WBF

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Article about ICO Pro here

 

What Was Not One Of The Best Muscle Building Supplements Ever Made

By Brandi Little

 

A lot of bodybuilders and a lot of weightlifters seek to enhance their physical attributes through use of the best muscle building supplements available. With that fact in mind, a lot of supplemental products have found their way onto the marketplace, and some of those are subpar. A notorious example from the early/mid 1990s was ICOPRO.

 

Though a familiar brand to those in bodybuilding, the Integrated Conditioning Program (ICOPRO) is also familiar to those involved in professional wrestling (indeed, probably more so). This was because the head of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, today known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE), Vince McMahon, was a huge investor in the product. Due to this, WWF programming in the early 90s prominently marketed ICOPRO.

 

There was more to McMahon's investment than a personal interest in bodybuilding (though a genuine personal interest in bodybuilding did exist too). McMahon was in the process of establishing his own bodybuilding company at this time. This was to become known as the WBF, or World Bodybuilding Federation.

 

McMahon planned to go into competition with the Joe Wieder run IFBB (or International Federation of Bodybuilding). Wieder's stranglehold over the bodybuilding industry was akin to the one McMahon wields on the pro wrestling industry today, so McMahon's fledgling group generated much controversy upon its founding. By marketing "bodybuilding the way it was meant to be", McMahon believed that his ICOPRO investment would yield substantial dividends.

 

However, there were setbacks from the very beginning, chiefly that the McMahon business operation became embroiled between 1991 and 1992 in a huge steroid abuse scandal that prompted a federal investigation. Though it was McMahon's wrestling operation that was targeted, his bodybuilding operation inevitably got dragged into it as well. "Bodybuilding the way it was meant to be" took on a cynical meaning, being interpreted as an open invite for steroid abusers who did not want to be tested to participate in the WBF.

 

The ICOPRO supplement could never escape the context of the scandal that its primary investor and marketer had found himself mired in. When the WBF closed operations in 1992, and Vince McMahon was indicted by the Federal Government of the United States for conspiracy to distribute steroids, his entire operation became synonymous in the media with steroids. Many assumed ICOPRO to be a steroid variant, and consequently the supplement suffered on the market.

 

While McMahon was cleared of all charges in 1994 and able to make his wrestling empire the most successful and dominant such empire internationally, he would never attempt to try his luck in bodybuilding again. While he did try to keep promoting ICOPRO, the product was damaged goods after the steroid scandal, and McMahon admitted defeat in this respect. ICOPRO was taken off the market in 1995.

 

In conclusion, ICOPRO was far from being one of the best muscle building supplements ever. A good product would not have had much luck in the context of a scandal and image crisis like the one Vince McMahon suffered during the early 1990s. Though many dodgy bodybuilding supplements have come and gone, not many have had as lurid a backstory, or as blatant a link with steroids, as ICOPRO.

[Lionhat]

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