“Ask Not For Whom The Hashtag Tolls” – What’s Going On In Pro Wrestling?

Beerguyrob -
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So Gratliff on Friday night made the following observation:

Now, I had also been following this because

  1. I too enjoy the pro grapps; and
  2. Their hashtag – #SpeakingOut – was also being used by some groups for other causes, and a student was following it & let me know.

So I thought I’d dive in, seeing as how I haven’t done much on the site beyond the Evening Open Threads for the past little while.

It all started on June 18th. I’m not sure why the date exactly, although it appears to be an extension of both #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter freedoms to relieve burdens of holding things in and open up on Twitter. (The last tweet using that hashtag prior to it blowing up was about Learning Disability Week in the UK & mental health.) From what I gather, it started with British female wrestler Sierra Loxton, who due to injury was forced to retire from wrestling back in May.

Since then, she’s been unburdening herself of the demons that, she felt, tried to hold her back.

Which then led to more statements of empowerment & standing beside what she believes in.

Finally, the thing that appears to have led to the moment was when she talked about some guy going into her OnlyFans paid subscriber page & taking screenshots and posting them on reddit.

So when former WWE “reporter” Cathy Kelley posted about someone being dismissive of her (or someone’s) feelings,

and then current British wrestler Alexxis Falcon echoed the sentiment,

https://twitter.com/alexxisfalcon/status/1273359397662621702

it led to Ms Loxton making her personal feelings on the issue known,

which led to a hardening of her beliefs,

and she began soliciting others to tell her their tales about troubles trying to break into British wrestling.

That began happening,

And pretty soon others began relaying their own experiences trying to break into the British wrestling market,

until, eventually, names started coming out.

https://twitter.com/katsandcrows/status/1274005735458983941

The longer it went, more people spoke up – naming more names, including the top-end of the British wrestling scene.

https://twitter.com/shockinHockin/status/1273898190698352641

It eventually made its way to North America after the sun rose, and people had receipts,

https://twitter.com/thekiaprint/status/1274159497053974529

and some allegations that are current despite dating back a few years.

https://twitter.com/VelvetRPresley/status/1274392858670366720

By the end of the day it was quite the list of current wrestling talent & management,

https://twitter.com/HopkinsBRFC/status/1274045487746818050

including infamous personality James E. Cornette.

https://twitter.com/AKI_Evolution/status/1273756458170056710

The fallout was relatively swift, given that social media is a bigger influence on wrestling companies than presidents. Joey Ryan, in particular, has now had about a dozen claims made against him since #SpeakingOut first started Thursday. Some of them are particularly graphic,

That person eventually came forward – or, at least one of them did – and it was Danielle Matheson from With Spandex at Uproxx.

She wrote a heartbreaking admission of what happened to her over on her own site. It answered a question of mine about why she stopped writing about wrestling.

Other wrestling personalities were swiftly dispatched from their places of employ,

and others attempted damage control.

From Joey Ryan’s Twitter, before he deleted his page. h/t Wrestlezone

And then the hashtag turned into a general clarion for anyone looking to open up their wounds, because they found a common audience, and felt it was a way for them to start healing. I’m not going to go into any of these because, frankly, they are all heartbreaking & I’m afraid I might come across someone I know who has been a victim, or-  worse – see a friend get named as an abuser. But you can find the relevant page here.

Eventually, this got around to naming other wrongs committed by people in the wrestling industry, which revived stories about Uproxx’s own Brandon Stroud. And this is where I’ll try to answer Gratliff’s queries.

It brought out some of the old accusations (which I’d never heard, but that’s my ignorance) from Brandon’s past,

https://twitter.com/KyleNotGuile/status/1273713823170670594

https://twitter.com/DYLwithIT/status/1273723829848813571

https://twitter.com/kathbarbadoro/status/1273715804824010755

reminders of his time working in Austin for Inspire Pro Wrestling, where he got into it with both Colt Cabana & Lance Hoyt (now Archer) resulting in a highway being hit,

some new allegations,

https://twitter.com/Legalize_Naps/status/1273792031840768005

weigh ins from former roommates & exes,

likely awkward situations around the office,

https://twitter.com/AnotherElle/status/1273974455140786176

and thrown asides from other wrestling journalists.

