EDITOR *** CORBETT
'COUNTERFEIT HERO'
ID* Investigative Day
& Paperback Writer Inc.

SAY IT AIN'T SO, HULK!
Direct examination
of Terry Gene Bollea (Hulk Hogan)
by Assistant D.A. Sean O'Shea

O'SHEA:  Have you used steroids prior ... had you used steroids prior to going to work for WWF?
HULK: Yes, sir.
O'SHEA: When did you start using steroids, Mr. Bollea?
HULK: Probably the middle of 1976.
O'SHEA:  And what ... over the years what sort of steroids had you used?
HULK: Injectibles and orals.
O'SHEA: Okay. Can you give us some of the names of the steroids you would have used?
HULK: Dianabol, Anavar, Winstrol, testosterone, Deca Durabolin.
O'SHEA:  A steroid commonly known as Deca?
HULK: Yes, sir.
O'SHEA: And is it fair to say that that was the steroid you used the most?
HULK: Yes, sir.
(Excerpt from official court transcript, U.S. Courthouse, Uniondale, New York, Thursday, July 14, 1994)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: KAYE CORBETT

AS A CARNIVAL WRESTLER,  who appeared as the villainous Viking in the 1982 Walt Disney movie, Running Brave, Kaye Corbett grew up around the wrestling game during  its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s in western Canada and the U.S.
  It was there he first became acquainted with such legendary wrestling figures as Stu Hart, Killer Kowalski, Lou Thesz, Pat O'Connor, the Mills Brothers, and Timothy Geohagen.
  Although his passions were wrestling and football, Corbett found his talents were best suited to the newspaper game and as a "scribbler" and editor he worked for the Hamilton Spectator and the now-defunct Toronto Telegram, before joining the Toronto Sun as assistant sports editor, where he had the privilege  of "hanging around" promoter Frank Tunney and a cast of colorful characters from Whipper Billy Watson to Gene Kiniski to Chief Jay Strongbow to The Sheik (hiss! boo!)
  Later, he helped start the Edmonton Sun as its first Sports Editor, and as Executive Editor he renewed acquaintances with Stu Hart, father of Bret (The Hit Man) Hart and his brother, Rocket Owen and, especially, Mike Bulat, to whom this book/documentary, Counterfeit Hero, are gratefuly dedicated. Before returning to the Toronto Sun in 1986, Corbett and Bulat teamed up for a weekly TV wrestling show.
  In 1995, Corbett moved to the mountains of British Columbia, where he is working on several projects, including the second in this series called The Early Years on The Ankle Express.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE GREAT morality play of the 1990s didn't involve the so-familiar features of O.J. Simpson, but of two musclemen -- Terry Bollea, known throughout the universe as Hulk Hogan, and Vince McMahon. They were mired in a bog of drugs and questionable behavior. Hogan was a hero to millions of kids -- and then he fell. McMahon was the mastermind behind the enormously successful rise of professional wrestling. Then there dreams vanished in a cloud of bright hopes gone gray. Good vs. Evil. A matter that was left to a Long Island court during 1994 and still the haunting question remains: Was justice served?

  Counterfeit Hero was written by Kaye Corbett, but it would not have been possible without the words and observations of Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Other news and photographic sources include Penthouse, People, New York Post, New York Times, Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, San Jose Mercury, San Diego Tribune-Union, The Associated Press, St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, Los Angeles Times, The State of Columbia, South Carolina, National Star, Charlotte Observer, Lexington Herald Leader, Tampa Tribune, Sports Illustrated, Wrestling Then & Now, Pro Wrestling Torch, Mat Marketplace, Cauliflower Alley Club, Harrisburg, Pa. Patriot, plus Joe Jares, Harry Rapaport, Mike Bulat, Sean O'Shea and a cast of courageous wrestlers, particularly Superstar Billy Graham, David Shults, Billy Jack Haynes, Barry Orton, Tom Hankins, and friends, who put their reputations on the line, in order to set the record straight.

  Also a special thanks to Julie Kirsch and her efficient library staff at the Toronto Sun.
  FRONT COVER PHOTO CREDIT: Editor Corbett (Toronto Sun)
  BACK COVER PHOTO CREDIT: The Viking (Running Brave, Walt Disney Productions, 1982)

DEDICATION

For Mike Bulat
who believes in the business
through good and bad times 
  


INTRODUCTION
By Max Haines of the Toronto Sun

THE VILLAINOUS VIKING has crafted a winner. Who but respected journalist Kaye Corbett, once known as the Villainous One himself, could bring the reader into the inner circle of wrestling. After reading 'Counterfeit Hero' you will never view the grunt-and-groan boys in the same light again.
  Corbett reveals the inner workings of the World Wrestling Federation with special emphasis on its kingpin, Vince McMahon. He reviews the checkered history of McMahon and his wrestling heroes, who have been portrayed with publicity expertise as either clean living  lily whites or lovable monsters. Corbett exposes the chinks in the armour of the game itself, exposing  the influence that anabolic steroids have had on athletes. In addition, he documents child sex abuse within the sport which precipitated the resignation of several executives.
  Not even the game's superhero, Hulk Hogan, is left unscathed. Despite his public persona as a clean living wholesome giant, Hulk Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) has been linked to steroids and drugs. Corbett reveals that the Hulkster's image is well protected, and with good reason. He is the star of a merchandising  empire which grosses $1.7 billion annually. He also stars in movies and commercials. To maintain his image, particularly with the Little Hulksters, he visits as many as 30 children's hospitals in a week. It pays well for Hogan to perpetuate his clean living, child-oriented image.
  Not all things have been one hundred per cent kosher within the WWF and Corbett reveals all.
 There was a time Jake the Snake (real name: Aurelian Smith) allowed his gimmick, a cobra named Damien, to bite fellow wrestler Randy (Macho Man) Savage (real name: Randy Poffo). Sometimes a wrestler will turn on the hand that feeds him.
  Jesse (The Body) Ventura (real name: Jim Janos) once successfully sued the WWF for defrauding him of royalties on videos sold by the federation. The Body was awarded $809,958.
  Tragically, Corbett recounts the sad life of Andre The Giant (real name: Andre Rene Rousimoff), who suffered from a form of giantism, known as acromegaly, until his death of natural causes on Jan. 28, 1993 in Paris..
  Even one of the WWF's former heroes was murdered. Dino Bravo (real name: Adolfo Bresciano) was shot to death in his $850,000 home near Montreal. To this day, the crime remains unsolved.
  Tragedy also seems to follow Fritz Von Erich (real name: Jack Adkisson). Five of Adkisson's sons have died of disease, accident or suicide.
  After walking through the dry rot that is the modern version of the World Wrestling Federation, Corbett relates the details of Vince McMahon's trial in which he was charged with conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids. The testimony and evidence is presented in a most readable manner.
  You need not be a follower  of the wrestling game to enjoy this most comprehensive narrative of a sport gone big-time entertainment. It is told in the concise no-holds-barred style of Kaye Corbett, an accomplished journalist and former editor.
  It doesn't hurt that he was also once known as the Villainous Viking.
(Max Haines, one of the world's most famous and prolific crime writers, is the author of more than 14 books)

PROLOGUE:
The Rape of Rasslin'
i.
ONCE UPON A TIME the rasslin' dinosaurs ruled the world. Now the majority's extinct. The rest of the once-great herd journey to Studio City, California in March and to Issaquah, Washington in late June.
  They dub their herding instincts the Cauliflower Alley Club and Reunion I, II, III, IV, and V, as it was in 1994.
  All these dinosaurs remember the past before the spring in their legs turned to winter.
  Old "enemies" share "war stories" and in their mind's eye, they listen to the sights and sounds of a more innocent time.
 
  Blank screen.
  Announcer's voice: Argentina Rocca, sporting freshly clipped toenails teams up with Miguel Perez to meet those two fearsome thespians of the mat game -- the Graham Brothers. It's a tag-team match and anything goes. Rocca and the Grahams have met before in one of the bloodiest spectacles in mat history ... the Grahams waste no time in working over Perez, but they still have to deal with the Barefoot Contessa ... Rocca feels left out, so he crashes the party. You can be sure the Grahams didn't invite him ... Rocca offers Eddie Graham the Toe-Nail Special, and all Eddie gets is a bad case of Athlete's Nose. The Shoeless One continues his orthopaedic massage on the helpless Graham until Eddie feels as if his face was a doormat in Macy's during a girdle sale.
  Final scene: Rocca and Perez are doing all the tagging. They wind up the action with a few tricks that never got in the rule book. The Grahams have been foiled once again, and although they gave a valiant effort, it wasn't in the books for them. The fans are happy ... but the Grahams are upset, being the good sports they are, the brothers manage a smile. On the way out, Perez gives Eddie a love tap to show he still cares. Thus ends another thrilling episode of the trials of a professional
 wrestler ...

Blank screen.

ii.  LORD ATHOL LAYTON
GOOD EVENING, sports fans, Lord Athol Layton your commentator at the ringside of the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium with wrestling at its very best. Pedro Martinez has gone all out and has provided a contest here: The Battle of the Giants. You see the the two giants taking their instructions in the ring at the moment. Big Bobo Brazil, the colored sensation from the West Coast, previously from East St. Louis, Illinois, who has come here with a fine record and is displaying great form, pitted against the Big Ozark giant tonight, Sky Hi Lee, who weighs 290 pounds, 6 feet 7 in height ... Bobo Brazil , incidentally, 6 feet 6 in height, weighing 278 pounds. Bobo Brazil made a great debut here last week, when in 13 seconds he subdued his opponent and tonight, Sky Hi Lee, showing utter contempt for Bobo Brazil, but Bobo Brazil, highly rated, regarded as probably the greatest colored man in the business ATTACKS Sky Hi Lee from the outset and hits with a head butt ... and with a bulldogging hold and another headbutt by Bobo Brazil, as he takes Sky Hi Lee ... and buries his head in the canvas. And the referee is down ... ONE, TWO, THREE, and ... another fast win on the part of Bobo Brazil as he compltely surprised the mighty Sky Lee, er, seldom or never before have I ever seen Sky Hi Lee so completely surprised by an opponent as he was here by this mighty colored boy. Bobo Brazil rushed and before Sky Hi Lee could could collect himself in the contest, he gave him a big headbutt , took him in a side headlock and drove him into the canvas as he rushed across the ring, then he repeated that, fans. He headbutted him once or twice, and then he drove him again and got this quick win ... And there we have it, at 29 seconds this week, 29 seconds, Big Bobo Brazil from East St. Louis, Illinois, with a surprise attack on Sky Hi Lee, made short work of him and defeated him in suck quick time. That is a most impressive win, a most impressive win on the part of Bobo Brazil, who shows he means business in these parts, and will, undoubtedly, take on the best of them, and that looks like a tough assignment for a lot of rougher wrestlers in these parts. And there goes Sky Hi Lee, an unhappy man, a surprised man, defeated so soon by Bobo Brazil ...
  Fade to black.

  Blank screen
  Fists fly as a pudgy Bruno Sammartino and a balding Hans Schmidt trade punches and near-misses in the middle of the ring.
  TV announcer: That's the bell? I think the bell rang! The bell may have rung, but these two fellows are't willing to break it off ... Hans Schmidt isn't willing to settle for that, he wants to keep going. They are. Look at those punches! And Sammartino has a big grin on his face ... Look at Hans, he wants to check the ballots before they're totalled up.
  Hans Schmidt (deep growl): Do me a favor ...
  Ring announcer (backing away from Schmidt: The official decision. A draw.
  Fade to black.

iii.

