Enlarge By Stan Liu, US Presswire The death of Chris Benoit, seen here in a 2001 photo, brought renewed attention to drugs in professional wrestling. Former wrestler tries to educate kids Marc Mero once sacrificed his body as a pro wrestling star. Now he's a leading advocate for its safety. "This stuff can kill you," says Mero, 47, who regularly speaks to youngsters about the perils of steroids and painkillers. While a bodybuilder and performer for the defunct World Championship Wrestling, Mero was a steroids user. He also maintained a steady diet of painkillers after knee and shoulder surgeries. Mero, who owns Marc Mero Body Slam, a gym in suburban Orlando, estimates he had 20 to 30 concussions during 14 years in the ring. He credits World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) for offering drug and alcohol rehabilitation for any of its wrestlers and employees who request it. But he would also like the WWE to fund an independent study to determine why so many young performers have died not just those who worked with the WWE. The stakes are high. More than 1 million children and teens between the sixth and 12th grades have admitted using anabolic steroids to improve their athletic performance, physical appearance and/or self image, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "They say this is not about sports vs. entertainment," says Gary Wadler, a New York University professor and steroids expert. "But it is about the health and welfare of your employees not to mention the impact they have on the millions of kids who watch it." By Jon Swartz  Enlarge By Barry Williams, Getty Images Wrestling fans turned the fence in front of Chris Benoit's Fayetteville, Ga., house into a makeshift shrine following his death on June 24.

It described a lonely, grueling profession of repeated head blows and an unending work schedule on the road. Most of all, it grieved the death of his best friend.

Benoit, 40, wrote the diary as a series of letters to fellow wrestler Eddie Guerrero, who died of an enlarged heart in 2005. At one point, Benoit wrote in his journal, "I will be with you soon."

In June, Benoit killed his wife and 7-year-old son and committed suicide.

"The vast theme (of the diary) is of depression," says Julian Bailes, head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, who examined Benoit's brain and found extensive damage from repeated head blows. He has read the diary.

The Benoit murder-suicide in an Atlanta suburb was the tipping point for an industry that has long spiraled out of control, critics say. Since 1997, at least 70 pro wrestlers 45 and younger died from ailments linked to steroids, illegal drugs and devastating injuries, according to a 2004 USA TODAY study and follow-up.

Many pro wrestlers — numb to a grueling year-round schedule of travel, crunching body blows and a steady diet of drugs — refer to their profession as "the sickness." It is nothing close, they say, to the high-flying exploits of super-human gladiators depicted on TV.

"You are expected to look a certain way, so you take steroids," says Charles "Konnan" Ashenoff, 43, who has wrestled for the WWE, TNA and others, where he says he used steroids and painkillers. "You are expected to perform regardless of injuries, so you take painkillers. If you don't, you lose your spot to someone … willing to make those sacrifices."

"It's the lethal wrestling cocktail: anabolic steroids mixed with pain medication, muscle relaxants, sleeping pills and recreational drugs," says former pro wrestling star Marc Mero, 47, who says he took steroids for seven years as a bodybuilder and World Championship Wrestling performer until 1994.

Mero keeps what he says is the Death List, a chronology of 30 male and female wrestlers who have died young over the past decade.

Despite the mounting death toll, minimal action was taken by governing bodies such as WWE, and the topic drew barely a whiff of interest from Congress, Ashenoff and others say.

Until Benoit. The testosterone in his body far exceeded the normal amount for a hormone disorder he was purportedly being treated for, according to papers filed in October in a criminal case against Phil Astin, Benoit's personal physician.

"It opened the door to the industry, and a lot of people were stunned by what they saw inside," says Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

As the largest pro wrestling entity, the WWE is a natural target, says its outside attorney, Jerry McDevitt.

But he points out the organization's new wellness program has reinforced its commitment to the health and safety of its athletes.

"I don't think it's ever been unsafe to be a member of WWE," he says. "The majority of deaths (in pro wrestling) were of people who came through the organization and moved on. I don't think any organization has the ability to control the choices that people make when they aren't affiliated … for years."

That is one of the issues that Congressional investigators are mulling.

"Since we started our investigation (in September), the WWE has suspended 11 wrestlers," says Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which in 2005 investigated the alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs by Major League Baseball players.

The committee has queried the WWE and others about drug-testing policies and is considering holding hearings. The WWE began drug testing in 1987.

"It's a clear sign that the WWE's drug policy failed," Waxman says. "Their wrestlers were caught by law-enforcement officials."

