On Thursday, professional wrestling underwent its reckoning with countless stories shared by those in the industry outlining numerous offenses.
This included talent associated with WWE’s NXT UK brand with Jordan Devlin accused of abusing a woman.
The woman has since made her Twitter account private and we are going to respect her privacy and not name her. She alleged that the wrestler had physically assaulted her and posted photos of bruised body parts.
Devlin has not responded to the allegations, but a statement was issued by WWE to Alfred Konuwa of Forbes:
We take any allegation of this nature very seriously and are looking into the matter.
This isn’t specifically to do with British wrestling. This is a general societal problem. It just so happens it is someone in a profession that gets attention that has kicked of the latest Twitter frenzy.
If people want to keep up with all of this and everybody called out so far, here’s a thread on another message board that has consolidated it all… It is a crazy long list growing by the hour…
Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not interested in the internet feeding frenzy that is salacious unsubstantiated accusations.
Only the justice system is equipped to (hopefully) deal with any crimes that have been committed. I really hope that each of these women has made a criminal complaint as if they haven’t they are open to a libel claim in the UK for defamation of character.
Bdubz, I wish I shared your confidence in the justice system, but there’s a massive history of victims’ claims being dismissed by the police, often victimizing the accusers again.
Oh, I am not saying I have lots of faith in the justice system but if these events have happened then you need to at least try and seek justice. Tweeting is not the way to deal with it. I’ll almost guarantee you one of these accusations gets discredited and the minute it does it will immediately damage the credibility of the rest.
After reading this thread (and many of the replies on Twitter), it’s no mystery to me why some victims are hesitant to speak out.
It’s not right that these women feel that they need to go to Twitter to be heard, but I wouldn’t blame that on them.
“Toxic masculinity” is an overused and misused term these days, but it’s not hard to imagine that it’s very, very real in the world of professional wrestling.
With the previous Me Too movement in Hollywood we would be naive to think this doesn’t happen in almost any industry where men typically hold most of the power. Wrestling is just the next in line. I hope everyone is outed, dealt with and the industry can change for the better.
Wrestling is long overdue to experience this.
Especially when we hear stories of guys like Ric Flair, and their sexual harrassment has been so romanticized and made to be a joke.
I’m not aware of any allegations against Ric Flair. If you are referring to his general womanising antics then you need to consider the definition of sexual harassment has changed enormously over the last few years never mind decades. What only recently used to be considered flirting can now be classed as sexual harassment. Can you honestly say that, based on current definitions, you have never sexually harassed a women?
I don’t know what age you are but I’ll guarantee you that the majority of those over the age of 16 (both men and women) have asked out someone at work or complimented someone on what they are wearing. That is now sexual harassment if the party being asked out or given the compliment feels uncomfortable.
My point is you can’t legislate history, no matter how much so many people would like to these days. What is acceptable social behaviour now will be unacceptable in another 5, 10, 15, etc years. There needs to be a delineation between truly harmful acts and hurt feelings otherwise the underlying problem gets drowned out because it becomes a ridiculous situation.
There are dozens of stories of Flair willing his cock out at women at different times.
I’m 36… I would definitely classify that as sexual harrassment.
And actually, yes, I’m pretty confident in saying I’ve never sexual harrassed anybody. I remember, and am thankful that in Grade 8, we had a week long series of health classes that covered harassment, and consent.
You would now. It was a different story in the 70’s and early 80’s, before you were even born. I’m not saying that it should have been acceptable but it was different times. It is a very dangerous game holding people to account for modern standards as who knows what you may have done in the past/are doing now that in 100 years society will deem to be unacceptable.
So you have never asked someone out or said you look nice? Have you dated via pre-arranged contracts all your life that requires both parties to agree to date without one party asking the other?
This. For me it is unacceptable to fire or not hire people for things they’ve said or wrote some years ago. Like they have a life sentence or something. Even actual criminals get out of prison and get a second chance (sorta), but in today’s snowflake age it’s just ridiculous what you can be hold accountable for, no matter how long ago you’ve said something that CAN be considered offensive.