WHEN THE 37th annual Cauliflower Alley Club banquet settled in at Studio City, Ca., on March 19, 1994, the familiarity of old faces still bred content. There was Dick Hutton, Billy Robinson, Al (Kangaroo) Costello, Sherri Martel, Peggy Allen, Penny Banner, Gene Kiniski, Verne Gagne, Danny Hodge, Tiger Conway, Dick (Destroyer) Beyer, June Byers, Bette Clark, John Tolos, Hardboiled Haggerty, Don Curtis, Toru Tanaka, Bruce Swayze, Red Bastien, Pepper Martin ... and the Elder Statesman, Lou Thesz.
  The 1,400-member-plus fraternity traded stories of early TV wrestling of Bobo Brazil's Coco Butt; of Timothy Geohagen's Irish Windmill; of Danny Hodge's Banana Split; of The Sheik's Camel Clutch; of Thesz's Airplane Spin; and of the dear friends, who had departed during the previous 12 months, including the flamboyant Buddy (Nature Boy) Rogers, Bulldog Don Kent, Ronnie Etchison and Eddy Creatchman.
  However, the convrsations mainly centered on Vince McMahon, the 48-year-old son of an old-time promoter by the same name, who was facing up to 11 years in jail for distributing steroids in a court case, which would begin in Uniondale, N.Y., on Tuesday, July 5, 1994.
  The Old Guard would, perhaps, finally see justice done, for they all, seemingly, echoed the words of their Elder Statesman, Lou Thesz, when he, emphatically, stated: "He (McMahon) raped wrestling."

iv.

IF ANYONE was to the manor born, it was Vincent K. McMahon, for his father, Vincent J., once ruled wrestling in the northeastern United States, from New York City's old Madison Square Garden, and his granddaddy, Jess, was a boxing matchmaker for the legendary Tex Rickard and later worked as a wrestling promoter in the Big Apple and Philadelphia.
  Grim, smoke-filled arenas and brutes such as Skull Murphy and Moose Cholak were the order of the day with the promoters' sales pitch targetting the working-class male, who wanted to vent his venom at his lot in life on these seemingly out-of-control mastodons.
  McMahon The Elder was just one of about 30 warlords across North America, who controlled their territories, usually with an iron hand, as well as their stable of wrestlers.  However, McMahon was one who admantly believed in something called television, in the 1950s.
  Vincent J. had a string of hits, and very few misses, jamming Madison Square with memorable matches, particularly from 1950 to 1971 with power-packed names such as Argentina Rocca, Gene Stanlee, the Mighty Atlas, Ricki Starr, Dick the Bruiser, Primo Carnera, Pedro Morales, Stan Stasiak, and his premier performer, the Living Legend, Bruno Sammartino.
  There were other promoters scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada, who, were just as successful at the gate, from Frank Tunney in Toronto, Sam Muchnick in St. Louis, Paul Boesch in Houston, Roy Shire in San Francisco, and a compact wrestler-promoter, Stu Hart, out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who had been one of McMahon's stablehands at MSG.
  In the central U.S., Buddy Rogers, Pat O'Connor, Gagne, Baron von Rashchke, the Vachon Brothers, Crusher and Dick the Bruiser packed 'em in at Chicago's Comiskey Park, while Thesz, Baron Michele Leone, Leo Nomellini, Fred Blassie and John Tolos were drawing cards in Frisco's Cow Palace.
  Tunney, once called a splendid set of cauliflower ears, was an articulate and shrewd businessman, pushed the Toronto terriotry to new heights; first with clean-cut Whipper Billy Watson against the meanest Gene of them all, Kiniski; then came the devilish and deceitful Sheik and his treacherous accomplice, The Weasel Farouk. The Maple Leaf Gardens' throngs would never be convinced that this pair was, in real life, two successful businessmen, named Ed Farhat and Ernie Roth.

 v.

OF COURSE, wrestling has always been a piece of work, relying on the gullibility of its patrons, but never being able to reach the mainstream. It seemed forever destined to be relegated to a pseudosport, with limited followers, who would be forever lost in a time warp of discussing whether the chicanery in the ring was fake or not.
  Even McMahon The Elder had a story to tell, one which would be dubbed The No-Wrestlers-In-Jail Defence in Joe Jares' brilliant book, Whatever Happened To  Gorgeous George?
 
  VINCE J. McMAHON:  They used to ask Ed (Strangler) Lewis, the old champ, whether it was fake, too. Once the question came up at a lawyers' convention in Chicago where he was speaking. Well, Lewis was very interested in penology and used to study the prison systems of various countries he wrestled in. So he told them, 'Gentlemen, I've visited many prisons in my time, and I've never met a wrestler in one. But I have met a lot of lawyers.'

  Writer Jares, whose father was The Thing, noted in the '70s that McMahon's story was another bit of illogic; first it wasn't illegal to fake a wrestling match, with most athletic commissions, requiring that they be billed as exhibitions anyway. Also Lewis wasn't looking very hard, for Jares said he knew of two wrestlers who had served time for passing bad checks.

  A college man, who was once a hulking heel-turned-babyface-turned promoter and announcer gave his version of the We-Just-Add-A-Bit-Of-Color Defence:

  GORILLA (BOB MARELLA) MONSOON: Every man in this business is a professional, who knows the fundamentals and refinements of wrestling. But we also deal in excitement, and the other way to get excitement is to deviate  from the rules. If we gave people collegiate wrestling, the arenas would be empty. We add color.

  Then another old-time wrestler had his own spin on a professionm which dates back to Greek mythology:
 
  JACK ARMSTRONG:  Let's face it, we could kill each other each night at any given time on any given night. A blow to the right place, a foot to the heart too hard, anything. But we all realize the other guy's got a family to support and money to make so we don't go overboard.

 vi.

FATHER VINCE  was an innovator, the booker of the young Italian, Bruno Sammartino, and the Fabulous Moolah, known to her friends as Lillian Ellison from South Carolina with her dipped-in-molasses accent, which called up visions of Scarlett O'Hara twirling her parasol, according to writer Jares.
  However, it was McMahon and his chief Garden aide, Willie Gilzenberg's manipulation of television, which was their forte.
  Unlike other promoters in other territories, or fiefdoms, across North America, McMahon The Elder didn't allow TV to swallow him.
  In the 1940s when TV came along, promoters didn't really know how to handle it, and by the mid-'50s, wrestling became a classic case of overexposure, saturating the small screen on a daily basis.
  Then the novelty wore off.
  McMahon and Gilzenberg weren't caught up in the dilemma because they found a way to use TV than, as Jares wrote: "(Being) drained by it and discarded, like boxing or an old Brillo pad."
  The formula was simple: Never show the TV watcher the match he really wanted to see.

  WILLIE GILZENBERG: He has to come in person to see that. If you give it away for nothing, why should anybody come to the arena to pay to see it?

  Then came the insertion of hyping upcoming local wrestling on these TV tapes.
  These and other McMahon-Gilzenberg TV innovations were forerunners of today's glitz and bombastic behavior, pay-per-view (PPV) events and blockbuster merchandising, which was to balloon into millions in revenue and become perfected by McMahon's son, Vincent K.

  vii.

  INTENSE, EVEN as a youngster, Vince K. grew up in the giant shadows of his father and grandfather, watching their every move. He was an extraordinary pupil.
  McMahon The Younger was discontented with the status quo in professional wrestling, at a young age,  deploring the fact that North America was cut up into little pieces by promoters, such as his father.
  "There must be a better way," he thought.
  After attending East Carolina University, Junior worked for his father as a wrestling commentator on cable TV and then he branched out on his own in 1979 by buying the Cape Cod Coliseum in South Yarmouth, Mass., with his wife, Linda, the marketing director.
  The 7,200-seat facility, which had been built in 1973, had been the resort peninsula's summertime rock headquarters, drawing such major names as the J. Geils Band, Dave Mason, Van Halen, Crosby Stills & Nash, Boz Scaggs, Doobie Brothers, the Grateful Dead, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty.
  However, Linda McMahon wanted to turn it into a year-round venue. There were Atlantic Hockey League games in the winter, the occasional pre-season games involving the nearby Boston Bruins and, of course, Junior's promotional passion -- pro wrestling.
  The experience of owning the Coliseum brought him closer to his manifest destiny: that of meshing rock 'n' roll with rasslin'. In 1982, he had bought out his father's stock in the WWWF (shortened to WWF -- World Wrestling Federation), which had been founded in 1963.
  Two months before his father, Vincent J., died in July, 1984, McMahon The Younger and his wife, Linda, sold the Coliseum, It would be later converted into a warehouse. The move appeared necessary, for the couple had moved from the Cape to Greenwich, Conn., closer to the TV scene.
  After the death of his father, whom he called "a fabulous human being, warm and fair," Junior was able to launch a full-scale assault in reaching wrestling's Nirvana.      

viii. VINCE McMAHON (People magazine, March 1992)

"MY MAJOR step was television on a local basis. We already had out network in the Northeast and we started selling those shows to stations in other fiefdoms," he told People magazine in 1992. "In Chicago, in Los Angeles, the WWF brand of wrestling was something new. We had better athletes -- more upscale and more charisma. The local guys were lazy. They weren't listening to the marketplace. We were so consumer-oriented. We never lifted our ears from the ground. We gave the public what it wanted. We broke the mold."

  Besides breaking the mold, he also broke numerous promoters with his raiding parties.
  "There were maybe 30 of these little kingdoms in the U.S., and if I hadn't bought out my dad, there would still be 30 of them, fragmented and struggling, " he was quoted in the same People article. "I, of course,  had no allegiance to those little lords."
  A ruthless wheeler-dealer, he threw around tons of money to acquire local TV rights for the WWF's brand of story lines and characters accompanied by rock 'n' roll music.
  Besides scattering the "little lords" of the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in the South and Vern Gagne's National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) out of Minneapolis, Junior began realizing his rock 'n' roll and rasslin' marriage when pop singer Cyndi (Girls Just Want To Have Fun) Lauper took Wendi Richter under her wing and managed her to the WWF women's championship, beating the Fabulous Moolah in a packed MSG, plus millions on PPV. Lillian Ellison, the "beat-up old broad" of Joe Jares' days in the '70, and now managed by Captain Lou Albano, had held the women's strap for 27 years as Moolah.
 
ix.

THE ASSIMILATION of rasslin' into the American mainstream, nevertheless, wasn't completed until the introduction of a number of "cartoon" superheroes.
  The generations of smoke-filled, urine-laden arenas, where livestock usually roamed by day and hairy wrestlers by night, were banished forever. So was the age-old "blading," causing "juicing" (bleeding from the forehead), for bloodbaths weren't exactly family fare and neither were Stone Age grunt'n'groaners, who had long been a staple of wrestling.
  McMahon, in his Manifest Destiny, insisted on muscular beach boys, preferably blond, who were leapers and gymnasts, not ring tacticians. He knew he was in showbiz and had to have a level playing field to grab his share of the entertainment dollar.
  He needed a superhero, not just any superhero, but the ultimate hero of the universe. His choice became obvious: A tanned, blond 6-6, 290-pound muscleman named Terry Bollea. Under Vincent K's tutelage, Bollea would become the world's most recognized hero -- Hulk Hogan.
  Raised in Tampa, Florida, by father, Pete, a construction foreman, and mother, Ruth, a housewife and dance teacher, young Terry Bollea, had a somewhat troubled childhood, being sent away for fighting to Florida Sheriff's Boys Ranch, a training ground for reform school.
  He emerged as a born-again Baptist, or so the story goes, to study business at Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida; then later worked as a stevedore and a clerk in a Florida bank.
  "I was responsible for cashing checks, and after a while I caught on to something very interesting," he once told the Toronto Star's Jim Proudfoot. "Some of the fattest checks were made out to these big bruisers with funny hairstyles and cuts and scars on them. These guys were wrestlers and this was the kind of money they were making. I was earning about a tenth as much. I thought to myself: 'How long has this been going on?'"
  Getting in touch with a local promoter, Bollea, who had wrestled in college, had an auspicious debut, breaking his ankle, but he persevered and three months later he was packing 230 pounds of muscle when he was spotted by wrestlers Jack and Jerry Brisco.
  Paying his dues at $125 a week, Bollea emerged into Terry Boulder and Sterling Golden before being recruited by McMahon The Elder as an Irish villain, named Hogan, and then was given the Hulk Hogan "good guy" persona in 1983.
  The Hulk moved to the top rung of the WWF ladder in 1984, by projecting the imagery McMahon The Younger wanted, and with it came his first world title, by beating the Iron Sheik.
  Even People named him one of the year's outstanding personalities for "making scrap metal out of the Iron Sheik."
  The Party was just beginning.
  His biggest break came when Sylvester Stallone wanted him to be in Rocky III as Thunderlips, who took on Balboa.

