison pinned Shelton Benjamin with the Starship Pain.
Rey Mysterio pinned Chris Jericho to retain the Intercontinental Championship.
Batista beat Randy Orton by DQ in the WWE Title Championship match.
John Cena pinned The Big Show.
Edge pinned Jeff Hardy to retain the World Heavyweight Title.

IP Staff Roundtable Results for WWE Judgment Day
Here’s the Judgment Day roundtable featuring Pulse’s best and brightest.

Roundtable Champion: Andrew Wheeler: 5-2 (134-75)

The rest:
Mark Allen: 4-3 (138-68)
Matthew Michaels: 4-3 (149-129)
Raffi Shamir: 4-3 (79-62
Brad Curran: 3-4 (65-41)

For more relevant, interesting and exciting wrestling information from your truly, check out my gig as the Pro Wrestling Examiner over at Examiner.com.

Mark was a columnist for Pulse Wrestling for over four years, evolving from his original “Historically Speaking” commentary-style column into the Monday morning powerhouse known as “This Week in ‘E.” He also contributes to other ventures, outside of IP, most notably as the National Pro Wrestling Examiner for Examiner.com and a contributor for The Wrestling Press. Follow me on Twitter here.