Animal Gone From WWE For Wellness Policy Criticism
WWE Hall of Famer Road Warrior Animal has been removed as the advertised guest host of upcoming Raw live events in Canada due to WWE's belief that he was critical of their drug testing policy in a recently published interview with Power Slam magazine.
We published an article two weeks ago here on the site pertaining to his comments regarding WWE's Wellness Policy. The multi-time tag team champion appeared Thursday on Minneapolis based sports radio station KFAN Sports Radio AM 1130 and said his remarks were taken out of context in the online article, thus leading to his removal from the WWE shows he was advertised for.
Animal said, "Well, this other idiot, this other site... I'm not going to mention that site because he doesn't deserve the time of day or breath of my air, gets on there and he... now this was a six page article now people, you gotta remember this!
"This other idiot takes one little paragraph, puts it in bold print in his own headline and the caption says, "Recent WWE Hall of Famer Road Warrior Animal slams Wellness Policy."
"I by no means slammed the Wellness Policy."
He adds that his published comments dismissing the Wellness Policy were "strictly off the record." He then claims he made the following "on the record" comments during the interview.
"I made it very clear, I said, "The state of the Wellness program is very strict, you cannot beat the tests. And it's for everyone's own good. I said it's a publicly traded company and that's just the way it is."
Contrary to his statement, no comments praising WWE's Wellness Policy were published in the magazine article. He discussed his own personal steroid use following his dismissive remarks of the Wellness Policy.
Animal said that while he resolved the matter with WWE officials after he gave his side of the story, he will not be appearing at the live events he was originally scheduled for. He adds that Power Slam will publish a follow-up in their next issue with additional comments from him to clear up the matter.
The interview was conducted on March 23, days before his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. Towards the conclusion of the interview, he was asked about how important the larger-than-life, steroid-enhanced physiques were to the image of The Road Warriors. He was also asked if the team would have been the same force had they debuted in the modern WWE era where performers are drug tested.
Animal replied, "Let's be totally honest with people right now. Look at the guys that are in [WWE] now. If anybody thinks that everybody there is 100-percent clean, they've got be smoking something.
"I know they get drug tested and they do catch people, and people do get suspended, but I really don't believe that everybody gets drug tested on the same level. I know the look of a person who looks like they've been on or off [steroids]."
"When we took them, it was totally legal to carry them on you."