Gordon Ryan recently decided to take aim at two of the biggest stars in WWE history, John Cena and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, over PEDs. They might seem like highly unusual targets for one of the best professional grapplers in the world, but the WWE has a long history with the abuse of PEDs. The organization first instituted drug testing in the 1980s but this was aimed more at the use of narcotics as opposed to PEDs. Being an institution that is so heavily reliant on the impressive physical stature of its performers, it’s no surprise that professional wrestling was slow to adopt testing for PEDs.
Since the deaths of multiple high-profile WWE superstars have been attributed to the abuse of PEDs, the organization has taken a much firmer stance against them. This is in contrast to the submission grappling world, where the IBJJF is the only organization that conducts any testing and they only test the winners of certain major events. Ryan himself has never actually been subject to a single test during his career and he has previously been open about the fact that he uses PEDs. He’s drawn criticism for this from both fans and fellow competitors of course, but he also isn’t breaking any actual rules in doing so.
With the WWE’s modern strong stance against PEDs, many of its biggest stars have taken a similar outlook. That’s something that Ryan appears to doubt, as evidenced by his comments towards John Cena in a story posted to his official Instagram account:
Gordon Ryan also drew attention to perhaps the biggest star in WWE history, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and his admitted use if PEDs in the past. Although Johnson has only ever admitted to a very limited use of them at one point in his youth, Ryan pointed out his incredible physique decades after that time:
