No one is perfect. In High School, when I was going through a dark period, I almost ran into someone at a Wal-Mart without going “oop.” I’m such a bastard. People make mistakes, especially when they’re younger. We typically mature and either succumb to social pressure or just realize we were flat out wrong. Other times we pretend like we’re totally sorry for what we did because our employer says they’re losing money over our stupid comments. These are those times.
Ronda Rousey – Sandy Hook
Ronda is all about the children. Selling her merchandise to children, getting children to talk their parents into buying tickets to see her, and even demanding children show proof when they die. Wait… what was that last one, again?
In 2012, a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School left 20 kids tragically lost. Most normal people reacted by being sad, but Ronda Rousey is terrible at selling offense. Instead, Ronda responded by reposting a YouTube video that talks about how the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax with child actors, where no one really died, the adults were paid to lie about child deaths, and Santa isn’t real. All the dickhead things to talk about. Ronda referred the video as “extremely interesting and a must watch,” which is like calling Mein Kampf a fascinating bed time story.
When human beings capable of human emotions confronted Dr Rowdy Robotic Rousey about how blatantly shitty that was she blew them off. She stated that “it’s more patriotic to question things” than it is to just accept that children dying isn’t something you should question to begin with. I definitely paraphrased that last part, but I didn’t change as much as you might think.
To her credit, she did later delete her tweet. That’s something you’d expect to happen when someone questions how overly dramatic these parents are being about their lost children. The WWE eventually hired her to be the focal point of the Women’s division, because she’s an inspiration to all living children everywhere. All I’m saying is maybe don’t ask Ronda to babysit your kids.
The Ultimate Warrior – Homosexuals and Cripples
You may know the Ultimate Warrior as the man who had numerous affairs, confessed to abusing steroids, or claimed New Orleans was using the flood to get attention. Did you also know that Warrior was a terrible person? Shocking! Who would have thought that a guy who once claimed MLK’s 40-mile march wasn’t a big deal might not be a standup guy?
It all started in 2005 when the WWE wanted to cash in on the Ultimate Warrior’s name by creating a DVD documentary. The WWE offered Warrior a chance to be a part of the DVD, but he declined. Maybe Warrior was being stubborn, maybe the WWE wasn’t paying enough, or maybe who cares? The WWE went ahead with the DVD and it was hilariously bad. The DVD took every shot that it could at Warrior the wrestler and the person. Predictively, Warrior was livid. He trashed the WWE through multiple blogs and videos.
The WWE is the kind of company dumb enough to walk up to a giant hangry grizzly bear and say, “Oh what a lovely teddy! I think I’ll poke it with my stick!” They invited Warrior onto their internet series “Byte This” starring Droz and Todd Grisham. Warrior responded by addressing the two hosts as “the queer” and “the cripple.” For those of you who don’t know, Droz became paralyzed after a botched powerbomb and Todd Grisham became ridiculously handsome after a botched condom.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “hey, doesn’t the WWE have an award called the Warrior Award that’s given to people who overcome handicaps like paralysis,” then congratulations, you’re everyone except the WWE.
Lars – Everyone
Earlier in 2019, fans with literally nothing better to do with their time went digging through Lars’ internet history and discovered that Lars is a terrible person. For those of you who don’t know, Lars went to the Body Building forums and said some racist and homophobic things throughout the past 11 years. He joked about racial discrimination, he made homophobic comments, and he mentions that some rape is fine. I know, I’m as shocked as you are. I mean, I can’t BELIEVE that body building forums is still a thing. Mind blown. Oh, also the stuff Lars said was crazy, too.
We should get this out of the way: most of what he said was a long time ago, a person has a right to an opinion even if it isn’t socially acceptable, and some fans are taking this way too far. We also need to point out the opposite side: some of what he said was done during his time employed with WWE, the right to an opinion doesn’t mean you’re free of consequences, and it doesn’t make it acceptable to the public. I don’t believe pants should be a requirement but if I walk around without wearing any people will be offended by what they see; especially my wife. There, now both sides are covered. There’s no reason to start a flame war in the comment section now.
Once the word spread over the internet and everyone found out, the WWE decided to fine Lars an arbitrary amount of money and required him to take sensitivity training. Keep in mind, the WWE knew about this for months but didn’t do anything until the pressure was put on the sponsors. It is weird that Lars criticized people who having mental issues, but then missed months of his stint in WWE because mental issues. You can contribute this to a happy coincidence. Or, tin foil hat theory, the WWE was keeping Lars out of the limelight hoping that the forum comment debacle would blow over before anyone noticed. Then, they claimed Lars was out of action because of anxiety issues as a rib on him. You know, “Ha-ha. Lars has something that can be incredibly serious to other people that may make them unstable, cripple them, or drive them to suicide. Ha-ha, good times.”
Regardless of what side you take, I think we can all at least admit that most of what he said wasn’t socially acceptable and at least some of it was offensive. I think we can agree that the WWE is a business whose model requires as many customers as possible and, in this case, “customer” also includes sponsors. The WWE can’t afford to lose any more customers as their stock in the industry continues to drop. We can’t fault the WWE for acting. You can blame the overly PC era if you want but those overly PC people are still customers. It makes complete sense for the WWE to act. No company should be questioned for taking the PC side because those who are offended will walk away from the brand and those who aren’t offended are fine. That’s simple business.
However, the facts show that the WWE didn’t care until people made an uproar about it and that the $100,000 fine is just window dressing, so if you’re going to be upset with Lars, be upset with the WWE as well for blowing it off despite being a melting pot of races, religions, and sexual preferences. The WWE doesn’t care if they offend you. They care if something offends enough people that it hurts business. This is a company known for its crazy amount of frat like bullying and hazing. No, I’m not talking about the people who were upset at Bill DeMott for making them run laps. I’m talking about the people who were upset that he made them eat donuts out of another man’s ass. That WWE was fine with this, so you can’t tell me that only a few years later they’re suddenly grief stricken over internet comments.
I guess you could say that the WWE forgot to… be a star.