By Wade Keller, Torch editor

Tonight on WWE.com, John Cena spoke about CNN's selective, questionable editing of his 45 minutes interview with the network. He expressed dismay that CNN chose to include an ambiguous quote about steroid use, while excluding a definitive quote that said he hadn't used steroids. Key excerpts:

-"I know there's a lot of parents that watch our program that tuned into that documentary to see testimony from the WWE talent. There's a lot of potential business sponsorship. Something like that, one phrase like that, CNN doesn't know the credibility they ruined. They're just trying to drive their point home, which is just a matter of opinion. It's not fact. And for them to throw somebody who's hardworking and honest to the wolves like that, they have no idea what backlash that could've cost me. I'm really glad that WWE got on it early, but I mean, even still it's a matter of if you saw the CNN special and you haven't seen anything on WWE, then you believe what you hear."

-"I'm proud of my statement and like I said, I thought I made it the best I could. You can go onto WWE.com and find the unedited version. It's just the way that they cut it, you can take any three words and make it sound good. And that's exactly what they did. They took the beginning and then end of a two-and-a-half minute statement, cut it down to a 10-second sound byte and threw it out there and made it sound like I do drugs."

"[T]he bad thing is that probably a lot of folks who watch that documentary that still don't know the real truth, and if that leads to people not watching the WWE because they think John Cena's on steroids, that's sponsorships being lost. That's what CNN doesn't understand. They have their own agenda in mind. And I was under the impression they were a news company and had the agenda of reporting the facts."

-"CNN to me was the last bastion of news. There are tabloid shows and slanted shows that want to steer you in that direction. A CNN presents show should not be that. It should be a stating of the facts. Their job is to report the friggin' news and for me to go on a show like that and then have it totally slammed, it just shows me next time you gotta go on there live because they can't silence your voice if they ask you a question. I'd rather get into an argument with somebody where they're cutting me off and stepping on my words so at least then the viewers can hear what I have to say."

"They have, I guess, well-respected anchormen, anchorwomen, news personalities, and I would think if an outside source slandered one of them, I wouldn't say they would demand an apology, but I think they would agree it was the right thing to do. Like I said, I'm not the head of CNN so I don't make those calls. I think in that realm, at least the right thing to do is for them to offer some sort of apology, or, for lack of a better word, to say they [expletive] up."

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KELLER'S ANALYSIS: This was pretty much a one-note interview - CNN screwed up and he's disappointed and feels his reputation was damaged. It ended up coming across heavy-handed as an anti-CNN piece. I think the presentation of the facts shed bad light on CNN's judgment. Cena hammering home how CNN isn't his news source online anymore, and on and on and on, began to work against their cause, I believe. It just was too much.

When asked if he regretted what he said, Cena didn't say yes. Of course he does. It was reckless to say, in any context, "I can't tell you I haven't" taken steroids. Based on the totality of the interview and the context of that comment, what I believe he meant was, "I can't tell you I haven't and expect you to believe me." He got too cute with his wording and gave CNN producers just enough to hang him with it. CNN should have used better judgment on the first edit than to leave out his flat denial ("absolutely not") when he was asked seconds earlier if he had used steroids.

WWE has a good case here to make CNN look bad, but leave it to them to drive the point so hard that even some fans just taking a cursory look at this issue are going to think they're trying too hard to tell them what to think of CNN. I was expecting a Fox News plug and a quote from Bill O'Reilly two-thirds of the way through their story on this. But Vince McMahon's mantra has always been to rally his core supporters hard even at the risk of what will backfire among the mainstream.

CNN should issue a statement to WWE apologizing. They should request WWE publish the entire apology. In a pithy manner, they should explain the editorial choice the producers made and why - which hopefully wasn't based on an agenda to make WWE unfairly look bad - and admit regret about the decision in retrospect. Then apologize, note that the "Absolutely not" quote was added to the story afterward, and conclude with a firm statement that they believe the rest of the story was fair, even-handed, and well-researched, but admit that's up to each viewer to decide.

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