One Year On

I'm sure this isn't the first story you've read regarding the death of Eddie Guerrero twelve months ago. I'm sure it won't be the last and that's a testament to the life of Eddie and his impact on the wrestling world. But what has been the impact of his death on the wrestling world? In storyline terms it has been shitty. In terms of Smackdown it has been shitty. But what about the problem of drugs abuse in wrestling? I want to take a look:

Not long after this tragic event Vince McMahon gathered the roster in the locker room and announced drug testing would begin to take place. The policy wasn't implemented until April of this year, but giving WWE their due it has been very thorough and in my humble opinion has been very successful.

Straight after the announcement we saw a number of guys loose quite a bit of muscle including Chris Masters, Batista, Rey Mysterio and most noticebly Kurt Angle. Six months later after the official testing began we've seen a number of people taken from the road due to the various issues with pills. Joey Matthews and Chris Masters have been to rehab, Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam both recieved 30-day suspensions for their violation of the policy and Super Crazy disappered for a while to. Randy Orton completed an almost 60-day suspension for smoking something other than tabacco. Going by these numbers and the level of guys affected it seems the policy has worked, at least to a degree.

However there has been a few other violations that have seemilngly gone unpunished. Sabu was in the car with RVD when they were both arrested for possesing weed. Only RVD was suspended. Bobby Lashley and the Great Khali were pulled from the Great American Bash pay-per-view in July for elevated liver enzymes, a common side effect from taking steroid pills. They were only pulled on the day of the pay-per-view and this wasn't announced before people bought it. They were also back on the road within a week.

The biggest casualty of the policy has been Kurt Angle. Suspended for thirty and being told to go to rehab wouldn't stop Angle from taking his pain killers. Based on the fact that he may well die very soon WWE released him. Minutes later TNA were on the phone wanting to negotiate. It's that external factor that killed the policy last time round. WCW were simply picking up the firees and putting them on their show; with no drug testing. The fact is this will always be true. Angle certainly isn't making as much money in TNA as he was in WWE but he is Kurt Angle and wants to compete. As long as there is somewhere to compete he will compete. Unfortunalty Eddie's death won't save Angle's life.

For the most part however, I believe that the impementation of the policy has had resounding benefits. Angle is an anomoly, a guy who will work wherever he can work. But most of the roster is smartened up to the fact that WWE will remain for a long time their biggest pay day so sticking to their rules keep the cheques coming in. There will be those who flounder those rules and will continue to get away with it, I'm sure in later life they will feel the affect of this themselves but the drug policy has mostly had great affects on the whole of the roster and if anything good has come from the death of Eddie, this is it.