Joey Styles has been released

[Grimmas]

He said the announcer was lovely and if Trump was here he'd grab her by the pussy.

 

What Gabe has done in the past doesn't mean he can't top that shit now. Even if he fired him for reasons you stated, it was the right move.

[Grimmas]

Grimmas have you seen the bit or did you just read he made a Trump grab 'em by the pussy joke?

Watched the show live.

[joeg]

Huh. So if it were a funny joke about Donald Trump and his grab em by the pussy scandal, you would still be deeply offended?

[stro]

He said the announcer was lovely and if Trump was here he'd grab her by the pussy.

 

What Gabe has done in the past doesn't mean he can't top that shit now. Even if he fired him for reasons you stated, it was the right move.

As a way to circle around to calling SH a pussy. Which is not the same as "laugh at sexual assault, every body". Certainly misguided, certainly unnecessary, but the joke wasn't about Trump or sexual assault.

[Bix]

 

He said the announcer was lovely and if Trump was here he'd grab her by the pussy.

 

What Gabe has done in the past doesn't mean he can't top that shit now. Even if he fired him for reasons you stated, it was the right move.

As a way to circle around to calling SH a pussy. Which is not the same as "laugh at sexual assault, every body". Certainly misguided, certainly unnecessary, but the joke wasn't about Trump or sexual assault.

 

He said she was going to be sexually assaulted for being physically attractive.

[stro]

 

 

He said the announcer was lovely and if Trump was here he'd grab her by the pussy.

 

What Gabe has done in the past doesn't mean he can't top that shit now. Even if he fired him for reasons you stated, it was the right move.

As a way to circle around to calling SH a pussy. Which is not the same as "laugh at sexual assault, every body". Certainly misguided, certainly unnecessary, but the joke wasn't about Trump or sexual assault.

 

He said she was going to be sexually assaulted for being physically attractive.

 

 

That makes it sound like he was threatening her or something. It's missing some context, but the point of what he said was to be an insult towards SH, not her or victims of sexual assault. He took the worst possible path to get there, though. There were at least 3 grab 'em by the xyz jokes on SNL, none of them were jokes ABOUT sexual assault.

[bucky]

Regardless of your opinion about whether him getting canned was justified (personally I fall on the side of the PC SJWs, cool names), Joey Styles fucking sucks. He fucking sucks at commentary and was bad for their product. Old barbershop ass corn cob pipe lookin ass motherfucker. Fuck Joey Styles. He sucks. He shouldn't be hired on the grounds that he fucking sucks. You heard it here first. Joey Styles sucks.

[stro]

Of course he sucks. He sucked in ECW, too. I think everyone had the same reaction to Joey being brought into EVOLVE in the first place: Why?

[Bierschwale]

I definitely assume that Gabe felt like he owed him a favor back from the ECW days, which is what makes Styles's malfeasance really just so stupid.

[Coffey]

AN OPEN LETTER FROM JOEY STYLES

Friday night, I panicked on camera during the live broadcast of Evolve 72 on FloSlam when I realized that heel manager, Stokely Hathaway and I would be doing our promo at ringside and not in the ring with ring announcer, Joanna Rose as I had anticipated.

I told Joanna before the show that during my promo with her and Stokely in the ring, I was going to ask her about English tailoring so we could compare my suit with Stokely Hathaway's suit.

I had no idea what to say when Stokely Hathaway and I were at ringside about to trade promos and I didn't have Joanna with us to ask about English tailoring.

I panicked and I did exactly what Gabe Sapolsky told me not to do earlier in the week and made a political joke. The joke included a partial quote from the President-Elect that was meant to mock him and then, in-turn, my scripted nemesis, Stokely Hathaway.

I started the joke and stopped quoting the President-Elect without using the offensive word.

Again, I did not utter the offensive word.

I then turned to Stokely Hathaway and said "the word that I will not use, brings me to you."

As the veteran, I should have walked through the promo segment with Stokely Hathaway and Joanna Rose before the event so that there was no possibility of me putting myself in that position.