A three-year-old probe by the Albany County (N.Y.) District Attorney's office into a Florida-based Internet pharmacy that supplied steroids and prescription drugs to wrestlers and members of the NFL and baseball led to the suspensions of 11 unnamed WWE wrestlers in September.

Albany District Attorney P. David Soares has said Benoit was a client.

A potentially deadly profession

Wrestling is a non-regulated industry bereft of unions and benefits, with few job options. There is no offseason.

Most WWE performers make $100,000 a year — only a few earn more than $1 million — but a vast majority of pro wrestlers make less than $50,000.

"They are the functional equivalent of gladiators, but they are paid," says Cary Ichter, an Atlanta-based lawyer who has represented 20 wrestlers, including Benoit, Ashenoff and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.

"They are putting themselves in the ring and getting themselves injured and killed for the entertainment of the audience."

The WWE, which employs about 160 wrestlers, has suspended 30 under the drug-testing component of its Talent Wellness Program since it began in February 2006. It randomly tests performers at least four times a year for steroids and other drugs and annually conducts cardio exams. Anyone suspended after Nov. 1 will be named.

The characterization of pro wrestling as a cesspool of steroids, drugs and injuries does not square with the experiences of some of current-day WWE wrestlers, such as Phil Brooks, who goes by the name of CM Punk. "Pro wrestling has always been a red-headed stepchild in the sports world," says Punk, 28, who joined WWE in 2005.

While acknowledging the onerous nature of wrestling's non-stop travel and physical pounding — "Pro wrestling is hard" — Punk says it is safer because younger wrestlers have taken note of Benoit and others and because of the WWE's wellness program.

"There will always be people with the attitude, 'It won't happen to me,' " says Punk, who says he has never used steroids. "But that happens in all walks of life. … Some guys don't realize the consequences."

Drug testing doesn't catch all

The circumstances of the Benoit case are what got the attention of the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Waxman says. His committee, and that of Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., chair of the House Energy subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, could consider a number of actions, including government regulation of pro wrestling, which is considered an entertainment industry.

"Illegal drug use among public figures is a major concern, particularly when the audience includes children, as is the case with professional wrestling," says Rush, noting (as others do) TV wrestling shows draw millions of impressionable young viewers each week.

The most likely government action would be to force the WWE and others to farm out drug testing to an independent organization like the NFL and MLB do.

The latest iteration of the WWE's drug-testing plan is "woefully insufficient in its details," says Gary Wadler, a New York University professor and steroids expert who is an adviser to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

"The section on non-medical use is hazy," says Wadler, who serves on WADA's Prohibited List and Methods Committee. "It is a gaping hole through which you can drive a Mack truck."

The WWE is convinced its enhanced drug-testing policy — run by Aegis Sciences, a laboratory in Nashville — is an adequate deterrent and says its random tests occur at or near wrestling events and training facilities.

Wadler "knows nothing about our program," McDevitt says. "He has never talked to anybody who has any knowledge of the program. He's paid by WADA, which competes with Aegis." (Wadler says he carefully reviewed the program.)

WWE spokesman Gary Davis adds, "There are consequences to breaking the rules." Wrestlers face a 30-day suspension without pay for a first violation, 60 days for a second violation and expulsion for a third violation.

Yet even Bob Bowman, a WWE board director and CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (which runs baseball's websites), has urged the WWE to have an outside party re-examine the effectiveness of its drug-testing plan. He declined comment for this story, as did representatives from TNA.

High stakes

Benoit's last urine test, taken April 10 at an arena in Providence, was negative for steroids and other drugs, according to Aegis Sciences. Yet the county sheriff's office found anabolic steroids in Benoit's home after the murder-suicide, and tests conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation showed Benoit had roughly 10 times the normal level of testosterone in his system when he died.

Federal prosecutors in Atlanta say during a 12-month period ending a month before the murder-suicide, Astin wrote seven prescriptions to Benoit, each with a 10-month supply of testosterone cypionate, an injectable form of the male hormone. Those findings resonated with Reps. Waxman and Rush, who had committee members dig deeper into the issue. (The committees operate independently; neither is working with the Albany DA.)

Their inquiries might have the desired effect with at least one wrestling organization.

Bob Trobich, executive director of NWA, a sanctioning body made up of regional promoters in the USA, Japan, Canada and Europe, says he plans to recommend all his promoters have a uniform drug-testing policy that bans the use of controlled substances. "I believe that the use of other illegal substances (besides steroids) is also a problem, not only in professional wrestling but all sports and entertainment," Trobich said in an Oct. 10 letter to Rush.

Ultimately, McDevitt says, an individual is responsible for his actions and the WWE should not "be held responsible for the actions of someone who worked for it years ago."