United States v. McMahon and Dr. George Zahorian III / 1990s
The case grew out of the WWF’s spectacular national expansion during the 1980s, when enormous, heavily muscled performers became the promotion’s commercial image. Dr. George Zahorian III, a Pennsylvania physician who had worked as a WWF ringside doctor, was convicted in 1991 of illegally distributing anabolic steroids. At Zahorian’s trial, prosecutors presented evidence that steroids had been sent to WWF wrestlers—and even to Vince McMahon’s office at Titan Towers. A 1989 memo from WWF CEO Linda McMahon indicated that the company already suspected Zahorian of illicit steroid distribution and advised that he not be used. After Zahorian cooperated with federal prosecutors, Vince McMahon was indicted in 1993 in the Eastern District of New York on charges involving conspiracy to distribute steroids, possession with intent to distribute, and alleged use of Titan Sports money to buy drugs. He had also closed his World Bodybuilding Federation in 1992, a move viewed in the broader context of the steroid controversy.
The 1994 trial became a test of whether federal prosecutors could prove that McMahon personally directed a steroid pipeline or required wrestlers to use drugs. Eleven wrestlers testified, including Hulk Hogan, who appeared under immunity while working for rival WCW. Hogan acknowledged past steroid use and testified that Zahorian had sent him drugs with fan mail and paychecks, but said McMahon had never asked him to take steroids or purchased them for him. The only wrestler to directly claim that McMahon pressured him to use steroids was Nailz, a former WWF performer whose testimony was attacked by the defense as revenge by a fired and hostile employee; Nailz contradicted himself about whether he hated McMahon. Three of the government’s six charges were dismissed before the jury’s deliberations, and Judge Jacob Mishler later dismissed the remaining distribution counts because prosecutors had not shown that the alleged transactions occurred within the court’s jurisdiction. After sixteen hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted McMahon on the conspiracy charge on July 23, 1994. Zahorian, by contrast, received a three-year prison sentence.
Although the acquittal prevented the government from branding McMahon a convicted steroid trafficker, the scandal forced a visible change in WWF presentation and policy. McMahon declared the company drug-free and introduced an independent testing program under which wrestlers could be fired for drug violations; Crush’s 1995 arrest in Hawaii for steroid and marijuana possession was cited as an example of the policy’s enforcement. The WWF subsequently promoted smaller performers more heavily, although Linda McMahon later acknowledged that testing was suspended in 1996 because of its cost. The case resurfaced repeatedly: WWF programming mocked rival WCW over drug testing, political opponents used it against Linda McMahon during her 2010 Senate campaign, and the trial later became the subject of a Dark Side of the Ring episode and a planned fictionalized television adaptation.
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