Linda McMahon “Disrespects” Lance McNaught

Upon his death, Linda McMahon was asked about Lance McNaught, which elicited the terse, glib response, “”I might have met him once.” That is not sitting well with McNaught’s father who was planning to grieve quietly until hearing that response, and is now coming out fighting for his son’s dignity by saying that McMahon is “disrespecting” his son. Harley McNaught’s recollections are different from the candidate’s, “I’ve been with him on two different WWE functions where she came up to him and knew him by name. She disrespected him. She disrespected my family.”
The elder McNaught had joined with his son months earlier, accusing the McMahons and WWE for not caring for Lance, saying that they were trying to avoid embarrassment. “After he gets out of rehab, what is it now?” “He embarrassed you? Is that what it is? Don’t tell me that you care about these people,” said Vince McNaught about his son’s dismissal.
The man who once performed for the WWE under the name Lance Cade has openly admitted that his long career in the business of professional wrestling, and its aftermath, had led to his addiction to steroids and painkillers.  McNaught was gasping to get out the word about steroid use in the WWE by recounting the day he was encouraged to take steroids ”It was right in front of the (announcer’s) desk at the (Louisville, Ky.) Davis Arena, and our little talk was, ‘Lance, you’re going to have to make the decision if you want to change your body, if you know what I mean, or keep going through this.’ And that’s when I made the decision, and in six weeks – go look at the … tapes. … From January of ’03, fast forward to March of ’03 and look at the change in my body.”
 And McNaught made it clear that steroid use was not confined to a few, proven by simply looking at the growing sizes of modern-day wrestlers, “We’re not dumb. We know who’s using and who’s not.”
While steroid use was common among many WWE wrestlers, according to McNaught, it paled in comparison to the post-wrestling addiction to pills that would alleviate a life of pain. Addiction to painkillers is a unique product manufactured by a career in professional wrestling, and it is the common thread in just about all the human tragedies faced by WWE. As the father of wrestler Chris Benoit aptly put it, “The use of painkillers is almost an occupational hazard in wrestling…”

WWE: High On Image – Low On Health Care Insurance

Lance McNaught had become a vociferous critic of the WWE and the McMahons in the months before his death, arguing that he was dismissed after he asked to be placed in a rehab program in January.
The dismissal, which came in April, was directly related to his asking for help, McNaught had argued.  McNaught also called the company’s wellness program a “joke” and accused Vince McMahon of concerning himself about positive publicity above all else — and disregarding the well-being of wrestlers. Recalling his days as Lance Cade, McNaught not only claimed that it was a well-known fact that there was widespread use of steroids and other illicit drugs, McNaught says he was “encouraged” to take steroids. 
McNaught saw the WWE as an employer whose paramount concern was its public image, holding little regard for the danger its wrestlers face, not only in the ring where injuries are commonplace, but outside the ropes, where drug addiction, mental and various physical afflictions are an everyday part of life. In an interview less than six months before his death, McNaught aimed his anger directly at Vince McMahon, ”Vince’s stance (is) they do all this because they care about the talent. Bull—-. They care about the image of the WWE and you care about the fact that Congress was having … hearings about this. That’s what this comes down to.”
McNaught attacked the WWE on a number of fronts, criticizing its onerous contracts, lack of attention to wrestlers’ health, and accusing the company of focusing solely on image while showing no care for injuries, illnesses and addictions.  The ex-wrestler says WWE would discard performers when they are deemed as to not be profitable for the corporation any longer. Lance’s Dad chalked it up to greed saying that his son “would have cut his arm off for Vince McMahon, but it wasn’t there in return. He don’t care any more than the man in the moon for them, other than as dollar signs.
World Wrestling Entertainment’s health care policy for its wrestlers is clear. The company doesn’t provide any health insurance. This is because wrestlers are “independent contractors,” and not company employees.
Linda McMahon has said that she believes Medicare and social security need to be reformed, but curiously stipulated that the subject of entitlement programs was not a “campaign issue”. As with the WWE’s health care policy, McMahon’s position on how to reform government programs is to not have a position on how to reform government programs.  Lance McNaught is intimately familiar with WWE’s policy on health insurance.  McNaught and his wife found that out the hard way, when the WWE decided to suddenly transfer McNaught from Cincinnati to Louisville, with a baby on the way. His wife, Tanya, had a job in Cincinnati, and health insurance to cover the cost of the pregnancy and delivery, but that safety-net would be erased when they were forced to move. WWE, despite the circumstances, denied any assistance to the McNaughts. The former-wrestler did what he had to do for his family, commuting back and forth between Louisville and Cincinnati.