  HULK HOGAN (as told to the Toronto Star):  You've got to remember what a huge audience one of those Rocky pictures would reach. I think Rocky III gave a lot of people their first positive impression of wrestlers, sort of made us into a universal form of entertainment. Shortly after that was when we began to see families at ringside, replacing the element we used to attract. Wrestling became respectable.

  Although Hulkamania was taking off, Trry Bollea, not Hulk Hogan, had some legal troubles, with a minor gun violation in 1980, and in 1985, he and TV's Hot Properties host Richard Beltzer had a dustup, which resulted in a $5-million lawsuit, one later settled out of court. It wasn't a piece of work when Hogan applied a chinlock and Beltzer fell unconscious on the floor, requiring stitches to his head.
  The Beltzer incident was only a minor interruption on the superhero highway to world-wide acceptance for Hogan and the McMahon-produced Wrestlemania, those Roman-numeralled carnival of sights and sounds.

x.

TERRY BOLLEA had, indeed, been transformed into Hulk Hogan, in and out of the ring, however, there were whispers in the business, that he wasn't as pure as the Caesar of professional wrestling had projected.
  These cartoon characters, with their bulging muscles, were at least 30 pounds heavier than their previous generation of wrestlers, and it certainly wasn't from high-protein supplements.
  Anabolic steroids appeared to be the key to their success. This Breakfast of Champions was legal until the 1980s, when medical reports started filtering in of its dangers.
  And then athletes started dying.
  Lyle Alzado was a prime example. The toughest hombre in the National Football League playpen was reduced to a frail, old man, with a massive amount of hair loss. He blamed his destruction on steroid abuse.
  With suddenness, the WWF, the wrestling arm of the ever-expanding Titan Sports of Stamford, Conn., was, indirectly, hauled on the carpet. Or rather into court.
  Dr. George Zahorian III, a Harrisburg, Pa. urologist, who happened  to be a WWF ringside doctor, confessed in U.S. federal court in June 1991that he had supplied steroids, now illegal, to Vincent K. McMahon, and wrestlers which included Roddy Piper, Brian Blair, Dan Spivey, Rick Martel, and, shockingly, Terry Bollea, er, Hulk Hogan.
  The dramatic trial, which ended in a three-year jail sentence for Zahorian, was made all the more intriguing since the judge in the case, William Caldwell, exempted Hogan from testifying, citing "private and personal matters that should be protected."
  Instead of evoking sympathy, Hulk Hogan actually drew heat, for fellow wrestlers had contempt for his denials and for his stand when he appeared on the Arsenio Show.
  Then came a hurricane of accusations, not only citing Hogan's steroid abuse, but his other alleged drug habits.
  With the opening into his secret world, previously hidden by story lines and hype, the entire realm of the WWF was laid bare. Vincent K. McMahon was desperate as he tried to plug the leaks in his ship, The Titan. There were others being accused of steroid and cocaine use, and even sexual improprieties, involving WWF ringboys.
  The talk shows, from Donahue to Geraldo, had lineups of the accusers vs. accused and the brash McMahon was battered from all sides. The Liege of Titan Towers, his $9-million headquarters in Stamford, and multi-million-dollar merchandising and TV empire, was crumbling before his very eyes.
  The growl had turned into a snarl and his massive wrestling company had turned into a litigation business of suits and countersuits.

xi.

ON TUESDAY, November 23, 1993, Junior had a smile of poured concrete as he left the federal courthouse in Uniondale, N.Y.
  He had been bodyslammed by U.S. District Court Judge Jacob Mishler, after pleading innocent to federal charges accusing him of peddling muscle-building steroids to his WWF wrestlers.
  The three-count indictment handed down cited McMahon with conspiracy and distribution  of gas, as it was known in the business, from 1985 through 1991.
  Some of the drug deals allegedly took place at Nassau Veterans Coliseum in Uniondale where McMahon booked matches.
  Assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, 37-year-old Sean O'Shea, would handle the case and, at the time of the indictment, confirmed the government was seeking to seize Titan's corporate headquarters -- The House That McMahon Built. It was alleged he had used Titan funds to buy the steroids.
  "The law provides for the seizure of property in drug offenses," reiterated O'Shea.
  McMahon had acknowledged using steroids and sharing them with a wrestler friend. He denied he was a dealer.
  The original trial date was set for Monday, May 2, 1994.

  VINCE McMAHON (walking to his car with his lawyer, Laura Brevetti): I'd like to say that sometimes life isn't fair. I believe this is one of those instances ... I'll have, er, more to say at the trial.

  There was little sympathy for Junior, particularly from one of his wrestlers.
  "George Zahorian went to jail for the crimes of Vince McMahon," grumbled burly and bearded Billy Jack Haynes.
  The references to the Zahorian trial became more prominent as McMahon's date with destiny loomed. It appeared as if it was Part II of the 1991 trial.
  While Zahorian had been hauled into the judicial net, would the government finally "nail" Junior, or would he escape again?
  And there was the world's most recognizable hero, Hulk Hogan.
  Would he finally admit, in open court, to using  steroids, after years of denial?
  The setting for a sensational trial , involving  those big bruisers with the funny hairstyles and cuts and scars on them, as Bollea had once described them, would, undoubtedly, occupy the attention of court "junkies" during the summer of 1994.
  However, that was before another superhero, O.J. Simpson, decided to go on his infamous Ford Bronco ride across the freeways of southern California.
  Suddenly, the TV cameras and newspaper reporters forgot about the Long Island case.
  Most of them missed a trial, which only McMahon could have produced, and it revealed a world of manipulators and also liars, who have as the great champion from the past, Lou Thesz, stated, "raped wrestling."
          
ONE
The Case of
the Missing Hulk


1.
IN THE  convoluted world of pins and needles, the name George Zahorian became almost a generic word, as if you could go into your corner drugstore and order a "Zahorian" off the shelf.
  Dr. George Zahorian III was a familiar figure in the World Wrestling Federation-based arenas. He was a regular Doc Feelgood, to all.
 However, McMahon's WWF and its parent organization, Titan Sports, tried to disassociate itself from the medic, particularly in late June 1991.
  A WWF senior vice-president bleated they were being victimized by reports that a suburban Harrisburg, Pa. urologist supplied steroids to five professional wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan.

  BASIL DeVITO: Neither the WWF, nor any of its wrestlers or associates, has been charged with any illegality ... We stand by our philosophy of wholesome family entertainment and the positive example we set for the youth of America.

  The Doc had been indicted in February, 1991 on 10 counts of distributing or intending to distribute steroids, five counts of distributing other controlled substances and two counts of using his offices to distribute the drugs.
  The indictment alleged that between November 18, 1988 and March 27, 1990, Zahorian supplied anabolic steroids to the wrestlers on "diverse occasions."
  Court documents referred to the wrestlers as John M. Doe, John B. Doe, John S. Doe, John P. Doe, and John H. Doe.
  The spculation on whom these John Does might be spread throughout the previously-insulated world of babyfaces and heels akin to a wildfire on a flinty Kansas plain.
  It was quickly extinguished when Zahorian's lawyer, Bill Costopouls, identified them as Hulk (Terry Bollea) Hogan, Rowdy Roddy (Roderick Toombs) Piper, Rick (Richard Vigneault) Martel, Brian Blair and Dan Spivey along with powerlifter, Bill Dunn, who would be the government's informant in the case.
  The middle initials in the John Doe references matched the first letter of the wrestlers' first names.

  BASIL DeVITO: The WWF feels victimized by the tactics and libelous statements the defense attrney, William C. Costopoulos, in utlizing the media in a bait-and-switch defense.

  In taking a slap at the media, Basil and the WWF were taking on a heavyweight, for it was the New York Times which had reported the real names of the five John Does. The Associated Press quickly spread the names out for their member newspapers.
  Then it appeared as if Costopoulos became scared after the names were trumpeted, for he wouldn't confirm the names of the wrestlers, and neither would U.S. assistant attorney Theodore Smith III.
  Although the names were put in a deep freeze by the legal beagles, three sources close to the case, who asked  not to be identified because the grand jury proceedings were supposed to be secret, spilled the beans and singled out Hogan, Martel, Piper, Blair and Spivey.
  It was a tempest in a pee pot, for Smith and none of the Does would be charged because steroid use wasn't a federal crime during much of the period covered by the indictment.
  Rudhing into the fray came DeVito, stating that the WWF had adopted a drug policy in 1987, prohibiting the use of controlled substances in connection with any if its professional activities.
  Actually, the smoking gun hidden in all the Zahorian mess was when Hogan's lawyer, Jerry McDevitt, who also represented McMahon sent Judge William Caldwell a sealed request, asking that Hulk be kept out of the proceedings.
  The reasoning, undoubtedly, in McDevitt's and Hulkster's mind, was a desperate attempt to salvage Hogan's "good guy" image.
  There was speculation the only way the WWF's superstar could be excluded from the trial was if the charge involving Zahorian's alleged distribution to him was dropped from the indictment.

2.

ON TUESDAY, June 25, 1991, Richard Vigneault appeared nervous and unsure of himself on the witness stand.
  It surprised those crowded into the federal courthouse in Harrisburg, Pa., for Rick (The Model) Martel, a.k.a. Vigneault, usually exuded confidence, if not downright arrogance. However, this was the real world of trial lawyers, judges and no-nonsense federal juries.
 
  TED SMITH (federal prosecutor): Did you buy steroids from Dr. Zahorian?
 RICK MARTEL (a reluctant witness, who admitted knowing Zahorian for 10 years, paused a few seconds before answering): Yes, I probably did.
  SMITH: Probably?
  MARTEL (staring at the table in front of him): Yes, I did.

  Piper, 37, Spivey, 38, and Blair, who didn't give his age, also faced the court and admitted they used muscle-building drugs, and admitted they bought steroids and painkillers from Zahorian, who was the Pennsylvania Athletic Commision physician at wrestling matches in Allentown and Hershey, and supposedly examined each wrestler before matches in the region.
  Prosecutor Smith showed the court subpoenaed records that the four -- Piper, Spivey, Blair and Martel -- ordered steroids over the phone and Zahorian shipped the packages to them via Federal Express.
  Costopoulos, in his cross-examination, centered in on the evidence that all four had bought steroids for their own use. It seemed to most that Zahorian's lawyer was leaning towards an entrapment defense over alleged sales to the government's key witness, powerlifter Bill Dunn, who had on the trial's first day -- Monday, June 24 -- claimed he had bought large quantities of steroids and painkillers from Zahorian while wearing a "wrire" that allowed the FBI to record the conversations.
  On the third day -- Wednesday, June 26 -- he attempted to paint the 43-year-old Zahorian as a compassionate doctor.
 