Gabe was justifiably furious at me and thought that I had endangered his relationship with FloSports.

After the event, I looked Gabe in the eye, apologized to him, and as not as to put him in the awkward position of having to fire someone he has known for 20 years, told him to fire me publicly and then shook his hand.

I apologized to Joanna who said she said she wasn't upset because she knew it was a joke about the President-Elect. It didn't matter if she was upset or not, therefore I apologized to her again, repeatedly.

I apologized to Jeremy Botter, the representative from FloSlam who was at the event, and he wasn't upset. It didn't matter if he was upset or not, therefore I apologized to him again, repeatedly. I also told him that Gabe and EVOLVE had no knowledge of what I was going to say and my actions should not be held against Evolve.

I apologized to the locker room and the wrestlers weren't upset. It didn't matter if they were upset, therefore I apologized to the wrestlers again, repeatedly.

While apologizing to the wrestlers, I saw that Timothy Thatcher obviously had a very serious concussion.

Timothy Thatcher's main event opponent, Drew Gulak also recognized that it was a very serious concussion and said that Timothy needed to go to the hospital.

I went to the hospital with Timothy and Larry Dallas. Gabe arrived at the hospital shorty after we did. We were cordial to each other, because I had already apologized to him and he had already fired me publicly. All that we were rightly concerned about by that point was Timothy Thatcher's condition.

Larry and I stayed at the hospital with Timothy until he was released at 1:30 AM into Larry's care to recover at Larry's home in NY until he is well enough to fly home to California.

While at the hospital watching Timothy struggle to regain his memory of what happened and even remember my name, I made the decision to stay quiet about EVOLVE 72 until today so as not to take attention away from EVOLVE on FloSlam on Sunday night.

In summary, I panicked on a live broadcast, ad-libbed by telling bad joke, apologized to Gabe, told him to publicly fire me to protect himself and then apologized sincerely and repeatedly to everybody involved including Joanna Rose, Jeremy Botter from FloSlam and the wrestlers in the EVOLVE locker room.

In conclusion, I'd like to thank FloSlam for editing out the segment from the EVOLVE 72 replay on FloSlam so fans can enjoy the historic event forever without it being marred.

Joey Styles

[Grimmas]

Jeremy Botter said he was upset. At least one lie in Joey's apology

[WingedEagle]

Forget your thoughts on the comments for a moment. He disobeyed a direct order from his employer. The end. Its at will employment for for a reason, and one party was no longer willing to continue the arrangement.

[InYourCase]

The actual clip is not nearly as offensive as you'd be led to believe by the response it generated online. The audience kind of groaned, then popped when he turned it around to be talking about Stokely. And the popped when he said the announcer looked lovely at the start. Dude got canned not because of a sexual assault joke, but because he did exactly what Gabe told him not to do, and then made a show of doing exactly what Gabe told him not to do.

The live crowd groaned, but seeing the unedited clip and the way Styles went completely out of his way to make an unfunny sexual assault joke made it more disgusting than I would've ever imagined. It doesn't matter why anyone was offended. It was vile, and that's why he was fired.

 

That and that he's a shit announcer.

[C.S.]

I almost expected these sentences to follow the same pattern he had established in the lines leading up to them:

While apologizing to the wrestlers, I saw that Timothy Thatcher obviously had a very serious concussion. It didn't matter if Timothy Thatcher had a serious concussion, therefore I apologized to the wrestlers again.

Timothy Thatcher's main event opponent, Drew Gulak also recognized that it was a very serious concussion and said that Timothy needed to go to the hospital. It didn't matter that Drew Gulak also recognized that it was a very serious concussion and said that Timothy needed to go to the hospital.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Seems like he's saying it's locker room talk.

[InYourCase]

I hate this PC shit. Deplorable? Really? I'd go with not offensive but not funny either. Did anybody catch SNL this week? They made at least a half dozen grab 'em by the pussy jokes, all of which were funny. I probably hear at least two or three Trump jokes a week at work, all of which are worse than this. I just find the hypocracy to be mind boggling. 7 years ago, I was at a wrestling show booked by Gabe Sapolzski where a guy stabbed a women with a spike and that was his babyface turn. That is deplorable. If anything a Donald Trump grab em by the pussy joke is played out.

