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flyonthewall2983

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8 hours ago, sek69 said:

Man, this latest episode convinced me Jerry McDevitt is the slimiest lawyer of all time and 100% the guy I would want representing me if I was ever facing serious charges.

That was my exact take away from the episode. I mean, the whole thing was interesting, but if I am ever in serious trouble, I am going to pony up for this guy!

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17 hours ago, sek69 said:

Man, this latest episode convinced me Jerry McDevitt is the slimiest lawyer of all time and 100% the guy I would want representing me if I was ever facing serious charges.

Speaking as a lawyer, this is literally the worst and most wrong-headed conclusion you could draw from your assessment of McDevitt. Or maybe you're just making a joke, I can't quite tell.

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2 minutes ago, Shrike02 said:

Speaking as a lawyer, this is literally the worst and most wrong-headed conclusion you could draw from your assessment of McDevitt. Or maybe you're just making a joke, I can't quite tell.

Joking, mostly. My takeaway is Jerry gives every impression he's a man who gets shit done but you probably wouldn't want to know how he does it. Like if I wanted to beat charges that I was 100% guilty of Jerry would be the guy I would want to represent me since I know he would do some shit to make it happen. 

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8 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Joking, mostly. My takeaway is Jerry gives every impression he's a man who gets shit done but you probably wouldn't want to know how he does it. Like if I wanted to beat charges that I was 100% guilty of Jerry would be the guy I would want to represent me since I know he would do some shit to make it happen. 

I'm glad you admit to making a joke but speaking as someone who has practiced criminal law on the defense side, I hate seeing this sort of rationale even as a joke. The justice system, and any other institution, only functions if ethical people do the right thing. Take the burgeoning scandal that's enveloped the Chicago Blackhawks and the NHL, for example. At one point there were 7-8 hockey executives and a head coach in a room who had been informed that one of their players had reported a sexual assault by the video coach. Ultimately no-one had the courage to do the right thing and suspend the coach and report the allegations to the police; they only referred the matter to their HR department three weeks later and the organization gave him the option to resign or be the subject of an internal investigation. Guess what happened? He resigned and was convicted some years later of criminal charges of assaulting a minor.

The twisted logic that carried the day was their organization was close to reaching a Stanley Cup final and the team needed no distractions in pursuit of a championship. They put that objective over the safety of a player. And that's why eleven years later everyone in that room (except for one) has had to resign and been effectively expelled from the league.

But I suppose your joke comes from the premise is "I'm a selfish criminal who doesn't want to go to jail so I'll hope an unethical lawyer gives me a better chance to escape jail time".

But I assure you, that's equally wrong. In my experience the most skilled lawyers are those with the most integrity.

Rant over. I guess I should watch this episode.

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I get that he may be an anomaly in the profession, but all available evidence highly suggests McDevitt is 1: a shitbag and 2 gets the results his client wants and is very skilled at his job.

 

Also it still boggles the mind that the US government (who as Jerry himself pointed out has a 90%+ rate of convictions or plea deals) made such a piss poor case. There seemed to be multiple ways they could have played their hand that would have Vince royally fucked, but they decided to put on a completely clown shoes effort. 

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  • 3 months later...

The big revelation I had after watching the steroid trial episode, is the bigger picture of desperation on Washington’s behalf to get a win on the war on drugs. The hypothetical scenario in my head is that someone from the DEA was watching wrestling and noticed how obviously juiced these guys were and saw it as a slam-dunk case. 

The prosecuting attorney was also on the latest Cocaine Cowboys, which was about a case he took up that he would also lose despite a lot of incriminating stuff held over the guys he was going after. 

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10 minutes ago, flyonthewall2983 said:

The big revelation I had after watching the steroid trial episode, is the bigger picture of desperation on Washington’s behalf to get a win on the war on drugs. The hypothetical scenario in my head is that someone from the DEA was watching wrestling and noticed how obviously juiced these guys were and saw it as a slam-dunk case. 

