The featured story of Ross Rutherford in Bleacher Report last October 16 has voiced out the query of the wrestling community about the almost unending involvement of wrestling to steroid abuse. Rutherford formed an argument concerning the total suspension of steroids in the said sport by discussing their negative effects in the wrestling world as well as by mentioning the incessant issues that are formed by these. According to him, there are still continuous steroid scandals that are happening in wrestling world after all these years. Some wrestlers are still facing the same steroid issues which are also faced by the NFL and NBA. Out of these scenarios, Rutherford poses a question that seemingly sound to be the same concern of many people who have been watching wrestling all throughout this time: “Will wrestling ever recover from the steroid allegations and all of these WWE wellness suspensions?”

The fans of wrestling are certainly aware on the past steroid scandals that arise in this sport; namely, the performers who have been involved in steroid use. Just recently, one of the carriers of wrestling news and updates Wrestling-Online.com featured the name of the WWE superstars who have been tied to steroid case issues. The site’s report, which is also based on the report of Sports Illustrated, mentioned the name of Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerero, Rey Mysterio, and Randy Orton as some the of the popular wrestling personalities to be linked in steroid use. Eddie Guerero was claimed to order steroid stanozolol from Arizona doctor David Wilbirt in 2005. Wilbirt was also suspected to issue the same prescription with steroid nandrolone to Mysterio. These names were followed by Randy Orton who was also claimed to obtain the following drugs: stanozolol, anastrozole, oxandrolone, testosterone, nandrolone, and Clomiphene citrate. Both Mysterio and Orton though refused to comment about the issue when contacted by Sports Illustrated.

Wrestling-Online.com stated that it is because of such steroids scandal why WWE introduced a Wellness Program, which aims to take action against those people who abuse the prohibited drugs. However, Rutherford mentioned in his story that although this program is good, pro wrestling lost its integrity because of steroid scandals. It also affect the business as a whole. Thus, Rutherford answered his self-imposed question by saying that Wrestling will forever stay that way—bearing the stain caused by the stories of steroid abuse of its performers.

Rutherford further explained his point by citing the small changes that happened in the wrestling world after facing the tragic story of Chris Benoit who murdered himself after killing his own wife and son a year ago. According to him, the story of Benoit who is claimed to have abused the use of steroid certainly made an impact to wrestling. Unfortunately the impact only lasted for awhile. After some time, a new scandal arises marking the involvement of Jeff Hardy to steroids—resulting to his suspension. Undeniably, this incident formed a noise to the mind of many wrestling spectators. Rutherford said that the suspension of Hardy has stirred up the doubt of the public about the cleanliness of wrestling when it comes to steroids abuse.

This time, Rutherford affirmed that the point is clear. The scandal issue about steroid abuse can be presumed to taint wrestling for the coming days—and maybe forever. In fact, Rutherford claimed that the issues of steroid suspension became more prevalent few months after Benoit’s story occurred.

The conclusion actually depends to people—how they perceive the influence of steroids to wrestling and how long they think it would last. Anyhow, it is not yet too late to hope for the wrestlers to be more responsible by keeping themselves clean from steroids.

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