Explain the logic behind sexual assault being "PC shit".

 

And Joey Styles isn't a fucking comedian. There's no charm when he says it. He's a gross, old man. Him thinking that it was a joke doesn't make what he said any better. In Dave Chappelle's monologue this past Saturday, he said it in a way that brought healing. Styles' brought a harsh reminder that we live in a country that accepts sexual assault.

 

Your logic about Gabe running an angle like that is beyond my comprehension. I can't imagine spewing that line out there and thinking it's logical. More power to you, I guess.

[Bix]

Jeremy Botter said he was upset. At least one lie in Joey's apology

Hell, Gabe said he was upset over a day before Joey ever sent the letter out. Styles does deserve props for writing a non apology that was incredibly deluded and self absorbed even by pro wrestling standards, though.

[Matt D]

I like how he invalidated the firing by taking credit for it.

[peachchaos]

Ugh.

 

"I didn't say the offensive word."

 

How is it so hard for educated people to miss the point of this issue so completely?

[fxnj]

 

 

I hate this PC shit. Deplorable? Really? I'd go with not offensive but not funny either. Did anybody catch SNL this week? They made at least a half dozen grab 'em by the pussy jokes, all of which were funny. I probably hear at least two or three Trump jokes a week at work, all of which are worse than this. I just find the hypocracy to be mind boggling. 7 years ago, I was at a wrestling show booked by Gabe Sapolzski where a guy stabbed a women with a spike and that was his babyface turn. That is deplorable. If anything a Donald Trump grab em by the pussy joke is played out.

Explain the logic behind sexual assault being "PC shit".

 

And Joey Styles isn't a fucking comedian. There's no charm when he says it. He's a gross, old man. Him thinking that it was a joke doesn't make what he said any better. In Dave Chappelle's monologue this past Saturday, he said it in a way that brought healing. Styles' brought a harsh reminder that we live in a country that accepts sexual assault.

 

Your logic about Gabe running an angle like that is beyond my comprehension. I can't imagine spewing that line out there and thinking it's logical. More power to you, I guess.

It is PC shit. Styles making a joke about locker room banter from the president elect has nothing to do with real sexual assault. By that logic, you may as well get triggered by commentators talking about guys killing each other for joking about murder. I am struggling to see how Styles mocking Donald Trump somehow means accepting sexual assault. At most, it means not giving a fuck about PC shit.

[Migs]

Isn't Styles an open Trump supporter? And doesn't that color the interpretation of his words in a week where there have been rampant reports of other Trump supporters stalking women/minorities and using "Trump won" as a justification? Even if there was a version of this that was an actual joke, this was a pretty bad time for it.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Nobody rolls their eyes at PCP culture more than me, but this is clearly someone who was told not to do something and did it anyway.

[sek69]

Nobody rolls their eyes at PCP culture more than me, but this is clearly someone who was told not to do something and did it anyway.

 

This.

 

People beating the dead horse of PC-ness missed the point that his boss told everyone to not do anything political and he did it anyway. It doesn't matter if the joke was funny or not, or if anyone was offended, Joey was unprofessional and he paid the price.

 

And to answer another poster, Styles is what the kids call "alt-right" these days and that certainly would change the context of a grab-em-by-the-pussy joke as opposed to say Dave Chapelle doing one on SNL.

[JerryvonKramer]

Wonder how long Jesse Ventura would have lasted on the "do not disobey boss's orders" front. Either this is about the offensiveness of the comment or it isn't. If it's simply about disobeying the boss, I expect to see people go a lot easier on Michael Cole with Vince in his ear, etc. If it's about the offensiveness of the comment and that alone, call a spade a spade.

[Phil Schneider]

If you watch the clip, he says "Gabe told me not to say anything political, but I don't listen to what people say, here is my gross Trump joke" So not only did he go against what he was directly told, he basically told his boss to fuck off right before he did it.