Source: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter
With each passing week it’s becoming more and more apparent that WWE only called up Harry “D.H.” Smith to the main roster to make an example out of him and use him as a publicity ploy.
Smith failed a drug test after testing positive for steroids in the middle of September. Nonetheless, Smith was called up to the main roster a little over a month later, even though WWE knew of his drug failure well before his call-up. Upon his arrival, he was given a mini-push — winning his first two matches on Raw and being pushed as a can’t miss prospect by Jim Ross. At the end of his second week as an official member of the WWE roster, the company made an announcement stating that Smith had violated their Wellness policy and was going to be suspended for 30 days.
In light of the Signature Pharmacy scandal at the end of the summer, WWE announced that starting on November 1st they were going to make all WWE Wellness failures public knowledge. Smith was a mere developmental wrestler at the time of his suspension, so had he been suspended while still in developmental, it probably wouldn’t have gotten much media attention. With Smith being an official WWE wrestler at the time of the announcement of his suspension, it ended up getting some press as his suspension was reported on TMZ.com, not to mention during a live Fox News broadcast one Saturday afternoon. In comparison, the Wellness suspensions of developmental wrestlers Derrick Neikirk and Neil Bzibziak last month garnered no media publicity, pretty much because they are unknown developmental wrestlers. Smith was called up to the main roster to make sure that they had a “name” to announce when the new policy went into effect, and subsequently “pushed” to show to the public that they were willing to suspend pushed wrestlers and that they are serious with their drug program.
Anyway, Smith came off his suspension in early December and has been available for WWE to use since the December 3rd Raw. Since coming off his suspension, Smith still has yet to wrestle a match on Raw — so that’s 12 weeks and counting now. Smith, Charlie Haas, and Drew McIntyre — who’s WWE status appears to be in limbo — are the lone Raw wrestlers to not wrestle on Raw during this time frame. During the last few months, Smith has been appearing on WWE Heat and a select number of house shows (usually jobbing), but he’s been left off TV altogether the past three weeks. Furthermore, before his absence from television, Smith was on a losing streak on Heat, losing to Carlito, Trevor Murdoch and even Charlie Haas in consecutive matches.
