Recently a wave of allegations have hit all over social media from men and mostly women wrestlers on Twitter in which they accused mostly cis white male wrestlers from the indie scene to the big promotions like AEW, Impact, ROH, and WWE. Most notably prominent ones like David Starr and Joey Ryan of emotionally, physically, sexually, and verbally abusing them.The statements that prominent cis white male wrestlers like David Starr and Joey Ryan have come off as a very disgustingly condescending BS cop-out statement in which they refuse to take any sort of accountability for their sick heinous actions.
I used to be a fan of AEW, but after recent allegations came out against Jimmy Havoc for sexually assaulting an ex-gf, Justin Roberts for DMing sexually inappropriate messages to a 15 year old, and now Sammy Guevara making a vile rape joke in regards to Sasha Banks, four years ago have made me officially jump off of The AEW Train because this is a message that I am sending to them and other big wrestling promotions that I will not support any company who has people on their roster who have either committed or said horrible things to women in the wrestling industry.
It doesn’t even surprise me that WWE has always been anti-black women, especially in no one from the WWE locker room that came out to defend Sasha last year or even recently. They didn’t even defend Naomi when she was attacked recently. It’s no secret that wrestling for far too long was created for the purpose of cis white men maintaining the status quo, which includes the disgustingly horrendous mistreatment of women in the wrestling industry. That status quo must be destroyed by any means necessary.
The mostly cis white male dominated wrestling industry has always been extremely anti-women whether it was the negative depictions of them by The WWE during The Attitude Era to stories of them being emotionally, physically, sexually, and verbally abused by their cis white male counterparts from past to present. Not all these stories involve allegations of women accusing cis white male wrestlers of emotionally, physically, sexually, and verbally abusive towards them. Because there have been a few stories of women wrestling fans have accused other women in the industry of the exact same thing. The toxic and destructive culture of abuse doesn’t just happen within the wrestling industry, but it also happens outside of the wrestling industry as well.
Recently, a woman from NY (who I won’t name) who’s somewhat popular in the very controversial, toxic, and fickle IWC had made allegations against another woman for sexually assaulting her and her friend outside of a wrestling show last year in NY. I remember thinking when I heard of this, I reserved my judgment until I heard the side of the alleged abuser and when I read the alleged abuser’s statement, I was absolutely disgusted and angry upon what I read because for the abuser to use her past experiences with abuse and addiction to say “just because I’ve been abused in the past doesn’t mean that I can’t be abusive towards others” downright disgusted me to no end because she’s blaming her victims for their own circumstances about what happened on that particular night in NY last year. That statement from the abuser is downright one of the worst and most disgustingly condescending statements that I have ever read in my entire life.
Hell, I even remember watching The Fabulous Moolah episode of Dark Side Of The Ring where it was revealed that she also emotionally, physically, sexually, and verbally abused women wrestlers that worked under her for years and had also financially exploited them by selling them out to cis white male promoters within the wrestling industry. The Not-So Fabulous Moolah was truly A Scum Of The Earth that doesn’t deserve to be honored let alone remembered at all.
So yeah, when I see these stories of people coming out and accusing mostly cis white male wrestlers on Twitter using hashtag #SpeakingOut, just know that this shit has been going on for years and it’s time to finally rid the wrestling industry of all the cis white male sum that have committed atrocious acts against women over the years.
The main purpose of #SpeakingOut is to bring an end the status quo cycle of emotional, physical, sexual, and verbal abuse inside and outside of the professional wrestling industry. I greatly commend the men and women wrestlers, and fans for having the courage to speak out about their experiences
By Kwame Shakir
