Today In Wrestling History 7/15: Eric Bischoff's WWE Debut, End Of McMahon Trial Testimony, & More

* 21 years ago in 1994, Vince McMahon's federal steroid distribution trial wound down with the final day of testimony in Uniondale, New York.

Steroid expert Dr. Gary Wadler returned to the stand to start the day. On cross examination, Jerry McDevitt earned some ire from Wadler for quoting passages of his book out of context. Based on his hourly rate, Wadler was on track to earn $38,000 for his work as an expert witness in the trial. When McDevitt tagged out to Laura Brevetti, she started to make a comparison of steroids to breast implants (a medical procedure not being used for the treatment of disease where the known dangers were evolving constantly), but had to drop the line of questioning after an objection.

When Wadler was excused, prosecutor Sean O'Shea rested his case. The defense also rested, with Laura Brevetti telling the media that "We rested without calling a witness because if we presented evidence, it would only give the prosecution a chance to prove what they couldn't."

When the jury was excused, the two sides got down to arguing various matters. The defense moved to dismiss the two counts of distributing steroids to Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea due to both lack of evidence and the Eastern District of New York not having jurisdiction. While Emily Feinberg, McMahon's former executive assistant, had testified that they had given packages of steroids to limo driver Jim Stuart to give to Hogan at the arenas in the Eastern District, but the evidence was shaky at best when it came to to the dates in question.

O'Shea argued that Dr. George Zahorian (the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission doctor who was convicted of distribution in 1991 and was an unindicted co-conspirator here) using a pharmacy in the jurisdiction was enough based on established case law. McDevitt fired back, noting that Zahorian didn't order steroids from that pharmacy that month, so the steroids were already "in his inventory" so to speak and could have been ordered elsewhere. The judge cautioned McDevitt on asking for the charges to be dropped, since the government could re-charge McMahon in Pennsylvania (Zahorian's home state), while if they truly believed the jury wouldn't convict, an acquittal on the charges meant he couldn't be re-tried anywhere. McDevitt stuck to his guns and the judge would rule the following week.

As for the conspiracy charge, the judge denied the defense motion to drop it. McDevitt's argument was based on the one meeting between Zahorian and McMahon took place before Zahorian's steroid distribution was explicitly made illegal on a federal level. The judge seemed to buy the argument that they were still defrauding the FDA.

The trial would break for the weekend, with everyone returning to court on July 18th.

* 13 years ago in 2002, WWE introduced the figurehad General Manager concept for each brand in light of Ric Flair hastily being ousted as Vince McMahon's on-screen "co-owner" of the company. Instead of Flair running Raw and McMahon running SmackDown or Vince just being the figurehead on both, a new GM would be appointed to each show. The Raw GM choice was a shocking one: Eric Bischoff.

Both at the time and with the benefit of hindsight, much has been made of how after the WCW invasion angle was blown off after a disastrous few months, WWE didn't waste much time bringing in stars who would have helped bolster the WCW side. Flair's debut was literally the next night. Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash came in three months later, while it took about nine months for Bischoff to show up. The timing was odd.

Not only that, but McMahon and Bischoff hugged when the announcement was made. At first, based on McMahon's promo (which took place after Bischoff showed up in a backstage segment), it seemed like the idea was that he was hiring, as he put it, the only man who was enough of a "son of a b—h" to compete with him; as if he was doing it begrudgingly. Well, that went out the window with the hug.

That said, Bischoff did an excellent job in the heel authority figure role, bringing buckets of smarm and generally being someone you loved to hate. There were some changes made to Raw's presentation to give the impression Bischoff was making them, like moving the announcers to the side of the entrance set the way they were on WCW Monday Nitro for years. Nobody on Raw ever outright said Bischoff was trying to turn Raw into Nitro, Two years later, when John Hennigan made his main roster debut as Bischoff's assistant, he rotated through a few names before settling on "Johnny Nitro" with the idea he was kissing up to his boss. He even used the Monday Nitro theme as entrance music!

Also on the show, Tommy Dreamer defeated Steven Richards in a duelling canes match. Unfortunately, this one doesn't seem to be online anywhere, but it was an excellent TV match, as both guys were doing a really good job improving the overall quality of work in the Hardcore division, which had focused on too much of a generic, cookie cutter style of match for too long.

* 9 years ago in 2006, WWE had a Saturday Night's Main Event special live from the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas. The big story of the show ended up being that in the opener, a six man tag team match where Mark Henry, King Booker and Finlay faced Batista, Rey Mysterio, and Bobby Lashley, Henry was injured. Not only did he tear the patella tendon in his knee off the bone, but the patella (kneecap) itself was split in half.

The timing was about as terrible as it could possibly be. Henry was getting the biggest push f his career, and while he was never as bad as a lot of people made him out to be, 2006 was also when he put it all together and became a real standout performer. On SmackDown, he was having great matches, especially with Rey Mysterio, and was cutting the best promos of his career up to that point. Looming over all of this was that his original 10 year contract with WWE was coming due in September.

He wouldn't return for 10 months. Though the knee injury slowed him down, he did continue to thrive, and eventually, in 2011, had the best overall run of his career with the "Hall of Pain" gimmick.