#SpeakingOut: Industry-wide sexual misconduct (assault/harrassment/grooming/etc) accusations and their repercussions

[KawadaSmile]

There's also the fact that, while the law states that a 16 year old can provide consent, the position of power between the parties must be taken into consideration. Scurll trained the girl at RevPro, so he did was in that position.

Furthermore, it is mentioned that the girl was also intoxicated, which makes things even worse.

[El-P]

3 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

There's also the fact that, while the law states that a 16 year old can provide consent, the position of power between the parties must be taken into consideration. Scurll trained the girl at RevPro, so he did was in that position.

Ok, thanks for clearing that point, like I said I haven't read every story (because after a while, it's just too damn depressing). Ok, so there's clearly an issue here and you can't possibly just say "but there was consent". Whatever the case, it was completely unethical to begin with. (and yeah, the intoxicated part only makes it worse on many levels)

[KawadaSmile]

It seems CHIKARA is also under fire but I'm not sure about the specifics

EDIT: Found it, I think.

Harsh stuff

[El Dragon]

3 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

It seems CHIKARA is also under fire but I'm not sure about the specifics

I'm uniquely qualified to give specifics here, so quick rundown.

When the original breakdown of this shit was happening, a wrestler in CHIKARA going by Kobald was accused by 4 separate women for predatory behavior. CHIKARA promptly fired Kobold, but it has spurred on others to tell stories of the company being shitty, as one of the women who came out (a former podcaster for the company who now does the same for CZW) has started taking on reports from other who have similar stories for the company and posting them. Lowlights have included accusations of Quack getting caught sleeping with some of his female students, including the time his wife found out. Also, accusations of racism, homophobia, and more have been levied on Quack.

 

Also, the podcaster running this also happens to be my best friend of 15 years, and I can personally testify the Kobald shit was horrific bullshit and I will punch that dude in the face if I ever meet him in person.

[KawadaSmile]

@El Dragon, thanks for filling me in, bubba. I saw people really heartbroken that CHIKARA, of all places, was home to such horrific behavior.

[supersonic]

5 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

@El Dragon, thanks for filling me in, bubba. I saw people really heartbroken that CHIKARA, of all places, was home to such horrific behavior.

From what little I've seen, that federation's entire shtick has always come across as incredibly disingenuous. 

[NintendoLogic]

If I'm not mistaken, Quack's wife was CHIKARA's main financial backer. When she found out about his extracurricular activities, she pulled the plug and filed for divorce, which is what led to the shutdown angle.

[MoS]

What are the allegations against Quack? I've seen tweets talking abut him being a POS but haven't been able to find what he is accused of. 

[paul sosnowski]

Someone needs to isolate the clip of Big Dave on Monday night's radio show at the 37:55 mark

He says "I have been with guys, when I was young"

 

.... at Denny's...whatever, whatever

[funkdoc]

This has gotten serious enough that Brian Zane is deleting some of his popular Wrestling With Wregret videos, such as one that spends a good bit of time on Joey Ryan & all of Cornette's guest appearances.  It's even made the guy who runs the Mongo clip Twitter account retire, because he doesn't want to watch wrestling anymore.

FYI the video-game industry is going through almost the exact same phenomenon right now too, except there it's more focused on major publishers & media outlets (IGN being a big example) as opposed to indies...

[C.S.]

Over two decades ago, I remember a couple of indie wrestlers (I won't name them, and I'm not sure either of them ever really "made it" anyway) telling me what an ass Quack was. When the rest of the internet started hero-worshiping this guy, I knew better. (Note: Obviously, they did not hint at anything sexual - if that's even what this is about.)

CHIKARA also seemed dumb as fuck to me, but I've never actually bothered to watch it, so maybe I'm wrong. *Shrug*

With all of that said, I am also kind of unclear about what Quack actually did. Everything I've read so far has been vague and confusing.

[Rah]

3 hours ago, MoS said:

What are the allegations against Quack? I've seen tweets talking abut him being a POS but haven't been able to find what he is accused of. 

Making racist, misogynistic and homophobic remarks about talent/trainees to others in Chikara. The same person accuses Quack of taking advantage of his position to sleep with a trainee(s?). Hopefully things become clearer.

IIRC, and this is going back a while, didn't Quackenbush forbid EMTs from removing a wrestler's mask so his identity wouldn't be exposed in front of the audience? I think it was Lince. He also fired Jigsaw for removing his mask in RoH. So he's definitely a bit short-tempered. Of course that's unrelated to the accusations now, just a tidbit that goes against Chikara's image of family-friendly entertainment.

 

 

1 hour ago, funkdoc said:

FYI the video-game industry is going through almost the exact same phenomenon right now too, except there it's more focused on major publishers & media outlets (IGN being a big example) as opposed to indies...

 

I'm looking in from afar here but wasn't there accusations against IGN (or a staff member) quite a while back? Hopefully those speaking out are given respect in doing so, because it was a shit show before.

I don't think gaming or wrestling is quite there yet, in terms of fostering systemic change for the better, but it's a huge step forward compared to where we were a decade ago. 

[SirEdger]

People are dissociating themselves from CHIKARA left and right. Hallowicked, Frightmare, Dasher Hatfield and a couple more did in the past hours.

[El Dragon]

10 hours ago, supersonic said:

From what little I've seen, that federation's entire shtick has always come across as incredibly disingenuous. 

Being real, I think the sad part is a lot of the talent DO believe in what CHIKARA was supposed to represent. A lot of the talent, especially the younger workers, probably joined because they thought it was a place to would be perfect for them due to them being very inclusive. That ideal is great. The problem is the person running that was an egomaniac who bought into al his own shit.

