WWE is held accountable for drug enforcement- what about TNA? When will they?

[justinept]

I started thinking about this on Monday night when Jeff Hardy showed up on Impact despite facing numerous indictments on drug-related charges.

This is a guy who would have been facing a minimum one-year suspension if he was still employed by WWE, but he gets off the hook with a new employer that doesn't have a drug policy.

The WWE was forced to have a drug policy in 1993. They were criticized by politicians when they laxed that drug policy later in the decade. And they were pressured to increase the effectiveness of their policy in the middle of this past decade.

Meanwhile, an upstart company like TNA is free to truck along without a policy. Does that give them an unfair advantage in a competition with WWE?

 

[Stuntz]

When they are held accountable, and it will happen soon enough ,they will lose half of their young talent or they will have to quit the drugs. As far as Jeff goes yeah he likes pot but the trumped up charges he is facing are all bogus and I am truely hoping all charges are dropped, But thats another topic discussion.

 

[I_Like_All_Wrestling]

The reason that TNA can get away with lax drug testing is simple, they are small. WWE is the big face and has been for years. Most drug scandals happened to wrestlers either while they were employed with WWE, or those who are associated with WWE mostly. For example, Test. He died after being in TNA but it most famous for being in WWE. WWE is a billion dollar public corporation. The fact that it is public is another factor in why they have to have more stringent testing and punishments. If TNA gets to the WWE level and something happens, then yes, they will be called out on it.

As for whether this gives TNA an advantage, no, I don't think so. If you want to get paid less, be less famous, and be in the 2nd largest company but still do drugs, then yeah you can go to TNA, but I wouldn't call that an advantage. I suppose there is a potential benefit as if someone like Cena or Orton had 3 wellness violations and were forced to be let go, then yes, that would benefit TNA. I fully believe that that we'll never see someone like Orton or Cena get to that point though.

 

[justinept]

How can you say it isn't an advantage for TNA? It isn't like these guys are paid peanuts. You think a known drug abuser like Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy aren't well compensated in TNA?

I watched TNA Epics last night, and I couldn't believe the change in Kurt Angle's face. He looks like his head got smaller. It's unbelievable ... I knew HgH made your head grow - does getting off it make your head shrink? I mean .. Really, it looked like two different people.

It won't be long before TNA feature guys like Angle, Hardy, RVD and Mr. Kennedy - four known offenders of the WWE Wellness program; four guys who couldn't keep out of trouble because the WWE tested its wrestlers.

 

[MisterRob]

TNA has the benefit of being rather small and obscure right now and not in the limelight. If they do in fact become bigger and start gaining stride towards being competition for WWE and gaining more media interest then they'll certainly have to deal with the drug policy issues. If they ever have to deal with the drug policy issues I see a lot of problems for them because I bet a very large amount of their roster would fail a drug test if they were forced to take one right now.

 

[Toroc102]

Agreed on the part about them being much smaller than WWE. Realistically speaking when wrestling is brought up, these days only WWE is mentioned, so until TNA gets a lot bigger they'll probably be out of the spotlight on this.

Also, if wrestlers die that are thought of as primarily "TNA" talent or a TNA talent dies because of drug related causes, while working for TNA, that will jumpstart the whole thing. I'd say so far TNA has had a clean slate(as far as wrestling deaths are concerned), but they've only been around 7 or so years. Their much lighter schedule might help them out in that regard as well.

 

[Bull_Dawgz]

WWE and TNA could do all the drug enforcement policy they can do, it's not helping. There should be a drug rehab program for those addicted to pain killers, steroids, prescription drugs and illegal drugs along with the drug enforcement. Otherwise, drugs in wrestling will always be there

 

[Tastycles]

The WWE are victims of their own success in this respect. The WWE as the market leader in the sport, so it is the one that should be making the biggest gestures. If there was a problem in football, they would hold the Premier League accountable, rather than the smaller clubs who lagely play follow the leader. TNA will only be seen as a comparable scapegoat for this sort of thing when the companies are of a similar size, which probably won't ever happen.