There’s nothing scripted about this.
A WWE doctor is seeking more than $1 million from CM Punk and pro wrestler Colt Cabana in a defamation lawsuit following the pair’s comments about the physician on Cabana’s podcast last year, the Cook County Record reported Thursday.
Dr. Christopher Amann filed the lawsuit in Cook County (Ill.) Circuit Court last week. Amann is claiming that the remarks made by both men on Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast in November has caused his reputation as a doctor to suffer. He’s seeking that compensatory sum and an undetermined amount of punitive damage.
Amann, who has worked as WWE’s ringside doctor since 2010, says the claims made by CM Punk, now a UFC fighter, and Colt Cabana were false, defamatory and put him in a false light by insinuating “a lack of integrity … and/or inability or lack of competence to perform his professional duties as a medical doctor.”
On the podcast, CM Punk, whose real name is Phil Brooks, accused Amann of misdiagnosing a lump on his back that he later found out was staph infection. Throughout the interview with Cabana (real name: Scott Colton), Punk repeatedly implied Amann was either incompetent or negligent or both. He claimed Amann did not know how to treat a concussion properly, saying Amann gave him antibiotics for the head injury.
“He was like, ‘What do you want me to do?'” Punk said on the podcast. “And I just started laughing and I was like, ‘Doctor, you are one of the most worthless pieces of sh*t I’ve ever met.'”
In the lawsuit, Amann said Punk “repeatedly and falsely impugned the integrity” of him as a physician. He said that all the statements made by CM Punk and Colt Cabana, as well as their implications, were false.
“Amann was not requested by Brooks to treat and/or excise a lump, let alone a purple, baseball-sized lump,” the suit states.
As far as the alleged concussion, Amann said in the suit that he followed proper protocol by directing Brooks to leave the ring after a preliminary diagnosis of a possible concussion. He also requested further evaluation and treatment backstage.
In all, Amann said the remarks “are highly offensive in that they accuse [him] of a gross lack of integrity as a medical doctor, an inability to perform his professional duties as a medical doctor, and in placing the financial interest of his employer above life-threatening health conditions of his patients.”
CM Punk departed WWE despite maintaining a contract with the organization in January 2014. He was let go in June. In December, Punk announced he would be transitioning to MMA and signing with the UFC. He is now training at Roufusport in Milwaukee with the likes of UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and ONE Championship welterweight titleholder Ben Askren.
Punk’s debut date in the UFC is still up in the air. He said in a recent interview that he would need at least six months to determine where he was and then he would decide from there when his first fight would be.
It’s likely he will enter the Octagon before the end of 2015. But he might end up in court first.