  BILL COSTOPOULOS: The evidence is going to show Dr. Zahorian had a weakness. His weakness was compassion and caring for the men he idolized since childhood, professional wrestlers.

  He maintained Zahorian wasn't aware the law had changed concerning anabolic steroids; that the law had changed concerning anabolic steroids; that the law itself was unconstitutional; and that the medic was intimidated into providing Dunn with "gas," who, in turn, secretly spied for the FBI.
  Then Costopoulos put his client on the stand.

  DR. GEORGE ZAHORIAN (sobbing openly): Over these years, these individuals were more than my patients. I consider these men part of my family. These were so misunderstood. People would look at them as freaks. I loved ... these men, and to this day, I love those men.

  Throughout his testimony, which was mingled with tears and sobs, Zahorian claimed he gave steroids to Hogan and the other five, which included Dunn, and that they were for performance enhancement and not for medical purposes.
  The Doc said he carefully monitored their physical conditions as a ringside physician, and emphasized he wasn't aware that supplying the steroids for non-medical purposes had become a federal crime.
  Judge Caldwell had earlier, of course, ruled Hogan disn't have to appear after McDevitt agreed that testifying would be an invasion of privacy.
  Because of that, Zahorian's so-called bombshell that Hulk once had a serious problem with steroids, but with his help, had been clean for a number of years, was such a dud.

3.

WITH THE AID of a cane, Wayne Coleman hobbled into the Harrisburg courtroom and testified that he bought steroids from Zahorian, but he didn't get any medical advice from him.
  Coleman, then 48, was a shadow of his alter-ego, Superstar Billy Graham, blaming his 20 years of reliance on performance-enhancing drugs had left him with a avascular bone disease -- the disintegration of the body's joints because of limited blood supply.
  The Zahorian trial heard Graham claim besides the degenerative bone disease, steroid use had left him sterile and with liver problems.
  He had received a complete left-hip replacement and, incredibly, returned to the ring 10 months later, and plied his trade in the WWF until February 1988.

  SUPERSTAR BILLY GRAHAM:  The doctor said not to wrestle again after the hip replacement or they would see me back in the hospital after four or five years ... They hit it right on the money. If I had known what steroids would do, I would have never taken them.

4.

ON THURSDAY, June 27, 1991, after three hours, the Harrisburg court found Zahorian guilty of 12 of 14 counts: eight counts of distributing steroids and four counts of illegally distributing prescription painkillers.
  He was found not guilty of one count of possessing steroids with the intent to deliver.
  Dunn, the massive snitch, squealed as part of a plea agreement to setroid-related charges in Virginia. He, of course, had worn a "wire" in gaining evidence against the urologist.
  Undoubtedly, the tapes were the most damaging, and even Costopoulos called them "overwhelming."
  The FBI had recorded Zahorian telling  Dunn how to smuggle drugs into other countries and warning him to be on the look out for the feds.
 
  GEORGE ZAHORIAN (taped conversation with Dunn as he filled out an order):  I see you. I take care of four or five wrestlers and that's it.  I don't need the aggravation, because it's too dangerous ... it's like I told you, cash and carry ... I want you to know they're watching. These guys (Food and Drug Administration investigators) are bastards.
 
  Dunn was told to put the drugs in his suitcase and wear a jacket and tie in order to get into other countries, without being frisked.
  On Tuesday, March 27, 1990 -- Dunn's last visit to Zahorian's office -- the lifter bought $7,000 worth of drugs while the feds listened in; then the FBI and the FDA got a warrant and swooped down on the medical office.
  Finally, Dunn, who would become the strength coach at Windgate College in North Carolina, claimed the doctor never examined him or asked questions about his past medical history. "He sold me anabolic steroids and I paid for them ... that was it."
  Costopoulos, perhaps, put it all in perspective during his opening statement before the jury of nine women and three men: "If anybody has any illusions about professional wrestling being a pure sport ... we may burst your bubble. The issue won't be the integrity or lack of integrity of professional wrestlers or professional wrestling. The issue is the integrity or lack of integrity of a doctor, this doctor."
 
  TED SMITH: For bodybuilders and weightlifters, he (Zahorian) was like a drug farm.
  BILL COSTOPOULOS: The use of steroids isn't limited to these wrestlers. They are used throughout the WWF. They either use them or they don't participate.
   BASIL DeVITO: Dr. George Zahorian III is on trial, not the WWF or any WWF wrestlers or associates is charged with any wrongdoing.

5. JACK SHERZER (the U.S. federal court reporter, Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot, April 14, 1994): 
 
ZAHORIAN WAS  sentenced by Judge Caldwell on December 27, 1991 to basically three years in prison and he reported on February 3, 1992. He was fined $12,700 and ordered to undergo two years of supervised release, which is like their thing of parole.
  They (the U.S. government) did take his office in Lower Paxton Township, but what the deal was ... he was smart and some of it was under his wife's name. I don't know how much they sold it for, but the deal of it was, the wife was going to  get 55 percent of the proceeds and the government got 45 percent.
  A lot of people were expecting Hulk Hogan to come, but I don't think there was any kind of resentment because he was a no-show and as far as the impact on the area, if you will, I think a lot more people were sympathetic with Zahorian.  As a matter of fact, in our paper, the Patriot, there was a letter from a Ray Carter. The headline over it read:

GIVE ZAHORIAN A SECOND CHANCE

  I think Zahorian's out now.

  On the same day, Sherzer was explaining Zahorian's situation, Judge Jacob Mishler was announcing McMahon's trial had been adjourned until Tuesday, July 5, 1994.

6.

HULK HOGAN's exclusion from the Zahorian trial opened up a Pandora's Box of accusations , and his so-called controller Vince McMahon tried to close the lid.
  Resentment swelled against the one-time drummer, Terry Bollea, particularly since Piper, Martel. Spivey and Blair, along with Superstar Billy Graham had to take the witness stand with WWF announcer Lord Alfred Hayes and Mike Rotunda, who now wrestles under the handle of Irwin R. Shyster (IRS), also named in testimony as having bought steroids from Zahorian.
  But there was no Hogan, who during the trial, holed up in McMahon's palatial digs.
  As soon as Zahorian was convicted, damage control went on red alert in the WWF and Hulk was booked on the Arsenio Show.
 
  HULK HOGAN: I've trained for 20 years, two hours a day, to look like I do. But the thing I am not is, I am not a steroid abuser. And I do not take steroids.
 
  Armed with the insight that talk show hosts such as Arsenio Hall, Davif Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Jay Leno, rarely explore the obvious, credibility took another slap across the side of the head.
  Hogan was lying as to his drug problems and Graham and David (Dr. D) Shults, among a cast of others within and outside the WWF's stable of wrestlers, tried to make noises and tell the world that McMahon had run a dirty operation for years.
  The mainstream media, with few exceptions, chose to ignore the mounting evidence against Hulk, McMahon and the WWF, wrestling's premier body of work.
  There were voices crying in the wilderness such as Phil Mushnick of the New York Post, Barry Meisel of the New York Daily News, Jeff Savage of the San Diego Tribune-Union, John Cherwa and Houston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times, and, in particular, Dave Meltzer of the insiders' Wrestling Observer Newsletter. However, on the whole, there was a perception that good ol' boys were just having fun. McMahon wanted to keep it that way.
  Hide the underbelly of the beast, at all costs, and adhere to the "mythology" of professional wrestling as espoused by a French philosopher in 1954.

  ROLAND BARTHES: The virtue of wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Here we find a grandiloquence which must have been that of ancient theaters ... Even hidden in the most squalid Parisian halls, wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles, Greek drama and bullfights. In both, a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.

7.

EVEN SUCH influential newspapers as the Toronto Sun turned its back on the scandals, which had become glaring since court evidence, in the from of Federal Express receipts (Zahorian's means of delivery) allegedly showed that McMahon got 34 shipments of "gas" and Hogan eight.
  In proven demographics, the Sun's circulation increased dramatically when the WWF was on the verge of another Wrestlemania or major event in Toronto, due to the addition of color posters of the Hulk and the Ultimate  Warrior -- Jim Hellwig.
  "Don't rock the boat," would be the jest of the response to my plans to write an expose' on wrestling's steroid abuse. I had first-hand knowledge of it as far back as the 1970s when the use of steroids certainly wasn't illegal.
  Rather than expose this world to the newspaper-buying public, The Sun suggested I track down Hulk Hogan and set up a phony (a.k.a. staged) photo of the WWF star and myself "tangling."
  Because of Hogan's hectic schedule and the WWF president Jack Tunney's unwillingness, such a photo op never came about.
  Meanwhile, the weak-kneed media continued to gush about the giants of the ring, particularly Hogan, who kept spouting, "Remember, Little Hulksters, to say your prayers, take your vitamins, and believe in yourselves."

8.

HOWEVER, THOSE stories, involving the Superhero, just wouldn't go away, particularly from Graham, Billy Jack Haynes and Shults.

  From the pages of Penthouse, Superstar Billy Graham reported after a 1987 Pontiac, Michigan Silverdome show, he and Hulk went into a shower stall where he injected Hogan with 600 milligrams of testosterone in the right buttock. Superstar claimed that scar tissue covered his right butt from so many injections over the years that it was difficult to get the needle in.

  Haynes remembers seeing a more violent Hogan when he was driving Billy Jack and two others to Hogan's Connecticut home during a snowstorm and Hulk was reportedly was popping pills, smoking pot and boozing while speeding at 80 plus. 
  After Haynes told him to slow down, he said, Hulk answered: "F... you, man. You only live once."
  Later he apologized for threatening "to kick Billy Jack's ass."

  David (Dr. D) Shults was more than offended by Hogan's appearance on Arsenio and his wimpish statements.
  Shults, a tough hombre who was fired by the WWF in 1985 and is a "bounty hunter," couldn't control himself and started opening up to Penthouse about a reckless, drug-crazed Hulkster during the days they shared a place in Pensacola, Florida. 
   Shults insists Hogan was a dealer in the 1980s and was known in wrestling circles as "the Tampa Pipeline." Dr. D related a story in which he complained to Hogan that a syringe was filled to a dangerous level, to which Hulk, supposedly, replied: "Just shoot it in there (his massive arms). When I die, they're gonna have these guns hanging out of the casket."
  Then with both guns blazing, Shults snarled: "Steroids (within the WWF) are the tip of the iceberg. There's cocaine, marijuana. heroin, crack cocaine ... It's a walking drugstore."
  
