by Seth D. Olson
TicketNews.com
Could ‘Roid Rage’ have been a factor in the alleged murder-suicide of WWE star Chris Benoit’s wife and child? Some believe so. “A lot of prescription medication” was found in the home, including anabolic steroids, said Fayette County Sheriff Lt. Tommy Pope.
Chris Benoit was a pro-wrestler for 22 years and star of World Wrestling Entertainment, which strongly denounced any suggestion that steroid use could be connected to the tragedy. The WWE said Benoit tested negative for drugs during an independently administered evaluation on April 10.
A CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday that it may never be known whether the deaths were linked to steroids or so-called “roid-rage.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the subject of a myth regarding the side effects of anabolic steroids. Schwarzenegger has admitted to using anabolic steroids during his bodybuilding career for many years prior to them being made illegal, and in 1997 he underwent surgery to correct a defect relating to his heart. . .
Some have assumed this was due to anabolic steroids. Although anabolic steroids when abused can sometimes cause unfavorable enlargement and thickening of the left ventricle, Schwarzenegger was born with a congenital genetic defect in which his heart had a bicuspid aortic valve — in other words, whereas normal hearts have three cusps, his had only two, which can occasionally cause problems later in life.
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In 2000, the World Wildlife Fund (also WWF), an environmental organization now called the World Wide Fund for Nature, sued the World Wrestling Federation. A British court agreed that Titan Sports had violated a 1994 agreement which had limited the permissible use of the WWF initials overseas, particularly in merchandising.
On Sunday May 5, 2002, the company quietly changed all references on its website from “WWF” to “WWE”, while switching the URL from WWF.com to WWE.com. The next day, a press release announced the official name change from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., or WWE, and the change was publicized later that day during a telecast of Monday Night RAW, which emanated from the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. For a short time, WWE used the slogan “Get The ‘F’ Out”. The company had also been ordered by court to stop using the old WWF Attitude logo on any of its properties and to censor all past references to WWF, as they no longer owned the trademark to the initials WWF in ‘specified circumstances’. However, despite litigation, WWE is still permitted use of the original WWF logo, which was used from 1984 through 1997, as well as the “New WWF Generation” logo, which was used from 1994 through 1998. Furthermore, the company may still make use of the full “World Wrestling Federation” and “World Wrestling Federation Entertainment” names without consequence.
In April 2002, about a month before the name change, WWE decided to create two separate rosters, one on RAW, the other on SmackDown! due to the overabundance of talent left over from the Invasion storyline (which involved talent from the absorbed ECW and WCW rosters interacting in WWF storylines). This is known as the WWE Brand Extension. Following the Brand Extension, a yearly Draft Lottery was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups.
Thanks to wwe.com, ticketliquidator.com, and wikipedia.org