Today In Wrestling History 7/13: Mr. Kennedy Embarrasses Himself, Emotional McMahon Trial Testimony
* 21 years ago in 1994, Vince McMahon's steroid distribution trial continued in federal court in Uniondale, New York with testimony from two witnesses, one of which arguably the government's star witness.
** Doug Sages, then the Chief Financial Officer of WWF parent company Titan Sports, was up first. McMahon had told him to get money for steroids that would be untraceable, although that wasn't the word Vince used. There were three such transactions, one each in May 1988, June 1988, and October 1989. McMahon told him "in substance" that he was getting steroids for both himself and Hulk Hogan. A payment to Dr. George Zahorian that Sages believed was for steroids (he didn't know for sure with all of them) was listed as being for "medical expenses." McMahon did tell him that the May 1988 payment was for steroids. The prosecution made a point of arguing that if McMahon got steroids for both himself and Hogan, he was distributing since Hogan's a different person.
** Emily Feinberg, McMahon's former executive assistant, testified for the rest of the day, and her old steno notebooks were entered into evidence. Her job involved intersected with the company's earliest drug testing, and when that came up, the judge explained to the jury that Titan Sports was not required to turn over the test results for medical privacy reasons. Some wrestlers had made a habit of trashing European hotel rooms due to roid rages or cocaine abuse, and she had talked to Pat Patterson (who had characterized his familiarity with steroids as limited) about roid rages.
In addition to the well-known "gas" and "juice" slang terms, syringes/needles were being called "riggs." Vince and Patterson (who was close friends with her husband) both knew all of the slang terms. Vince asked her to get untraceable checks for Zahorian. McMahon asked her to buy a small refrigerator for his office to keep sodas in, but she later found vials of refrigerated drugs of some kind in it.
McMahon would get a package of steroids, separated them out, and earmarked some for Hogan, so Feinberg arranged for either a driver or Federal Express to deliver them to a local venue. McMahon started taking steroids while on the set of No Holds Barred with Hogan in Atlanta in 1988. She then went over her notebooks and explained various notations about getting McMahon (and Hogan) steroids, syringes, vitamin B12, and HCG (a drug used to help the body recover from steroid cycles).
Laura Brevetti's cross examination of Feinberg (who had posed for Playboy under her maiden name) was a bit strange, asking her if her outfit in court was similar to what she wore at work and if she had read a script in some kind of video for cable television. When Jim Stuart, McMahon's former limo driver, came up and Feinberg said she spoke to him four months earlier, Brevetti said "So he was alive as of then." Stuart ended up no-showing the trial. Linda McMahon started crying when Brevetti asked her about her whereabouts in relation to McMahon when he went on trips.
This all got weirder in late 1995, when The Village Voice and, more visibly, the New York Post, both did articles about Brevetti's "secret" husband, Marty Bergman. It was alleged that he approached Feinberg as a producer for the tabloid TV show "A Current Affair," offering $350,000 for an interview plus a consultant role on a movie about McMahon. They denied all of the allegations and McMahon made the above statement on the New York market edition of WWF Superstars that weekend.
Tomorrow: Testimony from Hulk Hogan, John Studd, steroid expert Dr. Gary Wadler, and others.
* 8 years ago in 2007, Ken "Mr. Kennedy" Anderson Kennedy appeared on "On the Record" on Fox News (Greta Van Susteren's show, but with a substitute host). There were a lot of wrestler appearances on cable news shows in the aftermath of the Benoit murder/suicide, and this was probably the most controversial.
He had done an extensive blog post on his website where, among other things, he got details of WWE's Wellness Policy wrong. He did the same here, getting the threshold for a positive test for testosterone wrong. Among the other "highlights" was the implication that Brian Pillman and Eddie Guerrero were lost causes who picked up bad habits in "Ted Turner's WCW." When asked about the potential toxicology results for Chris Benoit, being that steroids were found in the house, he didn't expect anything to come up, citing that his last drug test was clean (this part was actually true). And if it did show steroids? "Maybe he took he injected steroids the day before he died."
Anderson was suspended several weeks later when his name came out in an investigation of internet pharmacies. As a result, he lost out on the biggest break of career, which was the role of "Mr. McMahon's illegitimate son."