As announced yesterday (Thursday) on WWE.com, effective next Wednesday, Rey Mysterio has been suspended for 30 days for a violation of the company's drug testing policy. It seems likely he will work next Tuesday's SmackDown taping in Cleveland in order to drop the Intercontinental Championship before serving his suspension. Dolph Ziggler secured an Intercontinental Championship match at next month's WWE Breaking Point pay-per-view by defeating Mike Knox and Finlay in a No. 1 Contender's Match on last night's edition of WWE Superstars.
While this is Mysterio's violation of WWE's drug testing policy, this isn't the first time his name has been linked to substances of a questionable nature.
On March 19, 2007, the official website of Sports Illustrated posted an article in its continuing series investigating a steroid and HGH ring used by a number of professional athletes in several sports. The article mentioned several current and former WWE wrestlers — including Mysterio — as being tied to the ring. David Wilbirt, an Arizona doctor, allegedly issued prescriptions for the anabolic steroids nandrolone (also known as Deca-Durabolin) and stanozolol (also known as Winstrol) to Mysterio. Wilbirt had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency from 2001 to 2005 for allegedly writing 3,879 prescriptions between November 2004 and April 2005, all for "patients" who had requested drugs over the Internet.
WWE later made a statement on the situation, mentioning that the allegations preceded the drug testing program the company launched in February 2006. Through WWE, Mysterio declined commenting on the allegations to Sports Illustrated.
Mysterio's name would once again be linked to a shady doctor later that year following the Chris Benoit double murder and suicide. On this occasion, his name was being linked to the federal investigation of Benoit's physician, Dr. Phil Astin III. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his conviction on illegally dispensing prescription drugs to 17 patients from 2002 until his arrest in 2007. One of the patients he was arrested for improperly dispensing medications to was "O.G.", which happens to be the initials of Mysterio's real name, Oscar Gutierrez. It was later confirmed by ABCNews.com that "O.G." was indeed WWE wrestler Rey Mysterio. In the indictment filed against Astin, it was disclosed that "O.G." had been prescribed 120 Percosets, 150 Lorcets and refills allowed for 450 more Lorcets on June 28, 2006. He received a similar level of medication a few weeks later on July 20, 2006. He was listed as having only made those two visits to Astin.
When questioned about his involvement with Astin during an appearance on Fox News' Red Eye program in August 2007 promoting his return from injury at SummerSlam a few days later, Mysterio said he was prescribed pain medication from Astin due to six knee operations. He also denied ever using steroids.
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