Yeah especially since their whole case against Vince seemed to basically be "well look at them, clearly they're using steroids" without actually bothering to tie him directly to them (other than what was for his personal use). 

I actually agreed with Jerry McDevitt when he mentioned he thought the government was just looking for a head to mount on the wall and saw Vince as an easy target. 

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That’s probably not unique to WWE. Opioid abuse became an epidemic and I don’t think we realized at the time that it was an issue outside the wrestling bubble as well. This is speculation, but I wonder if the mid ‘90s crime bill drove people away from marijuana at the same time.

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The real difference between conviction and acquittal was Linda McMahon being tipped off that Dr. Zahorian was under federal investigation. Recall that he was originally the ringside physician appointed by the Pennsylvania state athletic commission. In 1989, the law changed so that the ring doctor was to be hired by the promotion rather than appointed by the commission. The WWF had planned to continue using him in that role, but they cut ties with him after they got the tip that he was hot. Even with the prosecution's incompetence and the defense's witness tampering, conspiracy to distribute likely would have been an open-and-shut case if there had been a known steroid dealer on the WWF payroll

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  • 2 months later...

Welp, appears the show is dead now in spite of some of the highest viewership numbers Vice ever had.  As you'd expect, all the rumors say it's due to the heat they got from the Plane Ride episode.  Even RVD complained about his portrayal there, which is odd to me since i actually thought he came off maybe the best of any of the wrestlers there - someone who was honestly coming to grips now with how fucked up things were back then.

Annnnnnnnd the people behind DSOTR are apparently going to do a WWE docuseries with the Rock's production company so this seems like the bad ending as far as interesting content goes.  The show will be about the territories at least, so *maybe* we could get a good ep or two out of that, but i doubt it.  What a shame...

In fairness, i'm not sure how much more steam the show would've had anyway since they'd already been delving into some more obscure topics.  A lot of what would've been left is stuff that's too recent to cover with full perspective (Speaking Out, Saudi Arabia) and/or a minefield along the lines of the Plane Ride (the ring boy scandal).  Maybe this was how it was always going to end, but i loved the series and wish we could've had at least a bit more of it.

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5 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

Annnnnnnnd the people behind DSOTR are apparently going to do a WWE docuseries with the Rock's production company so this seems like the bad ending as far as interesting content goes.  The show will be about the territories at least, so *maybe* we could get a good ep or two out of that, but i doubt it.  What a shame...

Meltz's reporting does not suggest that it's a WWE show. He said the format is likely to be similar to Table for 3, with people from the territory swapping stories.

Interesting to me that the show is still for Vice, so they clearly were interested in more pro wrestling content. 

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1 minute ago, Migs said:

Meltz's reporting does not suggest that it's a WWE show. He said the format is likely to be similar to Table for 3, with people from the territory swapping stories.

Interesting to me that the show is still for Vice, so they clearly were interested in more pro wrestling content. 

Thank you for the clarification, that makes me feel a lot better honestly!

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The reality was the stuff that had non-niche appeal was done, and the rest of it would deal with too many people who'd be smart enough not to say anything that would get them in long term trouble w/ WWE. Plus, most of the big DSOTR stories that were salacious that same way true crime is, not kind of quite frankly, depressing stuff like Speaking Out. People are OK watching a TV show about a wrestler possibly being involved in the sleazy 80's Texas drug trade. They're not into stories of hearing that their favorite wrestler is probably a creep or covered a creep, just by the percentages. 

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I agree that the well of topics with mass appeal had largely run dry (the biggest one left is probably Hogan/Gawker, and good look getting anyone involved to appear). The weird thing is that they're replacing it with a show where wrestlers reminisce about the territory days, which is the very definition of a show with a niche audience.

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  • 1 month later...

The way I heard the story is that DSOTR is being put on ice and WWE is behind a new show that is basically going to be their version of events. So it's not technically going to be DSOTR but a WWE financed replacement.

Either way it seems clear WWE was not happy with their dirty laundry being aired and wanted to put a stop to it. 

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