John Pollock is joined by Wai Ting to review WWE SmackDown from the O2 Arena in London, England.
The final episode before Money in the Bank featured Raw talent all over the show with the Wild Card Rule including a 4-on-3 handicap match involving Shane McMahon, the announcement of the Kabuki Warriors, Kevin Owens relied on a Raw ally against Kofi Kingston, Daniel Bryan made it onto the kickoff show this weekend, a fatal four-way involving the male SmackDown participants in the MITB Ladder match, and a lot of people climbing ladders. Plus, John & Wai review the second night of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament feat. Ryusuke Taguchi vs. YOH, Will Ospreay vs. Bushi, El Phantasmo vs. Bandido, Rocky Romero vs. Robbie Eagles, and Douki vs. Ren Narita.
Here’s my biggest problem with the Lars Sullivan fine. Years ago Kevin Hart had homophobic tweets and jokes, he apologized for it years later when he was about to host the Oscars the same tweets were dug up and Hart said he had already apologized. Whether or not you agree the point he was making is are you really offended or just want to shame someone. I think what Lars wrote was disgusting but the WWE knew about these posts and never disciplined him, to discipline him now is just PR. Underneath your Lars post from earlier someone posted a screenshot of Johnny Gargano tweeting something transphobic in 2011, again disgusting but if somebody digs up that tweet will Gargano get fined for that
I grew up in the 1980’s and it was common for myself and others on the playground to use terms like faggot and retarded. According to the WWE…decades is not enough time to ever change who you are as a person. Their actions suggest that every employer I’ve ever had SHOULD heavily fine me for my actions as an 8 year old child and force me to take special training classes.
I understand why WWE is doing this…its to save face in front of sponsors and critics. But its also completely insulting and ridiculous. To actually FINE Lars $100,000 (something which could take many of us 4+ years to earn) because of something he said 10 years ago before he was associated with the company sounds downright criminal to me.
This situation makes me more upset over WWE than anything related to Saudi Arabia ever could because it sets a terrible precedence on companies and employees. Namely, you can not learn from your actions and you deserve to be harshly and repeatedly punished for them forever. Terrible.
Do I believe that the WWE has a corporate conciense and actually cares if Lars’ remarks were irresponsible at best & inflammatory/insulting at worst? No.
This is a two-fold punishment, IMO. 1st from a PR standpoint they HAD to do something. Once you have active members of your roster making public statements, you have to put out the fire.
The second phase is a “stupidity tax” of sorts. Vince probably doesn’t care if these guys/girls are bigots in private. As long as they keep it private, and it doesn’t affect the locker room I think he’s good with it. But if you’re a public figure in 2019 (or even “way back” in 2013 to be quite frank), you need to be smart about your social media. Don’t spew hate online & don’t be a dick towards potential fans. And if you do slip up…inform the company, erase it, and apologize bnefore it gets too big. Don’t put The Fed in a spot where they have to be reactive. That’s the lesson the workers can learn from Lars getting hit in the wallet.
If Lars was a child not knowing the effects of what he was saying, then you have a point. But if Lars was a grown ass man making public comments, then I have no sympathy for the fine. I would not fine him though, I would let him go.
One should not be comparing children to adults, that is nonsensical.
Lars apologized when this resurfaced, but I don’t see any previous comments where he addressed and apologized for his disgusting comments before he got caught, so, again, no sympathy for the fine.
