6. Hulk Hogan Denies Steroid Use On The Arsenio Hall Show - July 16, 1991
When as a guest on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1991, Hulk Hogan denied using steroids. Of course, four months after admitting that he had never used steroids, the WWF instituted an anti-steroid policy, and Hogan's WWF appearances were intermittent. By 1994, he admitted under oath in federal court that he had been using steroids since 1976, though they were never given to him by Vince McMahon. McMahon remained free, but Hogan left the WWF, and became WCW's centerpiece largely until the company's closure in 2001. Of course, without Hulk Hogan in the WWF, Vince McMahon eventually aggressively developed newer and younger talent, and eventually shed the cartoon image so heavily pushed during the Hogan era. Had Hogan never been shamed out of the WWF, then the space in which Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels became superstars would've never been created. As to how that trickles down to the likes of Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy graduate Daniel Bryan? Well, that much is obvious. But for smaller, less obviously steroid-abusing wrestlers having a career in WWE at-present, there's a clear correlation.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
