On April 29th 1994, Vince McMahon appeared in front of a federal jury, fighting charges of illegally distributing steroids. He was facing up to eight years in prison and a $500,000 fine, which in turn threatened to sink his company. Business was already bad, suffering a hangover from the booming Hulkamania days. WWF fortunes in the late eighties had been huge, estimated at over $100 million. But the effect of the steroid trial put a stop to those riches. The bad publicity had a very negative impact on McMahon's business, as advertisers turned away and parents stopped their kids watching. Nobody wanted to do business with an alleged drug dealing freak show. "I think it may affect the advertisers or whatever mainstream still watches it," Dave Meltzer told the New York Times. Indeed it did. Although McMahon was cleared, the negativity had an adverse impact on the business. The WWF ended up with a loss of -$4,431,000 for 1994-95. They were on the brink after the negativity of the past year, and McMahon was rumoured to have taken the water coolers out of WWF HQ as a cost cutting measure.
