The highly anticipated Jon Bravo video that was being promoted as something that would implicate several WWE stars in a steroid ring was released on Friday. Despite all of the promises and teases, the video did not directly implicate any WWE performers of steroid use.
The video documents the story of Wellness Fitness Nutrition LLC (WFN) and Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez is a convicted and jailed steroid dealer and Bravo had said that his documentary would implicate at least 15 current and former professional wrestlers for having dealt with Rodriguez, most notably Roman Reigns. Instead, the finished documentary failed to present a shred of evidence to support these claims.
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In the documentary, Bravo claims to be in possession of one of Rodriguez’s laptops while the DEA has possession of three other phones and computers with more evidence. He claims in the video that without the devices that are in the DEA’s hands, he cannot verify for sure that Roman Reigns obtained steroids through WFN.
Bravo notes that he can’t prove Reigns is guilty right now beyond a reasonable doubt. He says that he believes Reigns placed orders for steroids under an alias but has no way of verifying without seeing text messages that he claims are on the cell phone devices in possession of the DEA. Again, Bravo presents zero evidence that implicates Reigns in the steroid scandal.
To make the documentary even more misleading, some of the social media posts that had been used to promote the documentary used images of WWE legend Jesse “The Body” Ventura, leading people to believe he was involved in the scandal. Instead, the documentary attempts to implicate a trainer named Jesse Burdick who used the name Jesse Ventura as an alias. Photos are shown of Burdick with John Cena and Bobby Lashley, though no evidence has been presented that either wrestler was involved with the steroid ring.
The video attempts to paint Rick Bassman as a key player with the WWE steroid connection. Bassman was the owner of UPW (Ultimate Pro Wrestling) in California where names such as John Cena, Ultimate Warrior, Sting, Chris Master, and many others got their start. Bassman hasn’t been involved with WWE in many years and the documentary fails to prove that he has been a liaison for steroid use and WWE stars.
At one point, the documentary claims that Rodriguez used Mark and Chris Bell to be his first contacts within WWE. This leads Rodriguez to say that Reigns, Steve Austin, and Brock Lesnar became clients of his through this connection, though no verifiable evidence is presented to support the claim that Rodriguez had anything to do with the three stars, only Chris Bell. A text message from 2016 is shown where Bell had asked Rodriguez if he had a chance to speak with Cena and The Rock, but that’s the extent of the proof of any kind of connection, which is far from concrete.
Lastly, Rodriguez speculates that Sheamus and Jinder Mahal had been using his products because of involvement he had with their trainer, but once again, no evidence is presented and Rodriguez even notes that his allegation has “yet to be confirmed.”
Though many in the wrestling community had anticipated this video’s release, perhaps some even fearing the release, it turns out that the documentary did very little to make an impact. Despite several delays in the release of the video, it turns out most of the evidence at this time is circumstantial or non-existent.
[H/T to Raj Giri at Wrestling Inc. for the thorough breakdown of the documentary.]
