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Wrestling #MeToo #SpeakingOut


Keith Houchen

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2 minutes ago, seph said:

Is Enzo an exception to the latter? Not that I'm clamouring to see him again, mind...

I think in Enzo's case the official line was that he was fired for lying about it to WWE, not for the actual act. Though he seemed so widely disliked that I imagine they'd have taken any excuse to sack him off.

1 minute ago, Yakashi said:

WWE are scumbags of the highest order and should never be given the benefit of the doubt to conduct their own investigations anyway. Not only should wwe not contact them, but we absolutely should not want them to either. 

This is a really fair point. It's not WWE's job to police this. But then it can't be treated as absolving Velveteen Dream of any wrongdoing when WWE handwave it away and basically say, "we didn't really look, so we didn't find anything". There's multiple accusers, photos, voice recordings, messages, and a consistent pattern of behaviour, and none of it's set alarm bells ringing for WWE?

 

Selfishly, while obviously I don't want to see abusers at the upper level of wrestling, WWE is so far beyond the reach of what I think the #MeToo movement was about - I'm interested in making independent shows and training schools safer, and WWE is so beyond the scope of that, that it's almost not worth focusing our attentions there. People can force change at an independent level, whereas Vince McMahon - and, it certainly seems, Good Guy Boss Triple H - are never going to not brush stuff under the carpet, hush stuff up, and carry on business as usual, and they're definitely not going to engage with any kind of union representation or efforts to reform the industry.

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3 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

They set that precedent long ago. No criminal charges, no problem. And if the criminal charges don't stick, you'll be back.

Except Rich Swann, who they fired even when his wife said it was a misunderstanding and she was blotto.

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1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

 

Selfishly, while obviously I don't want to see abusers at the upper level of wrestling, WWE is so far beyond the reach of what I think the #MeToo movement was about - I'm interested in making independent shows and training schools safer, and WWE is so beyond the scope of that, that it's almost not worth focusing our attentions there. People can force change at an independent level, whereas Vince McMahon - and, it certainly seems, Good Guy Boss Triple H - are never going to not brush stuff under the carpet, hush stuff up, and carry on business as usual, and they're definitely not going to engage with any kind of union representation or efforts to reform the industry.

WWE will always provide lip service, as they did by ditching the NXT UK guys, so they can go 'look we DID do something' but those guys were low hanging fruit and expendable.
If it somebody WWE sees something in [Riddle, Dream, Lars Sullivan] then they will turn a blind eye or just wait things out and hope people forget or stop caring. 
Ultimately, at the moment, they are in a position where they do not have to do anything they don't want to and, unless someone really fucks up and it gets them a lot of negative mainstream press that could cost them money [see: Benoit] they will never change because they don't have to. 

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5 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

They set that precedent long ago. No criminal charges, no problem. And if the criminal charges don't stick, you'll be back.

Jack Gallagher was fucked off pretty sharpish after his allegations, so I assume he just owned up to it. Maybe that's kept every other wrestler's mouth shut? Honesty obviously isn't the best policy as you'll just be sacked if you admit to anything. Woeful stuff.

Edited by Accident Prone
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4 hours ago, Yakashi said:

Surely WWE can’t contact these people anyway? It’s a criminal situation. Soliciting underage sexual content. I can’t imagine any company directly contacting people externally that have accused their employees of serious criminal activity. If you work for Tesco and someone posts on twitter that you shot their dog, are Tesco going to contact them to find out what happened? It’s on one or both parties to contact the police. Surely it interferes with any police investigation and can cause issues down the road too. I just can’t imagine a situation where this would or should happen. The accusers should only speak to the police (I know they’ve apparently tried but that’s irrelevant to the point) when its a criminal scenario rather than just a HR problem. 

 

WWE are scumbags of the highest order and should never be given the benefit of the doubt to conduct their own investigations anyway. Not only should wwe not contact them, but we absolutely should not want them to either. 

I think you're spot on but it's odd that they've looked into it and decided there is no problem without speaking to anyone. Obviously Dream has upside to them so they'll happily ride it out but how they're pretending they've come to that conculsion is ridiculous.

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2 hours ago, mikey said:

Except Rich Swann, who they fired even when his wife said it was a misunderstanding and she was blotto.

 

30 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

Jack Gallagher was fucked off pretty sharpish after his allegations, so I assume he just owned up to it. Maybe that's kept every other wrestler's mouth shut? Honesty obviously isn't the best policy as you'll just be sacked if you admit to anything. Woeful stuff.

There are exceptions, for sure. Almost always collateral damage. It's been their attitude for years. From the really serious cases like Snuka to bringing Lawler back and letting him make jokes about it on telly to ignoring any misdemeanour if you're name is Orton or you have value to them. Boys will be boys is their mantra.

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51 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I think you're spot on but it's odd that they've looked into it and decided there is no problem without speaking to anyone. Obviously Dream has upside to them so they'll happily ride it out but how they're pretending they've come to that conculsion is ridiculous.

Well we will never know but their idea of looking into it was probably something like:

Hunter: Did you ask for nude photos of children and engage in sexual discussions and send them photos of your cock.

Dream: No sir. 

Hunter: Great. Welcome back to national television. 

Actually you could replace the no sir with yes sir and I dont think anything would change. 

Edited by Yakashi
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Lasted a minute before I wanted to punch my phone in the face. What an absolute knob, cutting a fucking promo about how hard done by he is in front of the Chikara set.

I've always loved Quackenbush's philosophy on wrestling, but he's basically turned himself into Indy Wrestling Morrissey at this point.

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