No Wrestling News Is Good News For Linda McMahon

The wrestling news headlines, fortuitous as they may be, have landed with a thud, like the Sunday paper, on the doorstep of Linda McMahon Campaign Headquarters in Connecticut. The co-founder of WWE, ex-wife of wrestling icon Vince McMahon, and candidate for the US Senate, McMahon has been questioned repeatedly along the campaign trail about the violence, injuries, drug use and exploitation of women that has been tied to the WWE.  While that line of questioning was all in the generic theme of the wrestling industry, now McMahon finds herself having to answer specific questions about specific events that are the subject of current news reports, and her handling of these most recent incidents has raised new criticism of how she and her firm treat their employees..
There was never a question that McMahon’s involvement in WWE would be part of the narrative of the Connecticut Senate race in which McMahon is going up against Democratic opponent, attorney-general Richard Blumenthal. The McMahon-WWE link has already been raised as a campaign issue by Blumenthal, who has offered a number of arguments as to why McMahon should be held responsible for the actions of her company. The cagy prosecutor will leave it to the jury, in this case — the voting public — to connect the dots. 
McMahon, to her credit, has been open and candid in answering questions about her role in WWE. The experienced entertainment company executive is betting that voters will tune-out talk of wrestling, WWE and simulated sex with corpses, because they’re more interested in issues that affect their lives. And the painting of McMahon as responsible for all the bad things that have happened in the lifetime of the WWF/WWE is a hard storyline to follow to its conclusion, because it always goes back to the fact that she is merely an executive in the company, and has never body-slammed anyone. She never was the one in the ring taking part in a misogynistic ritual, or breaking someone’s neck (literally), which is why videos depicting such antics, as disturbing as they may be, did not gain much traction for Democrats.
But now that Labor Day has passed, the real campaigning begins, and with all the battle cries for Democrats to get off the couch and lace-up the gloves, with stories about dead wrestlers and drug-addicted wrestlers sitting in jail, the WWE-McMahon link is ready to become a bit more heated in the weeks ahead. While it may be difficult to argue that McMahon is responsible for an injury resulting from someone lunging off a turnbuckle, she is responsible for corporate governance and policy.  That means it’s fair game to investigate WWE’s business dealings, the treatment of its workers, its health care policies and the WWE’s overall philosophy concerning the wellness of its employees.  World Wrestling Entertainment employees — specifically the WWE wrestlers — are the key asset to the company’s multi-million dollar success.
You can’t say Linda McMahon didn’t see this coming. While she had no crystal ball to forewarn her of an impending cluster of wrestler stories that would make headlines in August and September, there was no need to consult the Oracle to predict the obvious — that her record as an executive at the WWE would come front-and-center as a campaign issue. It had to — because there’s not much else for McMahon to talk about. She has no track record as an elected official and is running on her executive experience and the fact that she comes from the corporate world and is not a Washington insider.  A candidate such as McMahon has to expect that the focus will ultimately be aimed questions about her days as a corporate executive, and with no elective experience — it’s almost an invitation for a microscopic look into your business dealings
Now locked in a tight race, McMahon is in the difficult position of running as a corporate executive who doesn’t have very much to talk about, except her days as a corporate executive. And it just turns out that the industry in which she works is widely regarded as “unsavory.”  If all this wrestling talk is a turn-off to voters, that’ll work just fine for the Republican.  But if voters find some interest in the gory details, and the specifics about working for WWE is about as scary as any horror film, McMahon is in for some tough days ahead as we approach the election.

Lance Cade, Luna and The Anvil

James Neidhart once went by the name Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, as a professional wrestler and tag-team champion for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), the corporate pre-cursor to the current wrestling conglomerate, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Neidhart brought in crowds for the WWF during the 1980′s and 1990′s, performing as one-half of the Hart Foundation with Brett Hart, another wrestling star who had a very public feud with WWF/WWE founder Vince McMahon. Hart is currently under contract to WWE as part of its RAW brand. Neidhart’s 28 year-old daughter, Natalie, wrestles for the WWE under the name Natalya.
The Anvil, like so many other former professional wrestlers, spent the holiday weekend alone. While much of the country was traveling about this Labor Day, Neidhart, the once-mighty Anvil, was weighed-down in a jail cell, a drug-addicted, lonely, broken man.
But Jim Neidhart is fortunate compared to two of his colleagues — big-name wrestlers who have died in just the past several weeks. Lance McNaught, who wrestled under the name Lance Cade, and Gertrude Vachon, who wrestled under the name Luna Vachon, both fought drug addiction and underwent rehab treatment paid for by the WWE. McNaught and Vachon lived the tortured lives of professional wrestlers and fell into the logical role of post-wrestler drug addicts, a script that had played out many times before in the history of the WWE. But this recent string of wrestling tragedies, the deaths of McNaught and Vachon and the arrest of Neidhart, and the timing of these events, have led to a new round of criticism of professional wrestling — with much of the scrutiny focused on industry mammoth, World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
Lance McNaught was known as Lance Cade in the wrestling world. He, too, was a tag-team champion, who had been cut by the WWE in April of this year after a thirty-day stint in rehab for addiction to painkillers.  Relatives say McNaught was hospitalized two days before his death. After leaving the hospital and still not feeling well enough to remain alone, McNaught went to stay with his father in San Antonio.  McNaught’s father, upon arriving home from work on August 13, found his 29-year old son’s body.  The all-to-simple cause of death: heart failure.
Gertrude Vachon, one of female wrestling’s all-time greats, who performed for the WWF under the name Luna Vachon was found dead by her 80-year-old mother in her Florida home a week ago Friday. Lying in a pool of blood, police reportedly say painkillers and other drugs were found in her room. As in the case of McNaught, Vachon had undergone rehab treatment, paid for by the WWE.
Criticism of professional wrestling is nothing new, from the days of Killer Kowalski, and discussions in which people made the argument, indefensible under today’s standards, that the exhibitions were actually authentic, to the 2008 Academy Award Winning film THE WRESTLER, depicting the real-life story of drug-addiction and physical and mental torture of an aging professional wrestler. And while news items of untimely deaths, injuries and arrests of ex-wrestlers are not uncommon, there’s undoubtedly been an unfortunate uptick in wrestling tragedies in recent weeks.

Wrestling Tragedies Put Linda McMahon’s WWE Ties To The Test

It was just after 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon, right smack in the middle of Labor Day weekend. James Neidhart was pumping gas at the AJ Food Market on Tom Folsom Road in Thonotosassa, Fla when witnesses say he started acting strange, shouting and causing a disturbance.
Some say he was popping pills.
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies were called-in and when they arrived on the scene, they reported observing an agitated and aggressive man, who was handling an open bottle of pills. An ensuing search turned-up large amounts of Oxycontin and methadone and police say they have evidence that the drugs were stolen in a house burglary. James Neidhart now faces charges of possession, drug trafficking and burglary.
About fifteen miles east of Tampa, Thonotosassa is a town of about 6-thousand residents. Those who had gone to the food market Sunday afternoon, to grab a quart of milk or to fill up the tank, were the first to notice the unruly man. 911 calls were placed. Nobody knew exactly what it was they were dealing with, and little did they know that the seemingly deranged man at the center of this episode was not just another guy pumping gas.