9.  BILLY JACK HAYNES

VALIUMS, PLACIDYLS, acid, pot. steroids, cocaine, alcohol are all a major part of professional  wrestling. It's all brought on by the promoter because he asks too much out of you. You're only a human being, but you're just a number to him.
  Back in 1987, I was in severe pain with two broken fingers, but McMahon wouldn't let me have any time off since Hercules and me were working a major program at the time.
  I was using Codeine and Tylenol III, supplied by Zahorian, because of the pain. The codeine made the pain bearable. I took two on an empty stomach.
  Let me say, I was on steroids at the time, and I saw my heart beat irregularly.
  I was on a plane from Detroit to Miami and they made an emergency landing in Charlotte and I was rushed to hospital. The doctors told me I needed either shock treatment or a pacemaker. I picked the shock treatment. I kept away from steroids after that, although I really blame the heart problem on the pain killers.
  But back to the steroids, I think Superstar Billy Graham was very generous to the WWF by saying 90 percent of the guys in the WWF used steroids. I think it was 100 percent at the time. Everyone was on. I can't think of one guy that wasn't.  There was too much of a supply and too much of a demand.
  Vince made sure there was both a supply and a demand.
  If it wasn't Zahorian, it was another doctor who came into the building with suitcases full of the stuff.
  The smaller guys were under the most pressure. If you didn't get big, you couldn't get a job.
  I didn't like steroids because they made me light-headed, but I can't lie and say I didn't use them ...
  I've shot up, er, Hogan. I've injected himself on more than one occasion. And he's injected me.
  Hulk's an innocent victim up to a point.
  When you're using your name to sell vitamins to children; when you got big by using drugs you're not very innocent.
  Even though this business is a work, you have to draw the line somewhere. I know Hulk will hate my guts for saying this, but it's the truth ...

10.

VINCE McMAHON tried to drive a slight wedge between himself and Hogan after the Arsenio appearance by saying, "I think Hulk told the truth, but, maybe, not the whole truth."
  It was all part of the damage control.
  The WWF and Titan Sports attempted a metamorphosis of sorts. However, most realized it was nothing more than cosmetic surgery.
  McMahon even tried to create a "babyface" out of himself and played the role of the victim  to the hilt, particularly, two years after the Zahorian conviction when he muttered that the feds had turned his "personal life into a crime," adding he was being lumped with the Harrisburg urologist's guilt. "The rap was an attempt to make me responsible for what the doctor did."
  Although he admitted he wasn't always clean, he suddenly became an anti-steroid crusader, by hiring University of Toronto professor, Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, to upgrade the testing.
  Another prime example of Junior's new stand came in late January 1992 during a TV taping in Amarillo, Texas, when he ordered his boys into a private room, slamming the door in the process.
  Then the yelling began.
  Overheard was Vince bellowing, something to the effect, that "you mother  ....... all tested black again. That's it. I'm not covering for you anymore."
  A former pro wrestler-turned-reporter, Don Denton, put it succinctly: "If the public is just figuring out now that there is a problem with steroid use in wrestling, then the public is just plain stupid. Do you actually think that people look that naturally?"
 

11.

ANABOLIC STEROIDS, a quick fix for athletes, who wanted to bulge up and out, had been the buzzword long before Zahorian and McMahon became household names. 
  While some popped pills, often prescribed  by "friendly" physicians, by the handful to boost their aggressiveness on the track, on the field and in the ring in the 1970s, others turned to orals and  injectibles, which packed muscles and confidence, but few were aware of their devastating effect.
  Zahorian's name had even popped up, with great regularity, in the 1970s.

  The Living Legend, Bruno Sammartino, a two-time WWF champ who claimed he'd never taken steroids, has always been a straightshooter, recalled seeing Zahorian wandering around the dressing rooms as far back as 1975, and said he had to smile, sadly, when he learned the doctor was being tried for the years, 1988 through 1990.
  After his exile from the WWF, he said it was scary to return as an announcer in 1984 and see, literally, hundreds of hypodermic needles lying around th men's room, realizing that, at the time, the bottom line of 95 percent were on the 'gas.'
 
  Veteran wrestler and former NFL linebacker, Ed (Wahoo) McDaniel, another one who resisted the steroid temptation, stated Zahorian was famous among wrestlers. He was quoted as saying, "We heard you go by his office and get a thousand tablets of whatever you wanted."
  It seemed almost incongrous that Hulk was still spouting his message to kids. Graham sneered that Hogan's sermon was for them to say their prayers and take their vitamins, "oral or injectibles."

12. 

STORIES OF flagrant abuse of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances didn't start nor end with the Zahorian-McMahon-Hogan connection.
  The most notorious steroid abuser was a rather naive Jamaican, who came to Canada in 1976 at the impressionable age of 15.
  Ben Johnson discovered a way to become an overnight sensation, believing religiously in "Better Living Through Chemistry." He had performed indifferently in track until 1977-78 when he spurted in height and weight, boasting a supermuscular  upper torso, unusual strength and an unorthodox stance of starting races with his elbows bent, which allowed him to break out of the block with extraordinary acceleration.
  On August 30, 1987, Johnson ran the 100 meters in 9.83 seconds. Then smashed his own world record with a 9.79 in the 1988 Seoul, South Korea Olympics. Then came the shattering news, Big Ben had tested for steroids, a complete no-no in the supposedly pristine world of the Olympians, although the East Germans and Russians had been linked to performance-enhancing substances for years. Two countries -- Canada and Jamaica -- went into mourning, and there followed nearly five years of soul-searching among track and field athletes, including the Dubin Inquiry in Toronto, which swept "steroid stars" into its net.
  On Friday, March 5, 1993, Johnson was banned for life because he tested positive for steroids twice in five years. After the Seoul Olympics, he tried to hide from the spotlight, but by early 1993, he wanted to hear the roar of the crowd once again. He was a miserable failure without the assistance of steroids, which had been prescribed by Dr. Jamie Astaphan and his coaching guru, Charlie Francis.
  Even with the overwhelming evidence of a positive steroid test during a Montreal track meet on January 18, 1993, Johnson, in a statement released by his lawyer, denied any wrong-doing.
  Carl Lewis, the U.S. flash and Johnson's chief rival on the track, who some hinted wasn't as clean as he espoused, offered no sympathy. "I'm not going to take my foot and drop-kick him while he's down," said Lewis. "What I will say is this: If he used drugs, I'm glad he got caught."
 
 13.


THEN THERE was Lyle Alzado, who once lived in RowdyLand, and died at age 43 from brain cancer. He blamed anabolic steroids, those high-yield, high-risk junk bonds for the biceps, for his illness.

  In the San Jose Mercury, sportswriter Mark Purdy once wrote that "no one had more fun being rowdy that Alzado. He grew up rowdy in Brookly. He played rowdy football at Yankton College in South Dakota. He played rowdier football in the NFL. Alzado created a character that was almost theatrical in nature. He ripped off the helmets of opponents, then laughed to reporters about it afterward. bulging out his eyes and growling."
 
  Alzado plied his trade at a high level, but when he died in 1992, he was literally a frail, old man with a bandanna on his nearly hairless head.
  "I had my mind set, and I did what I wanted to do," Alzado said about his steroid abuse. "So many people tried to take me out of what I was doing, and I wouldn't listen."
  He was diagnosed with a rare form of brain lymphoma in April 1991 -- less than a year after his ill-fated comeback with the L.A. Raiders.
  Even after he stopped playing in RowdyLand, Alzado, who claimed he spent $20,000 to $30,000 on 'gas,' continued taking them.
  Forest Tennant, the NFL's drug adviser from 1986 to 1990, has said steroids can cause two kinds of cancer: those in the sex organs, such as prostate cancer; and those in the immune system, such as lymphoma, leukemia and Hodgkin's Disease.
  The Lyle Alzado National Steroid Education Program, part of the non-profit Athletes and Entertainers for Kids organization, was developed to educate young people about th damaging and life-threatening effects of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones.

  Alzado also had his "Doctor Zahorian." His name was Dr. John David Perzik and RowdyLand Lyle was one of his best customers.
  In February 1991, the California-based medic pleaded guilty in federal court in San Jose to one count of conspiring to illegally distribute a prescribed drug, which put him behind bars at a minimum-security prison at Lompoc, California.
  Cops confirmed Perzik belonged to a multi-million-dollar steroid ring that included another Alzado supplier, Steve Coons, a Santa Clara trainer accused of being one of the largest illegal distributor of steroids. By September 1992, Perzik agreed to help the feds prosecute Coons.
  Even while Perzik was in jail, he continued illegally prescribing steroids. "He really didn't miss a beat," said California state prosecutor Russell W. Lee. "He kept on going."
  Perzik cleared more than $210,000 in profits from the illegal sale of steroids in 1990, acording to documents from the California Board of Medical Quality.        

TWO
Welcome to
Billy's Neighborhood

1.

IN THE winters of his discontent, Vince McMahon, the Liege of Titan Towers, certainly came under siege from all sides with the genesis being Hulk Hogan's self-serving appearance on the Arsenio show.
  Wayne Coleman, the now-ailing Superstar Billy Graham, broke his long public silence in regards to steroid use, first on a November 1991 Entertainment Tonight clip, and then a lengthy Inside Edition TV interview, which aired in early 1992.
  Graham compared Hogan with former Washington, D.C. mayor, Marion Barry, in that he preached one thing and did exactly the opposite in his personal life.
  Jesse (The Body) Ventura, who had been a major WWF draw before defecting to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as a broadcaster, also had Hogan in his gunsight, and demanded he come clean.
  The respected Ventura had shown his integrity, by never denying his own involvement with steroids.
 
  JESSE VENTURA: I stoppsed using them way back in 1981. I used them off-and-on from  1978 to 1981. I'd use them for about a month and then I'd get off them for six months. I didn't take anywhere near what people are taking today. I never experienced ill side effects, probably because I never abused them. I took only the recommended dosages and put four to six months between using them. I never did what they call stacking, going on two or three kinds at once. I feel I got away licky ...

  He and Graham are close friends and he feels pain for his condition, but he gave a verbal swipe at Hogan's head and said Hulk should never called Superstar Billy a drug abuser.

  VENTURA: I mean, come on. The thing people must remember is that steroids up until 1988 were legal. You could go to any doctor and get them. It wasn't until 1988 that they became illegal. It's very hard if you've got a steroid-using athlete taking something for five or six years that were legal and all of a sudden the government says it's a controlled substance and it's illegal. Well, you've got people psychologically addicted. Believe me, the steroid problem than just wrestling.

2.

JEFF SAVAGE of the San Diego Tribune-Union, in a devastating indictment in Penthouse, exposed Hogan, the cherished hero of the children of the '90s, as more than just a steroid abuser and a liar.
  Savage quoted Graham as saying, "we're flying to Minnesota and Hulk Hogan, who is sitting across from me, pours out a pile of cocaine onto a mirror. He offers me some, but I decline. 'Yeah, that's smart,' he says, 'Coke is a tough habit to break. ' Then he proceeds to shove three lines up his nose."
  It was inside speculation that one jobber had been peeing in test cups for Hogan since the WWF began cocaine testing in 1987. The results -- clean or dirty -- were sent directly to McMahon, and, he, supposedly, maintained their confidentiality in a locked desk drawer.
  Savage, Mushnick of the New York Post, Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and John Arezi on radio's Pro Wrestling Spotlight had continued to be the most aggressive journalists in a wallow of media mush, and it was Mushnick who uncovered more of Graham's riveting tale of woe, who, obviously, defied his lawyer's advice.
  Mushnick's feature story entitled Rasslin' and Steroids came after Superstar Billy and Shults' appearance on the January  3, 1992 Inside Edition TV show and the January 5 Pro Wrestling Spotlight radio program.
  In startling revelations, besides anabolic steroids, which had savaged Graham's life, Billy brought up phone calls he claimed he had with Ted Smith, the prosecutor in Zahorian's 1991 trial, and also the FBI in which Smith wanted him to be like Bill Dunn (the powerlifter used as a government informant in the Zahorian case). He was urged to make contact with McMahon, using a wire, to get information for the on-going probe into the WWF and Titan Sports.

  SUPERSTAR BILLY GRAHAM: The FBI told me the reason they're concerned and interested in McMahon is they felt the man might be connected with the Mafia. So I'm just going on the record now, if anything happens to me, or any member of my family, I want the FBI to start their investigations with Vince McMahon and the WWF.

