We are through the looking glass here people. Some people genuinely think that WWE and Roman
Reigns faked cancer just to get sympathy. He’s probably an alien lizard person too,
maybe he just had space cancer? Which is actually good for you. Maybe the earth is flat. Or
we just all feel deflated and really rather unsurprised that this nonsense is actually
happening.
What I’m trying to say is: what the actual f***?!
But seriously, let’s take stock of the facts: Roman Reigns returned to Raw this week and
announced that his leukemia, which he’s been out having treatment for since October,
is in remission. It was an amazing emotional segment and I think most people agree that
it’s great to see the Big Dog back, who himself looked overwhelmed by the response
he got from the crowd - probably because for the first time ever nobody booed.
Roman was even in an angle on the night and threw out some superman punches and a spear.
Which was great to see because people were sceptical, me included, before the show that
WWE had rushed him back before he was ready in an effort to boost those flagging ratings.
Because to be honest it seems like something they might do, they don’t usually miss the
chance to turn a tragedy into an angle, that kind of box office thinking brought us Jim
‘The Table’ Neidhart. And it also already came into play in the Roman story: Dean Ambrose
said that Reigns deserved his illness because of his actions in the Shield. And even on
Monday Baron Corbin suggested that being GM was harder than having Leukemia.
But that is an entirely different skepticism, the notion that Roman may be back before he’s
ready just to sell tickets and get eyes on the product, to the skepticism of the cancer
itself.
The notion that the entire thing was a work just to get sympathy for Roman Reigns is preposterous
red faced raving of Alex Jones proportions.
And I think some of this comes out of misinformation and some of this comes out of not liking the
way WWE packaged Reigns before his diagnosis. After all they did feed just about everyone
to Roman in order to get him over - even Triple H was pedigree chum for the big dog.
But we gotta debunk some of this guff because this no matter how much you dislike Roman,
the character, saying it’s a work does a disservice to Joe, the man, who just beat
cancer and came straight back to work.
Cancer Patients Don’t All Look The Same
A common thread among conspiracy theorists is that Roman doesn’t look the part of a
cancer survivor.
“But he looks the same as he did before!” “Why has he still got hair?”
“There’s no way he recovered that quickly!”
Cancer patients don’t all look the same. Even Hollywood which presents a very stereotyped
vision of cancer, think extreme weight loss and hair loss, goes from that to Deadpool.
Small differences, but differences.
In the real world there are myriad treatments for cancer and every patient will have different
reactions to those treatments.
Just because one person has one reaction to cancer treatment, it doesn’t mean the next
person will react in the same way. Just like you might get a blocked nose and the person
who catches your cold gets a runny nose and quite cross, that you even came into work
when you were ill Brenda, everyone reacts differently to different illnesses.
Some people can undergo chemo and come out with a full head of hair and looking just
like they did before. Early last year my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma and had to have
a course of chemotherapy. He lost a bit of weight, but said he never felt sick apart
from right after a chemo session, in fact it took so much effort to keep him inside
and away from germs, he kept trying to go for runs.
He’s in remission now and his hair which only thinned really has grown back thicker
than before, which I am super cross about. But we were lucky and some people’s experience
of cancer can be far worse.
And in Roman’s case too it looks like he was lucky to have had positive reactions to
treatment. Personal trainer David Gonyea who posted a pic with Roman training for his in-ring
return called it a ‘flare up’, so maybe it wasn’t severe - meaning that an athlete
at the peak of physical well being would have a much quicker return to his usual physique.
There are also four different kinds of leukaemia, and without going into the science, they all
affect the body in different ways and are treated in different ways, and as we don’t
know which form of leukaemia Roman had, we can’t know for certain what way his body
is even supposed to react.
Long story short you don’t have to look sick to be sick. It’s weird that people
seem to think cancer patients suddenly need to look really ill to make it believable?
This isn’t wrestling, he doesn’t have to sell the disease.
And maybe that’s it, maybe because we haven’t wheeled Roman out in over the top wrestling
style, like Becky Lynch over-selling that leg, people just refuse to believe that something
could happen off our screens and off of social media and he could come back in just five
months looking pretty much the same.
Remission Doesn’t Mean He’s Cured
Here’s another caveat with cancer. Being in remission doesn’t mean that the threat
of cancer is over. As he mentioned when he announced he would be leaving for treatment
back in October last year, he has had leukaemia before and undergone successful treatment.
But as we can see, just because it went away, that doesn’t mean it can’t come back again.
But it also means that all of the time Roman has been working in WWE before, he was in
remission.
Despite the fact that the cancer is in remission, Roman will still have to have very regular
check ups as there is still a big risk that the disease will return in the months and
years following treatment. The same can be said for all cancers, my dad currently has
an appointment every three months to check that he’s still in remission and over time
the intervals will extend and extend and then eventually he might not have to have check
ups at all.
