Did Linda McMahon Obstruct Justice? (3rd in a series – The Wrestling Media Know Where the Bodies Are Buried)
Did Linda McMahon Obstruct Justice? (2nd in a series – ‘The Day’ After)
April 10, 2010Did Linda McMahon Obstruct Justice? (4th in a Series — New London Day With Intriguing Follow-Up Story)
April 10, 2010” [Vince] would like you to call [Dr. George] Zahorian to tell him not to come to any more of our events and to also clue him in on any action that the Justice Department is thinking of taking [emphasis added].”
Linda McMahon “CONFIDENTIAL INTEROFFICE MEMO” to Pat Patterson, December 1`, 1989
The hard-working James Caldwell of Pro Wrestling Torch used the occasion of Ted Mann’s New London Day scoop to sift the archives for more on the upshot of Linda McMahon’s memo.
As World Wrestling Entertainment lawyer Jerry McDevitt helpfully emphasized to Mann, “At no time did they ever charge anybody with any kind of obstruction of justice or whatever it is you were suggesting…”
Caldwell, in his report at http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_40539.shtml, has republished a passage of Torch coverage of Vince McMahon’s 1994 trial for conspiracy to distribute steroids – McMahon was acquitted. The following is from the testimony of Zahorian at his own trial three years earlier – he was convicted.
He (Zahorian) said later in 1989 he received a message to call (Pat) Patterson. When he called Patterson back, Patterson told him to call back on a pay phone. “He told me there was an investigation going on that concerned Titan Sports.” Because of the investigation, he said Patterson told him he and McMahon wanted him to destroy all information of phone numbers and information on wrestlers. “He said it may be something minor, but I should be careful. He said after this was over we could meet and continue with our relationship.” Zahorian said he took all records for wrestlers and put them in a storage area in the basement of his office building and eventually brought them to his lawyer’s office for protective custody.
Meanwhile, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter continues his headlong plunge to irrelevance. The dean of wrestling journalists, he is now more workaholic than hard worker. The workaholism is almost completely in service of his image – a mix of guru and diva.
In his web update, at http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/12941/, Meltzer makes two basic points: (1) This is all old news, and (2) Whatever flows from this – Linda McMahon getting ten-to-life or her election as secretary-general of the United Nations – be sure to remember that he told us so.
How sad to read someone capable of so much better, who knows and says scads but communicates little, because he grasps the intricacies of the cradle piledriver better than he understands journalistic and human context.
In the course of damning Ted Mann’s report with faint praise, Meltzer asserts that there is absolutely nothing new here. Meltzer is dead wrong. The pressure of the impending coverage forced McMahon to release the full, unredacted version of her 1989 memo to Patterson, which now includes for the first time the specific language about how one of the McMahon company lawyers found out about the federal investigation during a social encounter with a Justice Department prosecutor.
Over at Meltzer’s Internet radio update (available to subscribers only), he rambles almost incoherently for more than 15 minutes. At around the 3:00 mark of his conversation with fellow wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez, Meltzer mentions in passing – then quickly and characteristically pooh-poohs – this nugget:
What happened – as I remember the trial – Patterson called from a pay phone and told Zahorian to destroy all the records of anything involving WWF wrestlers, and also I believe he was destroying records when the feds picked him up.
Well, glad Meltzer cleared up that there’s nothing there!
NEXT: Part 4 – No “Sunday bombshell” from Ted Mann, but your humble blogger fills the void with a little more detail on “the defense attorney, the fixer, and the Playboy model.”
Irv Muchnick
2 Comments
Regarding Dave Meltzer’s tendency to “know and say scads but communicate little” I felt the need to post this on his message board, despite the inevitable catcalls it would generate from his acolytes:
“It says something that on the same week that a gay professional wrestler committed suicide who for years felt the need to hide his sexuality, the best and most prominent professional wrestling journalist didn’t discuss the incident that Jason Powell broke a few days earlier where Ric Flair yelled at Orlando Jordan’s partner for his behaviour at a bar. Don’t read that as a harsh criticism of Dave, more a depressed sigh at the nature of the professional wrestling and MMA reporting beast.
If you want another example of how the game is played see the Observer story about Vince McMahon seeking to get UFC banned in key European countries. Oh wait, there wasn’t one. I suppose we’ll have to wait a few more weeks before Dave is allowed to discuss that in print.”
So far Dave Meltzer has chosen to ignore my post. My post was partly inspired by Jonathan Snowden, author of Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting on another message board confirming that UFC takes a hard line with people reporting things they have requested no one speak of. UFC has yet to take a hard line with Dave Meltzer. You read into all this what you will Irv.
To be fair to Dave Meltzer, he eventually did get back to me on the Observer message board about the incident that Jason Powell broke two weeks ago where Ric Flair yelled at Orlando Jordan’s partner for his behaviour at a bar. David Bixenspan blogged about what Dave had to say here: http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/4/13/1419619/more-details-on-ric-flair-chewing
DAVE MELTZER, Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Everything that Jason Powell said two weeks ago, I already knew, but here’s how he got the story fundamentally wrong…