[cad]

2 hours ago, funkdoc said:

It's even made the guy who runs the Mongo clip Twitter account retire, because he doesn't want to watch wrestling anymore.

Wow, this really has gotten serious.

[C.S.]

Marty Scurll: "As a person who has been identified as part of the problem, I am unreservedly committing to be part of the solution."

Well, he's saying all the right things, at least...

For people more familiar with him, does this seem sincere or reek of bullshit?

[Rah]

I dunno, Marty trained her at Rev Pro before this incident even happened:
 

Her claim was also that, while plastered drunk, he had her underwear off, penis out before her friend saw them and told him to leave.

[C.S.]

10 minutes ago, Rah said:

I dunno, Marty trained her at Rev Pro before this incident even happened

Bizarre, then, that he would lie so brazenly about something so easily disprovable.

The way he tells it, they met at a bar and he didn't know her age.

Nothing about training her beforehand, etc.

Why lie about something that obvious?

I guess Marty isn't a very smart bloke.

[Rah]

14 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Bizarre, then, that he would lie so brazenly about something so easily disprovable.

The way he tells it, they met at a bar and he didn't know her age.

Nothing about training her beforehand, etc.

Why lie about something that obvious?

I guess Marty isn't a very smart bloke.

He knew her dad, at the least. 

 

 

[sek69]

So something similar is going on with folks in the gaming/streaming world now and a lot of guys were outed as abusers. I happen to follow one of the women who was dating one of the creeps in question and she mentioned even though her ex publicly admitted the accusations against him were true,  and when she came forward with her story she still had people in her mentions all "where's your proof". Even when the guy in question fully copped to what he did, people still demand a fully annotated document from the woman in order to consider believing it. 

[Stiva]

I feel like I don't want to say too much about this because, even in this closed space, I feel like my voice as a straight, white man is distracting from the voices that actually need to be heard but Scurll's "apology" is skin-crawling. Using the UK age of consent as a crutch when you were a 26 year old man involved with a 16 year old woman. Yeah, it's the age of consent but why was she at a party? Why was she drunk at 16? The idea that he feels those two caveats are an excuse of sorts is legitimately stomach churning. For some reason, and I don't mean to prescribe severity to each individual accusation, but this one feels especially seedy and evil. 

But, the idea of not watching wrestling as a result of this is a large crater to navigate. This current wave and scene is clearly awful but just how bad was it in the 90s and 80s? How many women from then have stories similar, or worse, than what we're hearing now? I feel like we had to answer this question post-Benoit; how do we navigate our fandom and appreciation of one wrestler in light of horrifying circumstances? How do we now, navigate and justify our support and fandom of an entire industry in light of these accusations? And how do we do the same with the wrestling that has gone before? This week has shown that wrestling has systemic problems, ingrained for years. How do we approach 80s and 90s wrestling with that thought in mind? All of this clearly had to happen and every single victim has my support, no matter how insignificant that might be, but I really hope that, going forward, these are questions that we ask ourselves as we evaluate and re-evaluate pro wrestling, as best as we can.

[sek69]

Honestly it was worse, and probably considerably worse, in the 80s and 90s.  Heavy drug use is less common than it was back  then, and it was pretty close to impossible for victims to come forward and risk the wrath of daring to tarnish the local heroes.

I mean, we've pretty much all forgotten what a scandal it was when Art Barr plead guilty to rape of a 19 year old in 1989, didn't stop everyone from praising him as one of the best ever who died too young. 

[C.S.]

Trenesha Biggers (Rhaka Khan in TNA) is posting about Kurt Angle.

Not a new story, but I'm surprised it took several days to resurface.

This is one of many tweets:

Is she saying that PW Insider didn't run with the story, or is she saying it ran and then Kurt/Dixie got it removed?

I don't frequent that spyware-infested shithole and don't rate any of its "reporters," so I'm asking.

BTW, I really need to stop looking at Twitter. Every time I do, it's something new and horrifying. I feel so heartbroken for the poor women and men who have been put through the ringer by such a scuzzy industry.  

[Stiva]

 

3 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Honestly it was worse, and probably considerably worse, in the 80s and 90s.  Heavy drug use is less common than it was back  then, and it was pretty close to impossible for victims to come forward and risk the wrath of daring to tarnish the local heroes.

I mean, we've pretty much all forgotten what a scandal it was when Art Barr plead guilty to rape of a 19 year old in 1989, didn't stop everyone from praising him as one of the best ever who died too young. 

Absolutely. And, I think there's something to be said for the progress that has been made where these women feel that they're safe to come forward and tell these harrowing stories in public. Obviously, we're far from where we need to be but maybe, in all this harrowing and awful news, that can be something where, from this generation onward, we can see a wrestling industry devoid of all of this? Maybe that's overly optimistic and I would love to read and listen to a women's perspective before saying that. But this minor exorcism feels like a positive step, regardless. 

[C.S.]

4 minutes ago, Stiva said:

but maybe, in all this harrowing and awful news, that can be something where, from this generation onward, we can see a wrestling industry devoid of all of this?

Sadly, I don't think any industry can ever be 100% devoid of anything. But I am really hoping this breaks the industry-wide systemic nature of abuse and puts an end to all of the toxic thought-processes in wrestling - sexual road stories being told for "laughs," women being labeled "rats," etc.

But I'm not optimistic enough to believe that will ever happen.

For example, what has WWE really addressed over the past week?

They fired the low on the totem pole, completely expendable, won't be missed, no one will notice he's gone anyway Jack Gallagher.

And?