https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/957837859511259136

This all led to a lengthy ‘apology’ (I’m not posting all eight tweets)

https://twitter.com/MrBrandonStroud/status/1273740798807339008

people’s rejection of said apology,

https://twitter.com/mattaway88/status/1274500873167699983

& his disappearance from Uproxx over the weekend. Their most recent wrestling column had, as of Sunday evening, over 130 comments, in which people brought up the topic within an echo chamber. But there was one interaction which promised future results

I’ll look in on Monday to see what they’ve decided. It appears some people have already made up their minds,

By the time this comes out on [DFO] more will have likely changed. The updated list of who has been accused so far is pretty deep with current talent. The British wrestling scene has been devastated in a way that will take them years to emerge from with any sense of credibility. Four of the top independent circuits have had to abandon their top titles because of the people who were named. The number of grooming allegations make it difficult for any promotion to be able to quickly dig out from under the controversy. Not many will survive the time frame necessary to rebuild trust between talent, employer & fan.

WWE has already fired a few people, and are apparently going about erasing them from their online presence. but they have yet to find an answer for Matt Riddle, who has also faced allegations

but was also highly advertised & premiered on the June 19 episode of Smackdown.

It’s possible the WWE might have known about these accusations two years ago, but determined there was no evidence beyond he said / she said, and they chose to believe their talent. But given that they are choosing to pre-tape multiple episodes of their programming Monday & Tuesday, if he disappears next week then that pretty much changes their direction.

There are a number of AEW and Impact Wrestling personalities who still have to have decisions made about them. Aside from their statement about Jimmy Havok, AEW hasn’t made any other formal announcements about any talent named during #SpeakingOut. But they’re going to have to soon, because some old Sammy Guevara comments about Sasha Banks came out this morning:

https://twitter.com/dubyacbub/status/1274992813705437184

————————————————–

UPDATE: This seems to be resolved, and without (much) animosity:

https://twitter.com/sammyguevara/status/1275130818353135617

And now – since 4:00ET – Sammy’s been suspended.

————————————————–

Impact Wrestling’s owner Anthem issued a statement on what’s happened so far,

It is a core value of the Anthem organization that we conduct our business with respect and integrity, providing a safe and secure work environment for our employees and performers.

We are following carefully the various allegations being made through social media, and are reviewing all incidents involving Impact Wrestling talent and personnel to determine an appropriate course of action.           (h/t PWI Insider)

and late Sunday the speculation was that Impact will quietly write Ryan out of the program.

Not helping Impact is the fact that they have talent’s social media on their front page, which has led to some interesting screenshots where allegations have been able to surface.

Of course, there are some very stupid people who have decided to “All Lives Matter” the situation with the equally accurate – “Maybe they asked for it?”

h/t Ringside News

which brought a swift response from one of the true “good guys” in wrestling, who has influence far beyond his current job title.

I hope I answered Gratliff’s questions without getting the site sued.

If nothing else, this episode has shown the incredible power of social media in today’s society. The raw, unfiltered stories presented by clearly hurt people found swift resonance because they were familiar to many, and a common community grew out of that shared pain. When you read the stories women, and some men, have put out there I don’t know how anyone with a semblance of conscience can dismiss them. (Oh sure – “assholes on Twitter”.) I hope this answered some of the questions you may have had about what has gone – and is still going – on.

“Believe the victims” isn’t about choosing a side – it’s about acknowledging the pain a person has experienced at the hands of another.

I don’t know how this will affect my fandom going forward. It has to; I just don’t know the form it will take. I guess time will tell.

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Beerguyrob
A Canadian man-child of indeterminate age, he stays young by selling alcohol at sporting events and yelling at the patrons he serves. Their rage nourishes his soul, and their tips pay for his numerous trips to various sporting events.
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Brocky

Not gonna lie that daniel story has me sick. Obviously I’ve never interacted with her, but after reading her articles for so many it’s like I know her.

There’s a statement about the impact of sexual assault in there somewhere.

Great write up guys. I was really Out of the loop and ironically enough Uproxx is still one of my primary wrestling news sites, well not really ironic since I discovered it from the old site, but you get what I mean.

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Horatio Cornblower

These stories are pretty bad, but Chris Benoit has set the bar pretty damn high for me to raise an eyebrow at a wrestling story.

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Redshirt

Shit I didn’t know about Stroud. That severs my last connection to Uproxx (if they keep him which you know they will).

Also, a reminder that Vince McMahon raped a female referee in 1986.

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Beerguyrob

Yeah. That was mentioned a few times this weekend.

Ultimately I decided to stick to a five-year window for accusations, to make the article feel more relevant.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Amazing that you have to limit to that to get an article that isn’t 1,200 pages.

