What Were They Thinking? 11.21.07: CNN

Welcome back to What Were They Thinking?. I’ve been away for a while, thinking about a lot of things that I did, should have done, shouldn’t have done, and whatnot, and feel that I, at last, am ready to return. You’ll notice quite a few changes around here. First of all, I’m going to keep a better grip on what I type this time around. Second, the “skull” ranking system I had is gone. Not only were some things a pain to settle on a ranking for, they also didn’t show up right half the time (though I mostly blame my crappy HTML skills for that and have decided to keep things simpler this time around).

Additionally, for those I did not keep in touch with, I offer my humblest apologies for what was, indeed, a massive transgression on my part. And, to T.G. Corke, I got your message about the problems you had receiving my e-mails. I did send you other messages, and if you didn’t get them, I’m setting the record straight now: no, there are no hard feelings. Rather, you are the one I credit the most with helping me see where I went wrong. I was given a voice, and though none of my superiors called me on it, I knew that, at least morally if in no other way, I had crossed a line I should never have even come near. That said, I hereby officially declare this column open for business once again. And this time, I’ll keep my wits about me.

Now, down to business: I know everyone in the IWC has heard about this, and almost everyone has the same take on it, but I have to say this. I never held CNN in high regard. (For that matter, I never held the news media in general in high regard, as every single damned one of ’em puts a slant on everything.) But this….this takes the cake. I mean, come on! Editing an interview to make someone look bad? That’s low. I know I badmouthed Cena in the past, but that was in a medium where my words were clearly labeled as opinion. What CNN did was defamation of character, pure and simple.

Everyone who’s spoken with me or read my earlier columns knows that I do not like Cena and most likely never will. However, I cannot sit idly by and shrug it off when something like this happens. When I first heard of Cena’s “statement” in the CNN interview (which I later found on WWE.Com and watched to verify what was supposedly said), I admit to being surprised. He really did sound like he was taking steroids and that he was dodging the question, and if there was one good thing that I ever had to say about John Cena, it was that the thought of him using steroids never entered my mind. However, after seeing the unedited footage, again courtesy of WWE.Com, I believe that he was telling the truth when he said that he’s never used steroids.

There; I said it. I’m defending John Cena. A month ago I buy a used Xbox (original, not 360), then I start watching reality TV (specifically, A Shot at Love) and now I’m rallying to Cena’s side. Hell has officially frozen over, folks.

Now, there’s not much I can say without rehashing what I’ve already said. There isn’t much to say on this topic without repeating what’s already been said. But there are a couple of things that I can add. There has been mention of CNN editing the video to make Vince and the WWE look bad because they put Turner’s WCW out of business. I don’t think that’s the case here. From my own understanding, Turner doesn’t have any power anymore. I’m not even sure he’s still part of the company. If I’m wrong in that, feel free to e-mail me with whatever you’ve got that proves me wrong and I’ll be more than glad to rectify that statement. Secondly, I don’t think it was so much to make the WWE or sports entertainment look bad as to make CNN look good for “exposing” something like this, although the damage it would have done, and yet still might do, to pro wrestling is great indeed. Not only is it Sweeps time for networks, but there’s a writer’s strike on, and there will be those who will try to capitalize. People accustomed to seeing new episodes of their favorite shows at a certain time may be an easy “hook” for a network who’ll do anything for ratings, whether they really need higher ratings or not. It’s possible that that was the intention here. Finally, the WWF didn’t put WCW out of business. Trying to run ECW out of business and horrible booking the last two years put WCW out of business.

That’s pretty much all I can say on this. I can’t recall if I’ve said this before or not, but the Benoit tragedy has shocked us all. Of all of the people to do something like this, Benoit was the last person I would have thought capable of it. Whether it was steroids or the concussions or just rampant paranoia or a combo of two or all three of those factors, I’ll never know, and I doubt any of us ever will. But CNN, who by and large ignored wrestling-related stuff until the Benoit tragedy, which this “documentary” was a result of, has jumped on the “all wrestlers are on steroids and are bad, bad people” bandwagon, and this throws everything else in that documentary, not to mention everything they’ve ever reported, into question.

And here I thought I had done something stupid by not keeping my mouth shut. My disgrace was limited to this website. CNN is going to have to deal with the entire world knowing what they did. As always, thank you for reading, and feedback is always appreciated.