La Zona Muerta

I didn’t watch WWE Backlash: France, so I don’t really have any big thoughts about it (save one: Tanga Loa? Hahahahahahahaha. Get Hikuleo too, please. Loa was washed YEARS ago). I would like to talk briefly, however about the fallout thereof, specifically Triple H and the post show presser.

WWE released a bunch of NXT kids we’ve never seen or hardly seen, as well as, let’s say the controversial figures Drew Gulak and Gable Steveson. We’ll discuss why Gulak and Steveson are considered controversial in a bit.

During the presser, someone asked Mr. Levesque about Gulak’s release in specific, citing reports from Fightful and Pro Wrestling Insider. Levesque smirked, “First of all, if you’re going to cite news sources, pick good ones. That’s where I would start. Credible, really, maybe. Yep. We… release talent all of the time. We have… NFL releases four or five hundred people a year. We release talent all the time. It’s part of what we do. You can’t just hire more people and keep hiring more people all the time and keep bringing them in. So, uh… an unfortunate part of the job is talent get released. Can I say he [Gulak] was released? He was not released. His contract was just not renewed.”

Before I crow too terribly hard about that; he just as easily could have said “the Wrestling Observer,” the site I’m still tangentially affiliated with, so there for the grace of God go I. However… the mask, the mask of Uncle Paul, affable hero and face of today’s new, Vince-free WWE totally slipped and no one seems to get it.

Oh sure, some people get it. Dave Meltzer got it. I’m sure John Pollock and Brandon Thurston got it. I’d imagine Joe Lanza and Rich Kraetsch got it. Dave Scherer of PWI sure didn’t get it, pledging to still go to WrestleMania and spend lotsa money. Fightful didn’t get it, deciding to make sure that everyone knew that Drew Gulak wasn’t renewed because he was a sadistic coach who was hated in the back. Paul Levesque, the guy who just completely buried and humiliated these two news sources online wrestling fans trust for whatever reason just told EVERYONE EXACTLY WHAT HE THINKS OF THEM and they still pretend “oh no, they meant the other guy” and breeze along happily.

Had Hunter said this about Meltzer, the internet would still be on fire right now.

Looking at the two departures, Gable Steveson is a sexual predator who wasn’t convicted simply due to a quirk of Minnesota law. He and a teammate took advantage of a young woman who was drunk; there apparently weren’t enough teeth in the then Minnesota law to protect people who were in no condition to give consent. This didn’t stop WWE from hiring him; I doubt it played much of a role in releasing him. Word was he wasn’t picking it up (pro wrestling, that is) and had an attitude. I don’t know anyone who knows the man, but I’m not sorry to see him go. If anything; it’s the opposite. I laugh at the money and time they spent on the man. Good riddance.

Drew Gulak is a more complicated issue but the bottom line is that Ronda Rousey recently accused him of tugging on the drawstrings of her sweatpants a couple of years back, and he claims it was a matter of a handshake gone wrong. You’ll note that’s not a denial of tugging on her drawstrings, but a denial of intent; he copped to doing it so there’s no need to question Rousey’s credibility in this matter.

I’ve never missed a handshake by that great of a degree.

Did that factor into Gulak being released / his contract not being renewed (according to Levesque)? I can’t say. Fightful has spent the weekend telling us that Gulak was bad, actually… but when he was cut in 2020, he was rehired within a few weeks, so WWE must have had some use for him. Regardless of his story about “missing the handshake,” it just goes to show that WWE is an environment where literally the most famous woman in the company can still have her concerns dismissed simply because she’s a woman and WWE won’t do anything until they receive some bad press.

I’m fairly convinced at this point that the only way people in the “Internet wrestling community” (hate that term) will turn on Levesque is if he suddenly decries fruit baskets. Everyone attaching themselves to Hunter like barnacles need to realize that he doesn’t give a singular fuck about any of you, and that your paragon of virtue may not be the squeaky clean fella you portray him to be.