Kris Griffin, also a leukaemia survivor, wrote a blogpost about people labeling Roman’s
cancer as a work, and pointed out that during his treatment, although he didn’t always
feel 100% healthy, his leukaemia never forced him to take a day out of work. Kris has a
type of leukaemia that is treated by pills, so again, there are different kinds of leukaemia
and we mustn’t assume that they’re all treated in the same way.
Writing in the blog post, he said: “Roman is an elite athlete and it might surprise
you that I’m not. We’ve both fought our leukaemia in our own way and in our own timeframe.
But there is one thing that I guarantee will annoy any leukaemia patient who is in remission,
that’s someone saying, “well, you don’t look sick!” Right now, that’s happening
online. Can’t we celebrate Roman looking great and happy or would we prefer him hooked
up to a drip, pushed out in a wheelchair? That’s our traditional view and if our traditional
view has been upended, it isn’t a lie.”
Because I guess the point also of being in remission is that the cancer has gone away.
You start to get back to normal because the cells that were damaging you are no longer
present in your body.
What Would The Point Of This Work Be?
I mean honestly. There are literally thousands of other ways of getting sympathy for someone
in the world of wrestling. And yes, we’ve tried a few with Roman before that didn’t
work - friends turning on him, dastardly authority figures, snatching titles right out from under
his nose, The Rock.
And yeah, they didn’t exactly work, but you know what started to win people round?
Finally taking the Universal Title off of old workshy Brock Lesnar. Giving a title shot
to Finn Balor. Reigning and importantly defending. And given more time with the belt I’m sure
Roman would have won the vast majority of the audience over just by being champion and
being present. There is no need to pretend that someone has a life-threatening disease.
As kayfabe news put it better than I ever could: “ “While fans of sports entertainment
rejoiced at Roman Reigns’ emotional statement on WWE Raw this week that his leukemia is
in remission, the “real story is that Roman’s so-called cancer is just scripted work,”
according to a report published today by a nitwit on the internet. “
“ “These allegations, if true — which they are clearly not — could cause a serious
scandal for WWE, which they won’t because the allegations are preposterous, if for no
other reasons than WWE’s longstanding partnership with the Susan G. Komen Foundation and its
leadership of Connor’s Cure. But there are so many other reasons. So many.” “
We are far from suggesting that WWE hasn’t used unpleasant tactics in the past to get
someone over, but there’s a difference between Katie Vick and this, this is not a gimped
up Hunter getting frisky with a cadaver, this is serious. Thankfully, Roman has thus far
responded very well to treatment, and according to Fightful, it was him that made the call
to return to the ring early, not anyone inside WWE. If he feels in himself that he is ready
to return, then who are we to question it.
Surely Someone Would Have Noticed?
In the modern world, where nothing is secret and nobody can fart without it ending up on
Snapchat, do you really think no-one would have noticed if Roman Reigns had never undergone
treatment for leukaemia? If the man was just sitting at home playing Mario Kart all day
while waiting just long enough to get sympathy, someone would surely have noticed? The kids
on multiplayer online would have dobbed him in.
His announcement was arguably one of the biggest in wrestling history, and easily one of the
most publicised, so naturally wrestling media would be all over the story like a rash. Not
a single reliable source has reported anything other than the fact that the leukaemia is
100% genuine, and that’s because it is.
We can all go on Twitter and cry fake news. But without actual evidence it’s all just
a conspiracy theory and distracting from the real important questions surrounding wrestling
today - who threw the pie at Kevin Owens?
WWE’s Connection To Cancer Charities
WWE has very close connections with two cancer charities, Connor’s Cure and Susan G Komen,
and although some of the practices of the latter have come into question, it would be
PR suicide to fake a cancer angle with such close links to these kinds of charities.
In fact, WWE created the Connor’s Cure charity after Connor Michalik, a young superfan battling
with spine and brain cancer, lost his battle with the disease in 2014. WWE makes a huge
deal out of its partnerships with both charities, and to throw that away just to get a bit of
sympathy for a wrestler is not only incredibly stupid, it’s incredibly unlikely.
Because if it was a work and that news got out, the backlash against it would hang over
all of the good work WWE did with these charities forever. And that’s not something you’re
likely to risk.
Being on the internet and wrapped up in the shoot/work world of wrestling does mean that
yes you can get a little distrusting of ‘facts’ as they are presented to you, and yeah we
can take that that little bit of doubt and run with it thinking this is wrestlegate and
I am deep throat. But if you don’t do your research, you’re just sloppy.
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our lovely Pledgehammers on Patreon. You lot are the best. If you direct your attention
over there you’ll see an article from the brilliant WrestleTalk website about 15 really
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been El Fakidor and that was lucha.