(CHICAGO) A north suburban doctor who was blasted on a professional wrestler’s podcast — accused of ignoring a life-threatening cyst on another wrestler’s back and prescribing antibiotics to treat everything from concussions to broken ribs — is now suing both men for defamation.
Scott Colton, known professionally as Colt Cabana, and his longtime friend Phillip Brooks, or CM Punk, are both professional wrestlers and were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed Thursday by Libertyville-based Dr. Christopher Amann in Cook County Circuit Court.
Amann is the senior ringside physician for the World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.
The suit takes issue with a Nov. 26, 2014, episode of Colton’s podcast “The Art of Wrestling.” In it, he interviewed Brooks, who claimed Amann diagnosed a life-threatening cyst his back as a “fatty cell,” the suit said. Brooks said the lump on his back grew to the size of a baseball, was purple and “morphed into a full blown MRSA staph infection,” according to the suit.
Brooks said on the podcast that Amann ignored the cyst because he was “a lazy piece of s—” and so he could get back in the ring on an important wrestling match, according to the lawsuit. Brooks further claimed that Amann gave him Z-Packs, a popular type of antibiotic, to treat everything from concussions to the lump on his back.
Brooks said on the show that a Florida doctor removed the lump three months after he noticed it, and told him he “should be dead,” the suit said.
The episode has been played more than 1 million times on YouTube and 10,000-plus times on SoundCloud.
Amann claims in Thursday’s lawsuit that Brooks never told him about any lump, and never showed him a lump on his back for medical diagnosis or treatment.
The suit also claims Amann never refused to treat Brooks for a lump or growth of any kind, and did not prescribe antibiotics for broken ribs or other injuries. The doctor further claimed he followed all concussion protocols and told Brooks to leave wrestling matches after signs of a possible concussion.
Following the podcast, Brooks’ story was picked up by several news outlets such as Buzzfeed and the Washington Post.
The two-count suit claims defamation and invasion of privacy against both wrestlers, and seeks more than $2 million in damages.
Colton and Brooks, who both live in the Chicago area, could not immediately be reached for comment.
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