By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

Late this afternoon on MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," political commentator Pat Buchanan commented on Alex Rodriguez admitting to using steroids in his past. He said: "That's cheating what he did using the steroids and things like that. I think they've disillusioned a whole generation. Baseball is being reduced itself to the level of professional wrestling where we can all go and be entertained but understand that a lot of guys are cheating and it may be fixed."

Keller's Analysis: First of all, "may be fixed"??? I get a kick out of people Buchanan's age who still think wrestling "may be fixed" rather than seeing it for what it is and realizing the industry is quite open about its scripted nature.

On a more serious note, it's still amazing to me that people see the steroid issue in baseball as mainly an issue of cheating rather than health. I mean, why not let everyone in baseball use steroids? That would be a level playing field, right? The reason is because steroids are dangerous to one's health, so it's important to ban them so that players don't need to hurt their health to compete fairly with others. But what's lost is that the same applies to pro wrestling. It is as much "cheating" in pro wrestling to take steroids because - despite Dixie Carter's strange perception of how steroids do or don't help a wrestler get ahead - a wrestler on steroids does have an advantage over his next-closest competitor for the same slot on the card. There might be a dozen wrestlers competing for every full-time slot on every major league wrestling roster, and those who take steroids are going to get an edge that might be enough to put them over the top on getting a job because pro wrestling is a cosmetic business and judgments on hiring includes physique, and fan response dictates your push or holding onto your job and fans are impressed with good physiques over average physiques.

And as for the A-Rod controversy, people at some point are going to have to stop being surprised (and so naive) when it comes to the usage of steroids among pro athletes in big-money sports. I am quite confident steroids are used by the majority (or near majority) of pro athletes and that internally it's accepted as part of the game and that there's a veil of secrecy that everyone implicitly agrees to when they're involved in the sport. I also believe that pro athletes convince themselves that while the media and fans can't or won't accept, understand, or comprehend the truth, the truth is that a little cycle of steroids here and there isn't that bad for their health (and they might be right, because enough cannot be said about the health benefits of being able to cycle off of steroids for an entire off-season and to take steroids only for performance not for shirtless muscularity, which is why it's more of a problem, not less, for full time pro wrestlers and their long careers in the spotlight with the demands of the sport).

We suggest these recent related articles...

WWNLIVE NEWS: NXT star Sami Zayn announced for EVOLVE Tour

NEWS: Daughter of Bill DeMott dies in weekend car crash

HAAS NEWS: Charlie Haas getting back in the ring - big reunion match at OVW, headliner for CWE year-end tour