For years I have thought that someone high up in the WWE towers of power does indeed have a sense of humour. There can be no other reason for the company supporting the Be A Star “anti-bullying” campaign.

    Quite apart from a number of occasions where bullying has been an on-screen phenomenon, especially in the form of any McMahon storyline, (and there have been many occasions where the “bully” never gets his/her comeuppance), the WWE is a company that seems determinedly stuck in the dark ages as far as corporate practises for their employees…no, sorry, “independent contractors”… are concerned.

    But this isn’t to go into details about that side of the business. Not least because another “public” side of the WWE’s bullying was apparently shown to the world recently on RAW.

    If anyone sat down to watch Natalya, JoJo and Eva Marie to take on the team of Alicia Fox, Aksana and Rosa Mendes expecting a five-star classic they deserved all they got. But even watching it on TV the booking seemed slightly strange. The majority of the match seemed to be Eva Marie trying to work spots with Aksana and Mendes. That’s Eva Marie who had about two matches against two opponents who may have been more experienced but who are about as far from being the “finished article” as you can get.

    And then it came out in the days afterwards; the WWE were looking to make an example of Eva Marie for her “bad attitude” and had purposefully booked the match in such a manner that people would instantly take to the world wide web and say how bad she was. This was apparently designed to take Eva down a peg or two.

    Quite beyond the sheer counter-productivity of the booking, this was off-colour for a number of reasons.

    One suggestion is that there is resentment because Eva Marie is getting her push because of a “tv show” not because of any talent. It matters not to the other workers who resent her for this that it is a tv show that the WWE produced and that there is a culture within the corporate management to hire writers with mainstream tv experience rather than any knowledge of wrestling. No, it’s much easier to rant against the woman herself rather than the company decisions that have led to it.

    The company apparently feels that Marie has too high an opinion of herself in terms of her in-ring capability and yet this is the same company who has for years hired swimsuit models over those with actual wrestling experience and has indeed pushed a number of these despite them never showing any real wrestling skill. But again, far easier to pick on a rookie than acknowledge that the system breeds the kind of “talent” that it deserves.

    After all, it’s not that long since Natalya was given a “flatulence” gimmick rather than being allowed to rely on her in-ring skill is it? And hey, it’s not like the WWE has the likes of Paige, Emma, Summer Rae, Bayley and Sasha Banks under contract who can all work decent matches and have experience and training is it? Oh wait…but yeah, it’s still easier to put the heat on a rookie.

    If the WWE really feel like they apparently do about Eva Marie, why not do things behind the scenes and to her face rather than intentionally running a five minute segment of RAW just out of spite. But perhaps that’s expecting too much from a company who can’t seem to realise that situations like this are totally from their own actions creating the environment. And as this comes after an apparent incident on Total Divas where Marie was lectured/punished by Stephanie McMahon in a segment which Marie thought was “legitimate” it’s interesting to note that when Stephanie (and Shane McMahon) started to wrestle none of the tough guys in the locker room loudly complained about their lack of experience…

    This is by no means the worst example of bullying we’ll ever see in the WWE. Over the years there are legion of tales from the locker room, including what I consider to be pathetic examples like grown men complaining that a new WCW import didn’t shake hands with them and so didn’t have “respect” or guys calling a “wrestler’s court” to punish apparent misdeeds. There’s also the kind of verbal bully who appoints himself a locker room leader, bullying the smaller guys, but who then gets knocked out by a commentator…can’t recall his name off hand though.

    I was hoping that as Vince McMahon winds down and the realisation that society has evolved from the kayfabe days of territorial wrestling hits home we might see such acts of bullying dwindle. Obviously not. The excuse that wrestling is a “man’s business” or that someone is “protecting their spot” will continue to be trotted out for years to come to somehow justify behaviour that wouldn’t be accepted in any other business.

    Wrestling is a tough enough way to make a living without all that kind of crap.

    – By Matthew Roberts