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One of your competitors (name deleted since I would rather deal with the actions than besmirch the individual) said on one of his audio shows, about Roman Reigns’ cancer treatment, “He said the pill was oral chemotherapy but I don’t think it was.” This led to him being attacked on Twitter (rightfully so in my opinion) and Nia Jax saying that the reporter was a piece of s***. She also said, “The fact that u make statements about people’s health, when u have zero knowledge about it is ridiculous. If u do have access 2 superstars PERSONAL medical info, that is a HUGE violation of HIPAA & I’m sure that’s not the case. So shut ur mouth”.
The reporter then tweeted, “On the Reigns treatment, there are different options that include a pill that is oral chemo and that is what he said he was taking and there’s no reason not to believe that, so I stand corrected on that.”
I subscribe to both of your sites (for now) and have a few questions on this situation.
Does it surprise you that someone in his position would say something like this? I understand speculating on storylines and character development but isn’t off limits to question a person’s integrity, especially when it’s in conjunction with him fighting a relapse of cancer?
I will be completely honest with you, when I saw this question I thought it had to be someone trolling the site. There is no way that I could see someone of the person you mentioned stature ever being a party to something like this, as frankly I find it pretty despicable. Then I looked on Twitter (wow, that was a handful) and saw the fallout for all of this. Ordinarily, I would not get involved in this since it’s about a competitor but I think there is a lot we all can learn here about this situation, especially him (and I hope he does). Obviously, he was completely in the wrong here by speculating on what kind of treatment Reigns received. That is not something anyone in our position should speculate on in my opinion. If Reigns wants to tell the world the exact course of meds he took, that is for him to do. Unless this person had facts to PROVE Reigns wasn’t telling the truth, he should have never speculated and made the callous statement that he did. That’s insensitive, wrong and just indecent to do.
One of the things I saw him mention on Twitter was that he has researched Reigns’ kind of cancer and the treatment for it. Well, perhaps no one close to him has had cancer but a number of people close to me have and I can tell you from first hand experience that in the case of many cancers, different oncologists prescribe different therapies to try and eradicate the insidious disease. Many cancers are anything BUT uniform. It’s not like when you break a bone and there is pretty much one treatment. There can be many courses of action to treat a given cancer. While one person may take IV chemo, another may take oral. A lot of factors go into that. The reporter saying that a hockey player had leukemia and didn’t miss a game doesn’t mean anything where Reigns is concerned and should never have been used a point of finite, direct comparison. To answer your question, in a situation like this, I take the person at their word. When you add in that Roman is a straight up guy with no history that would question one to doubt him, it makes the above statement even more disturbing.
I have noticed that your site has chosen to not pry into Reigns’ treatment and recovery while his site has done the opposite. What is your site’s position on situations like this?
As I said above, I have dealt with too many people close to me being forced to fight the heinous disease. I have seen the battle that they have fought. It’s very, very personal and I respect that. When Roman announced he was fighting cancer, that is all I felt we needed to cover. I didn’t need or want to pry into the how of his fight. That is his personal business, not that of the wrestling world. If he chooses to share it, then it’s news. Until then, it’s not. And, it’s sure as hell not something I think any of us should speculate on. I find doing that to be downright indecent. I understand that some people will disagree with me on that, but I feel how I feel. I think digging into someone’s personal life on that level is very tabloid trash and I want no part of that.
Maybe the most disgusting thing about this scenario is what this person didn’t do, and that’s apologize. This is the second time he has done something like this (the last time was with Peyton Royce) and not issued a real apology? In fact, an hour before he posted his “correction”, he wrote this: “It's amazing that people who don't read nor listen say I'm bashing Roman Reigns. Like explaining an illness in detail with real sports examples and different strains and side effects is bashing. Talk about reading is your friend.” It’s like he didn’t even listen to what he said. Does this guy really not know how he comes across? Is he unable to say he is sorry for what he did?
I was on the fence about even running this until I saw this question. That changed my mind. I don’t know whether he doesn’t know how he comes off or if he just can’t say he is sorry. Frankly, neither would a good thing. Either way, it shows an arrogance to me that I hope, if he were to read this, he would consider. I have spoken to this person on a number of occasions in the past and can tell you that he speaks in a rambling kind of tone. He tends to fit a lot of words into a single sentence and my hope here is that what he said and tweeted sounded different in his head than how it came across in the mediums. Clearly, when you question whether someone is telling the truth about the kind of cancer medicine he took and you find out you were wrong, your mea culpa should, at very least, contain an “I’m very, very sorry for my mistake” in them. His whatever it is, barely acknowledged how wrong he was, and contained no apology at all for saying something that was pretty despicable. I think he owes Reigns a lot more than that. I hope he sees the light and give Reigns the apology that he deserves. It’s never fun to be wrong but when you are, you need to be a man and own it.
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