Does WWE’s Talent Wellness Policy Apply To Part-Time Wrestlers Like Brock Lesnar?

In light of news Brock Lesnar tested positive on an additional USADA drug test related to his fight at UFC 200, let’s consider whether Lesnar was actually ever drug-tested under WWE’s Talent Wellness Policy.

WWE’s “Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy” contains a brief section explaining who the policy applies to:

17. APPLICABILITY OF THIS POLICYThis Policy, as it may be amended from time to time, is applicable to and binding upon all WWE Talent under contract to WWE who regularly perform in-ring services as a professional sports entertainer (“WWE Talent”).

Is Lesnar considered to “regularly perform in-ring services” for WWE? He had eight matches for the company last year, and seven so far in 2016. Compare that to most WWE performers, who usually wrestle multiple times on house shows on the weekend, and once or twice on television tapings that happen on Mondays and Tuesdays. Many talents wrestle more than one hundred times in a year. Certainly compared to most WWE performers, Lesnar does not regularly perform.

WWE CEO (then-Chairman) Vince McMahon was interviewed in December 2007 about the Wellness Policy, which was enacted in February 2006.

In that interview, McMahon said that, at the time (again, December 2007), he himself had never taken a drug test under the policy. Reflecting the language that’s still in the policy today, he emphasized that the policy only applies to regular …

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