Uh-oh....... Eddy being mentioned makes me sad, even if I'm not all too surprised. Benoit's name isn't in there.

Yeah, the Eddie reference sort of felt like a punch to the gut, though not a surprise by any means. I'm not too shocked about any of the names that came up, except for Helms.

I love Eddy and really hate to think of him using steroids that late in his life (what with Chavo insisting that he was "clean" for four years and such, although I'm sure that was referring to the pills and alcohol), but from 03-05 his arms were just ridiculous. That vein was freaky, too. You know what vein I'm talking about.

Rey and Orton don't surpise me too much, but Helms and Edge? I really, really don't see it on Edge. But he is pretty regularly injured, so maybe he used them in that context.

Edge has at least cut down on whatever he's using. Take a look at him around his come back in April 2004 and compare him to now.

And yes, I know that vein you mentioned. It used to creep me out.

After looking at 04 Edge, I retract my previous statement. Damn.

I noticed that this was reported this morning on Cold Pizza on ESPN. If the mainstream media gets ahold of this, it could be really bad news for the WWE.

I could even see them pulling guys from the rosters if this shit gets out of hand.

Oh, who gives a shit. It's a fixed sport that no one watches to begin with, and WWE won't lose a fanbase they already have. This isn't Barry Bonds breaking a REAL record with questionable means.

Steroid busts wouldn't hurt WWE that much. The general consensus among the public is "it's fake anyways..so why should we care if they cheat by using steroids". Their "image" wouldn't be affected much, if at all.

There's one thing that everyone is forgetting.

You know who DOES care? Advertisers. There you go.

WWE only has like 5 of them anyway. Skittles, Burger King, the enxt suck-ass PG-13 movie, and a new video game. WWE has had Burger King since before the REAL steroid scandal, as well as plenty of others.

So you see the reason why they shouldn't want to piss any of them off?

Would Skittles dare give up the enthusiastic pimping they've recieved from J.R.?

Please remind us of JR's shill...

I'm sure WWE doesn't want to lose advertisers for shows, but they've had worse periods and still managed to scrape some together. Maybe not ones with as much money, but they won't be pressed for it.

And I repeat, no one will care enough compared to reactions in baseball and recently the NFL.

I know they've had worse periods but that's actually not the point here. It really depends on someone being up the WWE's ass as far as the media is concerned. Like that Mushnik asshole that hated the WWE and Vince years ago. I don't know where he is now, but someone like him could certainly do some damage to their already shitty reputation.

Plus, the advertisers deal is something that can really screw them TV wise. Like when they are up for a new contract or something.

Thank goodness they signed that deal with NBC/USA/Whatever in 2005, so that buys them at least 2 years from this point to have it blow over.

As long as people tune in, they'll have advertisers. If Skittles bails, some other company will be next in line to advertise. Sure, it won't be IBM or Chevy, but there are some dweebs out there who'll want a slot.

That's exactly the point.

I remember reading a few years back in the observer when the WWE was looking to leave Spike and go back to USA. They mentioned that it actually hurts the WWE to have the advertisers that they do. There are A level, B level, etc as far as the advertising "ranks" are so to speak. When you have a shitty level (which the point of the article was to point out that the WWE did indeed have) networks don't want you on their channels, or at least don't want to pay you well to do so.

There was an article on Yahoo earlier today. It mentioned every one by their actual name, though.