While I am not surprised that you once again spun the facts around, the fact of the matter is CNN was proven to be a liar, not John Cena. Since Cena works for the guy you have had a vendetta against for 15 years, you think that Cena needs to go somewhere else to get tested for steroids to prove to you that he is not a liar.

If you watched that special like I did, you would know that John already does go outside of WWE to be tested because WWE does not do the testing themselves.

As far as your statement that since WWE tests its wrestlers and still some of them slip by, that means that the testing is no good or that the wrestlers who said they are clean and haven't been proven otherwise is idiotic at best. Every major sport that tests for steroids has some athletes that fall through the cracks including the "so called" World's Greatest testing policy the Olympics.

What Vince said was that he stopped testing for any drugs in the late-'90s was because WCW wasn't testing for drugs. The reason that he said that he stopped the drug testing was it was to costly for him because they were on the verge of going out of business. So they made the decision to follow WCW and ECW and not test for anything so his wrestlers wouldn't jump ship to the competition because it was common knowledge that WCW and ECW didn't care what its wrestlers were doing as long as they could perform in the ring.

While I would agree with you that in the '80s WWE did prefer the bigger wrestlers, especially the wrestlers in the World Heavyweight Title picture, that changed in the '90s, especially in the Attitude/Monday Night Wars Era to this day.

Dr. Black is not the person who does the actual testing. He takes the sample and sends it off to a independent lab for testing. Then he is sent the results at that is where he gets involved in the testing again. I swear, did you even watch the show?

Why do you assume that CNN didn't have ulterior motives in this so-called documentary? The producer of it is already spinning this to try to save his job. Did you see the interview this guy gave and what he said about why he focused solely on WWE and not TNA or any other wrestling company in the USA past or present? Which brings me to my last point: The parent company of CNN used to own WCW, so they could have very easily tried to put a wall up between themselves and Michael Benoit in case he goes after wrestling companies for all of Chris's concussions.

Suzanne Abshire

***

After reading your article on the recent controversy surrounding CNN's use of out of context statements in their interview with John Cena, I decided to participate in the PWTorch Poll you had set up.

In my opinion, John Cena's denial of drug use simply cannot be believed.  

Imagine if you were an elementary school teacher who suspected that one of the children in your class was being physically abused at home, perhaps due to something the child says or mysterious bruises and other minor injuries.

You confront the parent when they come to pick up their child after school, and the parent of course denies ever hitting their child. Do you choose to believe the parent or do you take your suspicions to the appropriate authorities?

Imagine that when you confront the parent, they tell you that abusing a child is a horrible thing and that they are shocked and offended that you even think they would be capable of such an act.

But what if, when you confront the parent, they insist that they have never struck their child, but that even if they had it's none of your business and that parents have every right to discipline their child in whatever manner they see fit, and sometimes hitting a child is the only way to teach them a lesson.

Even though in both each case the parent denies the abuse, the second example would raise a red flag and you would no doubt immediately report the case to the authorities.

For me, the question for wrestlers and any other athlete is no longer "have you ever used steroids or other banned performance enhancing drugs." Whether they answer yes or no, I will not believe them.

Events over the last several years have shown that abuse of performance enhancing drugs is far too common for every person who answers in the negative to be telling the truth.  And there have been far to many incidents, such as with Chris Benoit, of companies and wrestlers denying drug use and then having evidence surface showing the denial to be nothing but an attempt to bullshit the public.

I believe that your analysis of the problem is correct, that the problem with both performance enhancing and recreational drug use is wrestling and other sports, is that athletes do not believe that they is any good reason that the substances should be banned in the first place. That the health complications that users of these drugs suffer are not necessarily caused by the drugs themselves, but are due to other factors such pre-existing conditions or improper use.

Because of this, the question I want to hear asked is "have you ever used performance enhancing drugs, and if not, why not." A simple denial is no longer sufficient for me to let someone off the hook.

I want to hear, in their own words, why they have chosen not to follow the example of many of their peers, and why they have decided to avoid the use of performance enhancing drugs.

The answer they give will reveal a great deal about their true feelings on the matter. Like in the example given above, the answer "no, they're banned because doctors know that they can cause some serious health problems" is nothing like the answer "no, some people think they're bad so they passed laws and so the company does testing to make sure we don't use them."

John Coty
Saginaw, Mich.

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