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Really?!?Bill Demott resigned from WWE effective immediately.
He's being given an office job, and Albert will be taking over as head trainer.
Note - As I was writing this, Bill DeMott actually announced that he was stepping down[1] . So I apologise for posting this belatedly but it will be posted for posterity anyway. I think it's important to have these stories available for future reference. DeMott stepping down is good news for all of us!
This thread is to catalogue the allegations made against Bill DeMott so far and to update with any new developments (I'm in the UK, so any late-night developments in the US will be added the following morning). Not only is this for the sake of putting together a single hub so everyone can find every story easily but also as place for newcomers to find out the entire story without being confused and only hearing bits and pieces.
Basically, the short version is that Bill DeMott has been accused of three things: firstly, berating and insulting the WWE trainees with politically-incorrect language. Some examples include repeated use of the term "******", telling a black wrestler to "go back to Africa", telling a Middle Eastern trainee to "go back to building bombs" and more. Secondly, DeMott has been accused of intentionally causing or trying to cause injuries amongst the trainees or making existing injuries worse through neglect or maliciousness. Thirdly, the strength and conditioning coach -- Matt Wichlinkski -- has been accused of repeated counts of sexual harassment and not suffered any disciplinary action for doing so. This is allegedly due to DeMott being unwilling to take action against him.
Kevin Matthews
Kevin Matthews first spoke out about Bill DeMott on his MySpace in 2007[2] , shortly after being released from Deep South Wrestling. More famously, Kevin Matthews spoke out against DeMott in 2012 on Twitter[3] , also breaking the news that DeMott has forced talents (Drew Hankinson) to train naked in the past and perform a Stinkface on other trainees (Zack Ryder and Melissa Coates), which was accompanied by a picture of the event[4] (NSFW), with DeMott standing on the outside of the ring. Matthews made sure to note that women were on the receiving end of the naked Stinkface too. In a now-removed video on Youtube, Devon Nicholson corroborated this story.
Derek Foore (Chad Baxter in NXT)
In an interview with The Shoot[5] in 2013, Derek Foore brought up his time in NXT and said that if a trainee messed up in the ring, Bill DeMott would break a yard stick over their back.
Austin Matelson (Austin Draven - ring name, Judas Devlin in NXT)
On the 25th of February, Austin Draven had an interview with Vendetta Pro Radio[6] and news came to light of a letter that Draven wrote to Human Resources[7] about DeMott's behaviour. It outlined a lot of wrongdoing on DeMott's part, including racist and homophobic language, mocking another wrestler's death, referring to wrestler Joel Pettyfer (Oliver Gray) as "Joel Pedophile", telling students to kill themselves shortly after the trainees paid their condolences to Mike Graham (who had committed suicide) and more.
The letter also outlined DeMott's acts of intentionally putting students at risk of injury, including Draven himself, Gary Jackson, Enzo Amore, Memo Montenegro, Brandon Traven, Alexander Rusev, Briley Pierce and Oliver Gray.
Draven followed this with a second appearance on Vendetta Pro Radio[8] where he revealed further details about DeMott's behaviour[9] , including the fact that DeMott mocked Judas' letter after Talent Relations betrayed his trust about keeping it confidential. He also mentions that DeMott keeps a gun in his desk drawer and brings up that the strength and conditioning coach was sexually harassing the women but only Paige spoke up about it.
Following this news, Trent Barreta posted "About ******* time.this letter from Brandon Traven[11] , reaffirming many of the points Austin Draven wrote about in his letter, such as Traven being on the receiving end of many of DeMott's homophobic comments. Brandon Traven was released only weeks after writing the letter.
Ryan Nemeth (Briley Pierce in NXT)
On Twitter, Ryan Nemeth -- brother of Dolph Ziggler -- spoke about the strength and conditioning coach harassing female traineeswrote about howan RF Video shoot interviewImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6/u/chillyecholooked into Wichlinkski more[22] and found some more information about his online past, including a picture of Summer Rae's behind[23] during a workout and a lewd comment on Facebook[24] .
Ivelisse Vélez (Sofia Cortez in NXT)
Ivelisse posted a tweetan RF Video shoot interviewa Facebook post on March 4th[27] , Donovan described the accusations against Bill DeMott as "pretty much one hundred percent true".
Joey Ryan and MVP
In a Twitter thread dating back to January 2014[28] , Joey Ryan wrote about John Laurinaitis and others but apart from a mention of DeMott being "a bully" and an alarming tweet from DeMott about the Boston marathon bombing, there were no significant stories about DeMott's actions. However, Ryan linked to Austin Matelson and Brandon Traven's stories on Wreddit and said he "wasn't exaggerating" about DeMott's bullying methods. MVP replied to it shortly afterwards, simply saying, "Damn. That s**t is STILL going on?" confirming it also occurred during his time with the WWE.
Bob Holly
On Twitter, speaking about a wrestling seminar he did a month ago[29] , Holly states, "two former NXT students were there and said a few things that were the exact same claims that were said against Bill. Sounds like he has been doing it for a while". However, please note that Holly regards this as hearsay rather than confirmation.
Mike Bucci (Nova in ECW, Simon Dean in WWE)
In his RF video shoot interview, Simon Dean stated that people were "sick of" Bill DeMott in Deep South, as it was a period where DeMott was fired but kept coming in anyway. He also referred to DeMott as "a bully" who would stiff people in the ring and stated that, although Kevin Matthews was not liked by a lot of people, what he said about Bill DeMott was true.
A special thank you to all the people who came forward with their stories about Bill DeMott and helped get him to "step down" from his position. It was very courageous of all of you. As wrestling fans, we care about your well-being and the well-being of all trainees who will follow in your footsteps. Although many of us can only read about how tough the wrestling business is, we know it's difficult enough to be a part of without people like DeMott making it harder. We hope we were able to help in our own small way. Thank you for reading.
I'm now hearing that he in fact doesn't have a job at all.Thought there'd be a sweetener for his 'resignation', but that's pretty blatant ugh. Sideways move and probably on the same pay.
WWE must not want DeMott mouthing off on the internet about gods know what.
Had to laugh at the Bob Holly one. If Bob thinks you've done wrong, then you must have definitely done wrong.Here's a good summarised post from r/sc about DeMott
He's being given an office job, and Albert will be taking over as head trainer.
This is.... no laughing matterHad to laugh at the Bob Holly one. If Bob thinks you've done wrong, then you must have definitely done wrong.
Also, does anyone see recent and future events as a step toward the WWE Intercontinental Championship being built to have the prestige/standing similar to the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, which is like the secondary world title in NJPW? If they're planning on having Daniel Bryan win it at WrestleMania (and I can easily see that happening), that might be the route things take. Sometimes the title elevates the worker, sometimes the worker elevates the title.
A title unification feud with Rusev post-WrestleMania would be a solid "next step" in that plan too.
if Rusev doesn't lose it to Axel on Raw.