  Billy's wife, Valerie Coleman, confirmed that her husband had, indeed, had calls from Smith and the FBI.
 
  After the Inside Edition piece, Dr. D was worried, claiming he had received six threatening phone calls.
 
  DAVID SHULTS:  If they want to harm me, they know where I live, where I walk the street. And if they don't know, they can get in touch with me, and I'll meet 'em, not like the (WWF TV) gun show Vince McMahon put me on to make me look stupid. I'm an expert shot. I carry a MAC fully automatic. I carry about 150 rounds on me at all times.

  Mushnick in his wide-ranging Post column delved into the angle where Jake Roberts' cobra bit Randy (Macho Man) Savage, in reference to McMahon's wholesome family entertainment claim; Shults' contention to have injected Hulk Hogan with steroids on hundreds of occasions and that Hogan "gave steroids to me and sold steroids to me and other wrestlers;" talked about Hogan's statements on Arsenio Hall; Graham's alleged injections of Hogan; Federal Express shipments from Zahorian to both Hogan and McMahon; Shults' claim that McMahon told him to see the doctor to get his arms bigger before he was to start a program with the much-larger Hogan; and brought up a segment of the WWF's syndicated show in which they were pushing the new WBF (World Bodybuilding Federation) magazine with the cover story being Why Big Guys Get All The Girls to an audence made up of children and teenagers; and citing that of the estimated one million steroid users in the U.S., nearly half are high school age or younger.

  A cantankerous and  arrogant Titan official, Steve Planamenta, immediately went into action, by belitting Mushnick's article, saying: "The Post is the Post. They're akin to Inside Edition."
 
  STEVE PLANAMENTA (four days after the Mushnick story and eight days after the Pro Wrestling Spotlight radio show): I haven't had a chance to talk to Vince (on the subject). I finally listened to Arezi's show a couple of days ago. I find myself laughing at parts, surprised at parts, appalled at parts. I thought the funniest part was Graham fearing for his life. To make the matters more comical, Arezi said the same thing, that he feared for his life. Neither of them is that important.

  The WWF spokesman wondered if Graham would have said anything had he and Titan Sports reached an out-of-court settlement, and noted Shults had gone public about plans to write a book on the subject.
  He also believed Hogan would eventually address the situation, and then went into a tirade about Graham waiting six months (after the Arsenio piece aired) before coming out with both guns blazing.
 
  PLANAMENTA: I'm not Hulk. I can't speak for him. I didn't tell him what to say. I don't know that anyone here told him what to say no matter what Billy Graham claims.

3.

ON FEBRUARY 5, 1992, the ABC-TV's 20/20 trucks moved into Superstar Billy's neighborhood in Burbank, Ca.
  Again Graham sounded off ; this time to interviewer Tom Jariel, talking about his own history with steroids. He went into detail on just how indoctrinated the drugs were within pro wrestling, and other aspects of the business.
  During the 20/20 taping, Graham estimated 98 percent of WWF wrestlers as having used steroids in 1987-8 when he made his comeback, and estimated the figure had settled into about 90 percent, judging from the videotapes.
  Jariel wanted the personable Graham to specifically comment about movie superstar Arnold Schwarzengger and Hogan, but Billy seemed to shy away from expanding on Arnie, except to say that he was his bodybuilding training partner in the early 1970s when Graham was wrestling out of California, and Schwarzenegger was in the middle of his run of six  consecutive Mr. Olympia titles.
  It was obvious Billy's wife, Valerie Coleman, was coaching him not to say too much; even though it was common knowledge that both he and Arnie used the same supplier, ringside physician, Dr. Bernhardt Schwartz, at the old Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
  Schwarzenegger has never denied being on the "gas," but his people indicated he won contests with them, and won contests without them.
  Jariel and ABC made it clear that his story wasn't about deception, in regards to steroids within the wrestling business, but about the anabolic steroids epidemic, particularly, as a warning for teens.
  Before interviewing Graham, Jariel spent the earlier part of the afternoon in Bakersfield, Ca., where he talked with the parents of a bodybuilder, who hung himself from a tree on his front lawn.
  Others interviewed were Mary Lou Gantner, the mother of a former pro wrestler-football player, who had committed suicide at the age of 30. She blamed steroid abuse for her son's death; and also Steve Michalik, a former pro bodybuilder, who nearly died of liver cancer after years on-and-off steroids.
  As for interviewing Shults, ABC was a little apprehensive, considering the fact he slugged 20/20 reporter John Stossell twice back in 1984 when he was doing a story on whether pro wrestling was real or fake.

4.

THE PHILOSOPHY espoused by those who continued abusing steroids, despite legal and suspected health problems, could probably be summed up in one sentence from Robert DeNiro's starstruck character in King of Comedy: "It's better to be king for a day than a schmuck for a lifetime."
 
  VINCE McMAHON:  We will be the standardbearer to all sports, pro or amateur, to follow in terms of their type of procedure.

  McMahon then hauled out the figures that his wrestlers' steroid use had dropped 35 percent from November 1991 to April 1992, according to his statistics.
  And also Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, the University of Toronto prof whom Junior had hired to upgrade the testing, promised "the level of sophistication to beat this drug test is not there: I can't even beat the test. The WWF will be clean in May, beyond IOC (International Olympic Committee) standards."
  In order to bandage the wound caused by the steroids furor, Titan even sponsored a symposium in New York City with DiPasquale the main speaker.
  The wrestling media, with few exceptions, weren't invited and the gathering drew the ire of the New York Post columnist, who had become one of the WWF's leading antagonist.
 
  PHIL MUSHNICK: The twisted men of the World Wrestling Federation know no limits. With many of its stars (as well as owner Vince McMahon) named in a federal trial (June 1991) as recipients of steroids, and with ex-WWFers coming out of the woodwork to tell of steroid abuse encouraged and rewarded by the WWF, and with the introduction of McMahon's made-for-TV World Bodybuilding Federation, McMahon conducted a steroid symposium for naive, unsuspecting and credibility-free members of the media. The press release/invite to the symposium contained all the spin-doctored baloney that those familiar with the WWF's practised evils have come to expect. "The main presenter, " read the release, "will be Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, one of the world's foremost experts on steroids" ... Village Voice identified the Canadian doctor as celebrated  by steroid abusers throughout North America as an  expert in beating drug tests. DiPasquale's periodicals read like a tip sheet for steroid junkies. Indeed, their clear target readership is neither physicians nor legitimate steroid patients. Instead, they're aimed at athletes. In the same press release, the following question is asked, "What research is being done to show the therapeutic treatment of steroids in muscle degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis?" Oh, so that's it -- the WWF's steroid use was merely an experiment to aid in the research of muscle disease. What in the world does treatment of multiple sclerosis have to do with steroid abuse by pro wrestlers and bodybuilders? ... The WWF and WBF are desperate to maintain the outrageous physiques of their stars under a cloak of legitimacy. Just another McMahon con. And the targets of these cons, as usual, is America's TV-trained children and adolescents.

  LARRY KING (asking McMahon a question on his CNN show):  You're saying there's no steroid use in the WWF?
  VINCE McMAHON (now using his dictatorial voice): Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

  According to Titan Towers, WWF wrestlers faced a six-week suspension without pay for a first offense, followed by a three-month suspension. A third positive test would result in dismissal.
  Lost in the shuffle of the WWF's posturing in early 1992 was news that Superstar Billy Graham had undergone a second hip operation in  southern California to replace the artificial hip that was put in in the late 1980s.
  Shortly after the surgery, Graham suffered a partially collapsed lung and lost a lot of blood during the operation and post-operation periods.
  The Grand Old Warrior refused a transfusion.

THREE
Vicious Vince
meets Hannibal Lecter

1.

THE ME decade of the Eighties had created a lengthy lineup of Machiavellian characters from  Michael Millken to Charles Keating, but none epitomized the period like McMahon The Younger.
  While many of the other miscreants of the age were shredded of their arrogance and greed by jail time or had been ostracized by society, Vicious Vince merely thumbed his nose.
  He was the ultimate paradox.
  The bombastic and volatile announcer on his brilliantly orchestrated television spectacles coupled with a secretive and manipulative personality, the mere mention of his name could send  waves of fear throughout his vast empire.
  There was a vast horde, who admired his business acumen, which had made him a multi-millionaire, but there was a singular view that as a human being he had fallen off the scale.
  While the gullible TV public saw a supposedly controlled McMahon, he would often rant and  rave in the Titan Towers on East Main in Stamford, Connecticut. "F... the press," he was overheard  to say, and, in milder tirades, he called most writers, "dirt bags."
  McMahon only consented to interviews when he and his protective staff were certain that the piece would be favorable and promote his productions as catering to "family values."
  However, by the time the Nineties arrived, tales of drugs and even sexual improprieties, along with the exposed foibles of his cartoon characters, including his special creation known as Hulk Hogan, tore a gaping hole in the febric of his World Wrestling Federation and his umbrella organization, Titan Sports.
  More and more voices were being heard, who articulately tore back layers of McMahon's veneer of respectability.

  PHIL MUSHNICK ( New York Post, March 18, 1992): Never will you ever encounter a human being more cold-blooded, more devoid of humor and propriety than Vince McMahon, America's foremost babysitter. In your wildest, most twisted dreams, you won't meet up with the likes of McMahon, a miscreant  so practised in the art of deception, the half-truth and the bald-faced lie as to make the Artful Dodger appear clumsy. A George Steinbrenner or a Don King  pale by comparison. So help us. Indeed Hannibal Lecter (the cannibalistic doctor in the movie, The Silence of the Lambs) is the only fictional character who comes close.

  The standard joke on New York radio was the estate of Hannibal Lecter was going to sue the Post for defamation of character because they compared him with McMahon.
  In what had become a familiar scenario, Vince did sue through his legal beagle, Jerry McDevitt, and in the suit claimed Mushnick had "written or orally states that Mr. McMahon is a child abuser, a child molester, homosexual, a charged hetrosexual rapist, a miscreant, a homosexual criminal sexual offender, a liar in general, and in specific respects a man practised in the art of deception, devoid of honor and proprietary (sic), a member of organized crime, and worse than the fictional character Hannibal Lecter, who killed and ate his victims."
  Then McMahon went to a "friendly" reporter for the Fairfield County Advocate, located near Titan's headquarters, and far removed from the "dirt bag" kind found in the Big Apple.

  VINCE McMAHON:  I just think it's extremely unfortunate ... To coin a phrase, it's tabloid terrorism, the worst aspect of the media these days. To see your name written in such a light as 'worse than the fictional flesh-eating character Hannibal Lecter' is demeaning to say the least. And it makes you feel very bad that someone who doesn't know you, would write these dastardly things that are totally untrue. It hurts big time. It hurts me, every member of my organization, and it hurts my family. You say to yourself, maybe that's it, maybe this will be the last one, the last outlandish thing (Mushnick's) going to say. You try to make dialogue, try to make contact, but that doesn't go anywhere. It just keeps going on and on. Finally you have to do something about it because it's so unfair. You seek whatever redress you have, and, unfortunately, in this case, it's the courts. People keep asking me, 'Vince, what did you do to this guy (Mushnick) to make him the way he is? I have no idea. I've never met him, although I've tried. When does it end?"

  Mushnick retorted: "The suit is full of shit, and I'm waiting for my chance to prove it in court."
  In a familiar scenario, McMahon dropped the suit against Mushnick in March 1994 after attempting and failing to get a ruling from the presiding judge to put the suit on hold until after the completion of his trial on steroid distribution and conspiracy.
  When the judge rejected the ruling in the Mushnick case, McMahon dropped the suit, meaning the Post or  Mushnick didn't have to pay a cent to Titan.
 