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Brocky

Yep. Feels like its time to rip that band aid off for sure.

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Duchess

Awesome article man. Thee was always something about Stroud that pissed me off. He is what went wrong with the city of Austin. But seriously the dude just gave off weird fucking “white knight creep” vibes even through the internet.

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Beerguyrob

I’ve been checking back every so often. It seems like they are going to let the wrestling pages wither for a few days until they come up with a response.

A problem seems to be that, according to a back-&-forth between a reader and an editor, Brandon was the only wrestling full-time employee, so he would assign stories & edit them. With nothing assigned, no one is paid for any #content they create. So that’s likely why they haven’t updated With Spandex since last Friday.

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Duchess

Oh when KSK went down his blogs turned With Leather into With Spandex and definitely one of the few things on that site that still got any clicks.

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Horatio Cornblower

What’s Tunison up to, and does he know anything about wrestling?

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Gratliff

His weekly review columns were a big reason why I got back into wrestling, but you could tell years ago something was way off about the whole thing.

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Duchess

Best and Worst was a hit and it seriously got to his head half his blog started being about him rather than the wrestling.

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Gratliff

Definitely fills me with the same indifference towards the industry I started to feel after Guerrero died before checking out completely for 5 or so years. While not the biggest name on the list, David Starr is probably the most damning. He’s become the industry’s voice of organizing, progressive values, and pushing back against companies like Sinclair Broadcasting (current owners of Ring of Honor). When someone finally booked a show in Israel and RoH tried to use his him as outreach by having him as a token Jew against their champion at the time, he fairly successfully turned it into a platform to attack both Sinclair and injustices against Palestinians. By ending up just a massive piece of shit (he basically self-cancelled when this started), it cut the legs off his own movement and gave promoters even more ammo to fight any sort of organizing attempts of their employees. Him, Ryan, and Stroud doing their ally acts while actually being scumbags is only going to make it harder for anyone to trust the industry to be even remotely decent to women performers or fans.

If you’re wondering why people don’t speak out more, Brandon Stroud is a prime example. He’s not even a good writer, yet for WHATEVER REASON @UPROXX won’t part ways with him despite his actions being brought to their attention for years.

— Maxwell (@MaxwellRBR) June 20, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

I’m picturing Cosby, Rothlesburger, Sharper, Cheeto, etc., etc. getting together for a watch.

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SonOfSpam

Looks like Man City gonna squeak by today. (5-0 after 67 minutes)

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Unsurprised

Does Matt Riddle wrestle under the name Son of Cryptkeeper?

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Beerguyrob

No, but most every one of his signature moves has the word “Bro” in it somewhere.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

This is a pretty serious story, but I did get a laugh that you used a photo of the crowd at this past weekend’s political rally in Tulsa as the header image.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Well, fuck. And fuck NWALegends.com with a rusty turnbuckle.

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Gratliff

For the past few days, they’ve been on a steady diet of blaming victims in tweets, getting yelled at, deleting the tweets, clarifying they weren’t blaming ALL victims, and then starting the process over again.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Walking back that statement partially is even more stupid than making it originally, but not by much.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Another great thing about Marble League is there haven’t been any of these type of accusations.

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ballsofsteelandfury

Right!!

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Beerguyrob

Yet!

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

[2020 rubs its hands together gleefully]

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ballsofsteelandfury

Jesus. I knew that business was dirty, but damn.

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SonOfSpam

Hulk Hogan fucked Bubba the Love Sponge’s wife and the audio was made public.

This concludes “Things I Know About Pro Wrestling”

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Beerguyrob

And he won $130 million from Gawker, thanks to right-wing businessman Peter Thiel, who didn’t like their coverage of his social life. So he bankrolled Hogan’s case simply to bust up the site.

This has been “Beerguyrob fills in your gaps”.

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ballsofsteelandfury

Is that the name of your amateur porno tape?

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Beerguyrob Fills In Your Gapes

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Beerguyrob

Nothing amateur about it.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

He’s a lot quicker than amateurs……

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Beerguyrob

More Peter South than Peter North. But at least I’m not under investigation for spousal abuse.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

No, but you should be under investigation for arousal abuse. Worst. Porno. Tape. Ever.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

To be fair* they would have hardly known you were there.

*fairly weird.

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Don T

Great article.

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Beerguyrob

Thanks my man.

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Sharkbait

I guess Uproxx was a little too “Up for whatever”

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