2.

VINCE McMAHON was supposed to be the Ideal Family Man, with a devoted wife, Linda, and even an heir apparent to the Titan empire, in son, Shane.
  However, a former WWF referee, Rita Marie (real name: Rita Chatterton) accused McMahon of rape during an interview on Geraldo Rivera's Now It Can Be Told program on April 3, 1992.
  She claimed the incident occurred on July 16, 1986, and began with Chatterton asking Vince for more bookings and, in turn, he wanted to discuss it further in the backseat of his limousine.

  RITA CHATTERTON: The next thing I know, Vince unzipped his pants and took my hand, and he kept putting my hand on his penis. He started telling me that he could either make or break me -- the choice was mine.  And he made me have oral sex with him. He started to get really excited and I pulled away, and he got really angry ... and when I said no, he said that I had better satisfy him. He started pulling my pants off, and he pulled me on top of him and satisfied himelf throught intercourse.

  Fearing for her safety, Chatterton said she waited until the '90s to tell her story, when other people were speaking out against McMahn's litany of "unconscionable acts," and when the public were ready to believe her claim.
  In going beyond the Rivera revelations, she told Jeff Savage in the now-infamous Penthouse interview that she had been warned by McMahon, at her hiring in 1975, not to have sex with any company employees.

  RITA CHATTERTON: After he finished raping m,e, he looks at me and I'm crying and he says, 'Remember, I told you never to have sex with someone from the company? Well, you just did.' And he starts laughing hysterically. What a sick man he is.

  Of course, Vince and Linda McMahon were immediately in contact with their lawyer, McDevitt, who besides launching a major lawsuit against Rivera and the Now It Can Be Told show, spouted: "The larger issue is the use of tabloid television programs to make stories where none exist. They have nothing to do with journalism."
  The suit, filed in U.S. Superior Court in Stamford, claimed Rivera, along with David (Dr. D) Shults, were involved in a scheme to extort $5 million from McMahon, in order to keep the charges made by Chatterton from going public. The ex-WWF ref's rape claims were also called fraudulent, and she was named in the suit as well.
  The aggressive Rivera, who had tangled with unsavory characters on his shows before, snapped: "It's a mark of honor to be sued by the WWF. I will bodyslam them in court." A Geraldo publicist, Jeff Erdel, was also quick to say: "We stand by the story. We repeatedly asked Mr. McMahon to appear on the program to counter the allegations. He repeatedly refused."
  As for Shults, his lawyer, Eileen McGann, said, "David looks forward to finally forcing McMahon to testify under oath about these absurd claims as well as other serious outrageous acts which will be the subject of counter-claims."
  Dr. D had been known  to call McMahon "a well-known bully," and he indicated he would likely counter-sue over the McMahon suit, which he and McCann called "bizarre and hysterical."'
  McMahon's lawyer would later expand on his journalistic theories about the Now It Can Be Told show to the Fairfield County Advocate.
 
    JERRY McDEVITT: In plain English, we were sick of it. Bashing Vince McMahon has become a cottage industry.  Geraldo said to Vince, 'We've got a woman here who claims you raped her. Do you want to come on and deny that?' What kind of a choice is that? It gives dignity ... if he appears. And it's bullshit.

3.

CHAUFFEURS know  more secrets than a bevy of high-profile lawyers. Never was it more true than in the case of Jim Stuart, McMahon's limo driver for six years, who claims he witnessed a rash of "unconscionable acts."
 
   JIM STUART: He (McMahon) would be doing drugs in the back of the limo, and I began to complain about it. I'd say, 'Vince, I don't think that's a good idea while we're driving,' and he'd say, 'That's none of your affair, that's mine.'

  He cited McMahon's disregard for the law, when Vince ordered him to speed 100 miles an hour from New York City to Hershey, Pa.

  STUART: It was wintertime and cold outside and we're late for a show and th speedometer needle is bent all the way, and he's yelling at me to go faster. He's back there with a couple of friends, and they're drinking and doing coke and laughing. Finally, I say, 'Vince, do you really think this is smart? What if we get pulled over? and he says, 'I'll handle that when it comes, I'll get out of it.' And that's how he is. He doesn't stop at stop signs or red lights. He says, 'Drive through that light.' He doesn't think those lights are for him. They're for somebody else.

  After McMahon fired Stuart in 1990, the limo driver filed a suit against him in August 1991 and, in a deposition with Titan's lawyers in March 1992, Stuart charged WWF officials with extensive use of "illegal substances," although the only name he said specifically was Vince's.
  Stuart went on to claim the reason he was fired was because he knew of a move to dump someone who was his friend. He said he was worried about retaliation.
  McMahon's lawyer, McDevitt, responded by saying Stuart "couldn't get over the fact he was just a driver."     

FOUR
Ringboys, the Veep
and the Assistant

1.

ON FEBRUARY 15, 1992, in the midst of a drug scandal which had rocked the WWF, and had even spread to the other minor organizations, a preliminary wrestler opened up an even seamier and sordid world within the business.
  Barry Orton -- Barry O -- and his revelations on Mike Tenay's Wrestling Insiders show, and later in other publications, including Penthouse, pulverized the WWF and the tremors from the fallout shook Titan Towers to its foundation, forcing the resignations of McMahon's second-in-command, Pat Patterson, and his assistant, Terry Garvin, and, in the aftermath, WWF announcer Mel Phillips was also implicated.
  Even more devastating was the scandalous reports of a suit aleging child sex abuse within the WWF.

  BARRY ORTON: I'm driving  from Albuquerque to Amarillo and the wrestling boss is in the passenger seat, and he keeps begging me to suck me. I tell him that I'm not that way, and I'mt interested. But he won't let up. Every 20 minutes or so, he starts up again: 'Oh, let me (do it to you), just once. Let me just touch it ...

  The child sex abuse issue, which involved WWF ringboys and the Patterson-Garvin-Phillips connection, began earlier with an item in the New York Post:

  PHIL MUSHNICK: The World Wrestling Federation, already reeling from allegations of persistent steroid abuse among its biggest kiddie-TV stars, appears headed towards an even bigger scandal. According to highly-placed sources, a lawsuit will be  filed soon, alleging that male WWF administrative employees and executives harassed and abused underage teenage boys, who were engaged as ring assistants in the mid-and-late 1980s. The suit, which is expected  to be filed ... at a New York federal courthouse, will also, according to the sources, charge the WWF with transporting minors across state lines for the purpose of oral corruption as well as violating child-labor laws. The plaintiff's tale of sexual misconduct by WWF employees, according to the sources, have been corroborated by another party, who claims to have been similarly abused while an underage teen in the employ of the WWF as a "ringboy" or go-fer ...

  The familiar growl of Shults, who had provided details along with Graham about pervasive illegal drug abuse within the premier wrestling organization, iincluding steroid abuse by its marquee performer, Hulk Hogan, had also railed against alleged sexual abuse.
  "We're talking about some of the top executives' sexual habits, their sexual preferences, sexual abuse and harassment," Dr. D was quoted as saying in the independent Pro Wrestling Torch magazine.
 
  To anyone familiar with the business, it wasn't anything new, for as one old-time promoter put it, "certain WWF executives are queerer than a three-dollar bill."

2. BARRY ORTON

LET ME begin by saying, I believe it is each and every citizen's prerogative as to their sexual preference. I believe that whatever they do is fine.
  I don't think that anybody should push that preference where it's not wanted ...
  I'm a man, and it's like I've never done anything wrong or pushed myself on a member of the opposite sex. But when you're younger, you don't know any better. When you're older, you start respecting people's feelings.
  I want to make it clear that unwarranted sexual harassments of any sort are wrong. For people willing to do sexual favors or get advancement make it very unfair to those unwilling to make that sacrifice themselves to that length. That goes on a lot ...
  I'm not blowing smoke where it needs to be blown, but I'm talented. I worked very hard. Performing was my life.
  Imagine how I felt knowing I needed to kneel before someone ... I passed up some lucrative situations offered to me where I could have been living the good life instead of struggling.
  It happened a lot.
  Some guys are immune to that sort of thing. Hulk Hogan is one of them.
  I don't think I have to go out on the limb throwing names around, saying who is immune.
  The WWF is becoming a bit overrun by the homosexual community or clique.

  As for Orton's allegations, WWF spokesman, Steve Planamenta, wrote if off as "another guy selling a book."
 
  Then Barry O related his Albuquerque-Amarillo trip with Terry Garvin when he was only in his late teens.
  "I just kept explaining to him, 'No. Hey, you're a nice guy.' I didn't want to offend him. With the way he's looked at me since he's been in office, I knew he was never going to forget that. You can be damn sure when my ass was on the line, I would be saying, 'Here's a guy who is never going to bat for me.' Had I given in, who knows? I could be wearing the WWF title right now ..."
  Barry O wasn't finished and related another incident while he was on the road. He was sitting in the back seat between Patterson and Garvin, who were grabbing at him. He ran out of the car.
  "It wasn't like a rape situation," Orton stated, in a sworn deposition. "It was more a teasing type of thing. But,  you know, they were trying to overpower my will." He added that when he got out of  the car, his pants were ripped in the crotch area.
  With McMahon denying Orton's claims, concerning Patterson and Garvin, Barry took a lie detector test.
  "After complete testing and careful analysis of the polygraph charts, this examiner is of the opinion that Mr. Orton was truthful and there were no deceptive reactions to the revelant questions asked," confirmed Anthony De Sio, president of the Las Vegas -based Colt Protective Security.

3.

THE HEAT, particularly when accompanied by headlines, which screamed: Boy Sex Scandal Rocks Wrestling, forced WWF vice president in charge of talent, Pat (Pierre Clermont) Patterson, and booking assistant, Terry (Terry Joyal) Garvin, to quit, and threatened the very future of the company.
  The resignations had come after two former ringboys and an ex-office employee, Murray Hodgson, pointed fingers at the two, and, of course, there was Orton's accusations.
  McMahon denied all the charges against Patterson and Garvin and was particularly upset at Orton for bringing up an incident from 1978. Calling Hodgson a "certifiable lunatic," Vince said he was fired  because he couldn't do his job properly.
  Junior believed Patterson and Garvin would be unable to defend themselves against the charges even though both claimed they were innocent of any wrongdoing because both, admittedly, lived a gay lifestyle.

  Patterson, who was one of the all-time great workers during a 24-year career, came to work for McMahon The Elder in the late 1970s as a wrestler. He sold out Madison Square Garden four times in title matches with then-champion Bob Backlund.
  Known as Pretty Boy, Patterson was particularly well known in northern California where he was the area's  top draw before he headed East. His tag-team partnership with Ray Stevens was exceptional, with both holding the NWA and AWA world tag-team titles during their careers.
  Patterson would eventually move into an office role after serving as color commentator on TV and as a part-time wrestler. After leaving the ring in 1985, he eventually took over as McMahon's second in command, as far as talent and booking was concerned, following George Scott's firing.
  Garvin, who was also an active wrestler during the '60s and '70s, part of the famous "family" with "brother" Ron and "brother" Jimmy (neither of whom he wasactually related to) eventually held office positions with several promotions after retiring. He was working for Bob Geigel out of Kansas City when he made the move to the WWF, at the same time as Patterson, in 1985.
  Following Mushnick's story on alleged child sex abuse , publicists, er, lawyers in Titan Towers issued the following press release:

  WWF: The New York Post has published a story containing serious, yet unsubstianted, charges against the World Wrestling Federation. We want to categorically state that the WWF and its parent company, Titan Sports, do not and will not illegal or improper behavior by any of our employees at any time. We will take responsible action regarding any legitimate claims filed through lawful channels. However, Titan Sports Inc. and the WWF feel no obligation to respond to charges that cannot be reasonably substantiated. Further, our attorneys have advised us to urge all news media and others to consider the credibility and the motives of the accuser before irresponsibly making public reckless charges, which are not grounded in fact, and which may have been made with malicious intent. Titan Sports is proud to have corporate policies that are at the leading edge of any existing in the entertainment and sports industries regarding drug use, employment practices, and employee behavior.

  The WWF, perhaps even all of pro wrestling, was running for cover, for within a two-week period there were lies and hypocrisy on the steroid issue, allegations of an organization rampant with street drugs, alleged homosexual harassment of wrestlers tied into promotion and earning power and even allegations of attempted homosexual abuse on underage boys.
  McMahon, ever the piece of work, began mouthing off about a conspiracy as the reason for the flood of bad publicity; citing Ted Turner, the CNN boss who bankrolled the upstart World Championship Wrestling (WCW) out of Atlanta, Ben Weider, his rival in the bodybuilding business, both in cahoots with Superstar Billy Graham.

4.

THE ACCUMULATION of charges and countercharges began to make everyone appear paranoid.
  Harassing phone calls, with an underlying tone of physical threats, were the norm, and affected two of the straight-up guys in the business -- Graham and Shults.
  Another was Billy Jack Haynes.
  In early March 1992, after he had spoken out about the rampant steroid abuse and Hogan's drug habits, in particular, he blamed Patterson for making two crank calls to his father's home in Portland, Oregon.
  The first call to his dad, William A. Haynes, Sr., who's blind and not even "smart" to the wrestling game, asked for his son, and when he said Billy wasn't there, the unidentified caller said, "Tell your son to back off or jack off." A few hours later, according to the younger Haynes, a second phone call informed his father, "If your son doesn't back off what he's doing, he'll be six feet under."
  Haynes was seething mad and blamed Patterson, an accomplisher ribber.
  Although he had been a whistle-blower concerning the steroid situation, Billy also began detailing his sexual harassment, which had happened to him.
  "I'm taking a shower after one of my first days on the job," related Haynes, "and this WWF executive sneaks up behind me ... If you drop the soap, you have to look left, right and behind you bend down to pick it up."
   
5.

THEN THERE  was Murray Hodgson, who was hired as the TV voice of the World Bodybuilding Federation (WBF), another offshoot of McMahon's empire, in the summer of 1991.
  Within weeks, on August 21 he was fired and when the WBF production aired, McMahon was the host.
  Hodgson's professional integrity, as an announcer, was riddled with holes from McMahon's verbal bullets. He filed a suit claiming breach of contract and wrongful termination of employment against Titan Sports. There was also initially a sexual harassment charge filed against Patterson, but the suit was later dropped because it apparently wasn't routed through the proper channels.
  Three months later, Hodgson claimed Patterson accosted him in a local mall, and he emphatically said, "it scared the living hell out of me."
  "He comes out of nowhere, and he (Patterson) grabs me by the arm and says, 'You're an asshole, Hodgson. Vince isn't going to stand for this. You've got trouble. We're going to get you for this."
  Hodgson notified McMahon of this incident via fax eight days later and, then, waited for a reply.
  With alleged wrestling corruption now the main menu on the talk-show circuit, Hodgson and other accusers were to appear on Donahue to face Vince when he received a call from an unidentified WWF administrator asking Hodgson to fax to Titan Towers a settlement figure that he thought would be fair.
  "They were trying to trick me," Hodgson said. "McMahon would have pulled out that piece of paper and said I was trying to buy him off."
  Also appearing on Donohue, besides Hodgson and McMahon, were Barry Orton, Bruno Sammartino, Superstar Billy Graham, Tom Hankins. John Arezzi and Dave Meltzer. 

  With a powerful delivery, Hodgson claimed he was fired from the WWF because he wouldn't sleep with Patterson, and not as McMahon had stated that he was a terrible announcer, and he couldn't make the transition from radio to TV. Then Hodgson made a strong denial of any payoff attempt on his part. Such a stance resulted in a near-standing ovation.
  Later, Meltzer wrote, "he (McMahon) was clearly the heel and his lack of honesty was pretty well exposed for the entuire nation to see, "adding, " ... the show was over to soon. It accmplished very little."
  The following day, Arezzi claimed two thugs showed up and apparently told his mother, "Your son lives in a very dangerous neighborhood."
  Meltzer dismissed the obnoxious phone calls he received as the "work of pranksters."

6.  TOM HANKINS (Open letter in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter)

VINCE McMAHON's denying of sexual charges against Pat Patterson and Terry Garvin is a laugh.
  I first started in the business in 1973 working for Nick Gulas out of Nashville. I was warned by Jack Donovan, Sam Bass and others about Terry Garvin from Day One.
  At first I thought they were ribbing me. But it only took Terry a few days to approach me in the same manner he did Orton, with my answer to him being the same as Barry's.
  In early 1985, one night in Los Angeles after the WWF had run a show at the Sports Arena, I happened to be at the University  Hilton Hotel , sitting at a bar drinking with  Pat Patterson, Andre the Giant, Jerry Graham and Mike LaBelle.
  I was sitting between Andre and Pat.
  After about an hour, I asked Patterson about giving me a shot at doing TV jobs for them. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that there was only one way that I was ever going to work for them, and that was by having sexual relations with him that very night.
  Pat was pretty drunk at this point and he was spouting off rather loudly about his fondness for oral sex with other males and asking me if that made him a bad guy.
  I told him that I felt he was free to do as he pleased, but that I definitely wasn't interested in being a participant.
  He responded by reiterating that I would never work for the WWF in that case. He kept his word.
  He even went as far as to throw me out of the dressing room at subsequent shows although I had always been allowed free access up until that point, even though I hadn't been working for them.
  Based upon my experience, I cannot help but feel that this was typical behavior for Patterson.
  Yes, he was an outstanding worker in the ring, but his business and personal ethics suck. He more than deserved to take this fall. I'm just surprised that it didn't happen sooner.
  If everyone who has experienced this same situation were to come forward and speak out, I think everyone would be shocked at just how many instances like this there were.

  Tom Hankins wasn't an island, in criticizing the Patterson-Garvin-Phillips cartel.
  Booker Lord Littlebrook (Eric Tovey)  says he wrote McMahon in the late '80s  about sexual harassment by WWF executives against his midgets. His wrestlers were quickly dropped from future cards.
  "I've been in this business for 40 years," snarled Littlebrook, "and if I have to stoop so low as to have my boys homosexualed, well g.d. it, I'll wash dishes in a g.d. restaurant first.
  He went on to claim one of his stable, The Karate Kid (Chris Duby) was sexually molested by a WWF exec in the dressing room of a New Jersey arena.
  "He was screaming that he wasn't that way, and the boss just kept playing with him anyway," said Littlebrook.

7.

BEYOND BIZARRE. Those were the only words that could describe the alleged Patterson-Garvin-Phillips involvement  with underage ringboys.
  It centered around Tom Cole, who began working for the WWFin 1985, when he was only 13. His job description would include setting up and taking down rings and getting to "hang out with the wrestlers."
  He only had worked a few weeks before the WWF's primary ring announcer, Mel Phillips, allegedly began sexually molesting him in motl rooms.
 
  TOM COLE: He (Phillips) would play with my feet and suck on my toes, and he would masturbate while he was doing it. He played with my feet sometimes for hours at a time. He had a foot fetish, and he played with all the young boys' feet all the time. Sometimes, he would film it on a camcorder  ... Then Pat Patterson would walk by while I was sitting up the ring, and he'd grab me. I'd hate it, but there was nothing I could do. He's the boss.

  Cole's allegations also included Garvin, particularly, just before his firing in February 1990. He related what happened after Garvin entered the ringboy's room in Stamford: "He was drinking vodka and trying to get to drink some. H said he could take me to a strip joint or get me a prostitute, anything I wanted. I told him I wasn't interested. Then he said, 'You could go a long way in the company if you sleep with me.' Then he turned off the lights. I got scared  and said, 'You're making me nervous. Please leave the room.'"
 
  The sexual harassment claims didn't end there.
  A few days Garvin and Cole were on their way to the WWF warehouse, and Terry, supposedly, told the ringboy that he wanted him to meet his wife. When he arrived at Garvin's house, he said he'd forgotten that his wife was in Florida.
  After putting on a prno movie and fixing himself a drink, Garvin begged him for sex, but Cole turned him down, and pleaded he be taken back to the WWF headquarters.
  "I was scared shitless," related Cole, saying Garvin was too drunk to move and continued to smoke marijuana and snort cocaine. "There was no way I was going to sleep in his house, so I slept in the van. The next day they fired me.
  "I know if I'd slept with him, I'd probably be rich now."
  
8.

CHRIS LOSS, who was 16 when he began working as a ringboy in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in 1989, recalled how  Phillips "accidentally" stepped on his foot, when he met him, and then he said his foot hurt, the WWF  announcer took off his shoe and began rubbing.
  "He kept rubbing my toes and I thought, 'Man, that's messed-up behavior.' It was really weird, but I didn't say anything. I found out it happens all the time to guys."
  When Wrestlemania came to Toronto's SkyDome, another ringboy, Jeff Treader, from the Falls, recalled he slept in a hotel room, with a knife by his bed because he was afraid of being abused.
 
  Bruno (The Living Legend) Sammartino, who claimed Junior had "blackbballed" him from the business because of his criticism directed towards the WWF, was indignant, concerning a story that Phillips had been spotted in the backseat of a car in Pennsylvania, performing a sexual act on an 11-year-old boy.
  "McMahon was told about the incident, and he elected not to do anything."
  As for Phillips, he was briefly suspended for a similiar sexual act, but returned as the circuit's main ring announcer until his resignation in 1992.       

FIVE
Trying to Catch
the Falling Star

1.

VINCE McMAHON had set his priorities as he criss-crossed the United States in March 1992.
  Salvaging the monster merchandising empire he created with its main product being Hulk Hogan, had to be uppermost in his mind.
  The other controversies, particularly the sex abuse charges, were secondary to the importance of not allowing Hogan's steroid and drug problems sink The Titan.
  The major share of the more than $125 million in profits each year, contrary to the figures of more than a billion being bantered about, was generated by the "family value" images portrayed to the Little Hulksters.
  However, one of the key stories from the "dirt bag" media, with acusations of coke and steroids, put Hogan's image and the sport in peril.

2. JOHN CHERWA & HOUSTON MITCHELL (Los Angeles Times)

EVERY WEEKEND, millions of children -- quite a few adults -- suspend reality for a few hours, plant themselves in front of the television and wait for the self-proclaimed "real" American hero to appear.
  Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan -- 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds of muscle -- bounds to the screen and urges little Hulksters to say their prayers, take their vitamins and believe in themselves. Hogan is a Saturday morning cartoon come to life and the star of the merchandising empire that grossed $1.7 billion last year (1991).
  The Make-A-Wish Foundation says he is their most requested personality, and he reportedly visits as many as 30 sick children a week. He has starred in two movies, both aimed at children, and played Thunderlips in Rocky III.
  He does commercials and there are almost 300 official Hulk Hogan products, aimed at children.
  But Hulk Hogan's image is in peril, and so is that of all of professional wrestling..
  Hogan is acused of heving abused steroids and cocaine. And professional wrestling is