It must be an exciting feeling, training to become a professional wrestler and become
the next big thing in the WWE unless you’re training with Bill Demott. Demott worked as
a trainer in the WWE performance centre and became head trainer for the professional wrestling
reality TV series, Tough Enough. During his time as a trainer, Demott allegedly bullied
his trainees both physically and mentally, made his trainees perform dangerous drills
and moves they had no experience doing and used racist and derogatory slurs towards his
trainees, such as calling a Middle easterner a “terrorist”. That was not all, as Demott
was also accused of sexual harassment and asked trainees to wrestle naked, such as Luke
Gallows, who was butt-naked in the ring one time and gave stinkfaces to Zack Ryder and
Melissa Coates while Demott held jelly donuts over their faces. For some reason, Demott
had a particular disdain for Enzo Amore, who was often a victim of Demott’s bullying.
Enzo Amore may have a face that’s punchable’ or ‘kickable’ to some, but that is no
excuse to bully him or anyone else for that matter. Eventually, Demott resigned from the
WWE in March of 2015 after widespread accusations of his bullying came to light.
Dynamite Kid was a real tough guy and one of the most influential in-ring performers
in wrestling history, however, that being said, he had a reputation for being a stiff
worker and a bully in and out of the ring. Kid used to bully newcomers in the ring with
real stiff kicks and punches and one of his victims who would attest to this is The Hardcore
Legend, Mick Foley, who in his debut match received a stiff clothesline from Dynamite
Kid that tore a ligament in his jaw, leaving him unable to eat solid food for weeks. Outside
the ring, Kid was no different; he got into lots of bar fights, altercations with other
wrestlers and was violent towards his ex-wife. In fact, on one night he woke up his wife
with a gun in her mouth, telling her “next time it’ll be loaded”. As mentioned, Dynamite
Kid got involved in many altercations with other wrestlers, that would often turn violent
including an altercation with Bruce Hart, one of the older brothers of Bret and Owen
Hart, which saw Dynamite Kid break his jaw. Another incident, perhaps his most notorious
one, was with Jacques Rougeau, who had enough of Kid bullying him, so he punched Kid in
the face, knocking out several of his teeth. Dynamite Kid is now confined to a wheel chair
as a result of spinal and leg injuries he sustained throughout his wrestling career,
probably from too many diving headbutts, if you ask me.
Just to be clear, Shawn Michaels is undeniably one of the best wrestlers ever to step foot
in a WWE ring and is by no means a backstage bully now but back in the nineties, this was
a different story. Besides abusing drugs and alcohol, Michaels was the leader of a backstage
group known as “The Kliq” that comprised of himself, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Triple
H and X-Pac. Each member of the group wielded tremendous power in the company, which they
abused backstage not only to bully wrestlers they didn’t like but to bury them. In one
instance, Michaels fought in a match against Big Van Vader and when Vader made a mistake,
Michaels angrily yelled at him, kind of like when Randy Orton loses his cool. Michaels
even went as far as threatening to get Vader fired the next time he did something like
that again, which actually made Vader cry and they say, big men don’t cry.
When you’re the boss and have so much power in the company, you can pretty much get away
with anything including bullying. Vince McMahon is known to be a bully backstage, as mentioned
by CM Punk and one of his most infamous cases of bullying was the
hazing of former WWE announcer, “Good ol’ JR”, Jim Ross. Jim Ross suffers from Bell’s
palsy which results in one side of his face being paralyzed and so Vince McMahon thought
that it was a good idea to mock him for this in a tasteless fashion in a segment on RAW
with Hornswoggle, which did not go down well with fans. McMahon even went as far as creating
a video of JR receiving “rectal surgery”, which was a plain mockery of a legitimate
colon surgery that Jim Ross had. In the video, McMahon pulls out a bottle of JR’s barbecue
sauce from JR’s ass among other things before pulling JR’s head from out his ass. For
a company that has a strong anti-bullying campaign, it’s ironic how McMahon was able
to get away with all this.
This list would not be complete without including JBL. Currently a color commentator for SmackDown
Live, he has been accused of bullying Billy Silverman, Chris Masters, The Blue Meanie,
Palmer Cannon, The Miz, René Duprée, Muhammad Hassan, Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, Brian Christopher,
Shannon Moore, Paul London, Justin Roberts, Joey Styles, Mauro Ranallo and the list just
goes on. It is even believed that JBL was responsible for Meng leaving the company back
in 2002. JBL has been accused of doing all sorts of things from throwing people’s luggage
into running showers to soaping people’s asses in the showers. But it was not just
backstage where JBL’s bullying occurred but in the ring too. One infamous example
was when JBL gave The Blue Meanie a Texan thrashing at an ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view
in 2005. JBL legitimately threw punches at The Blue Meanie, busting him open and leaving
him in a bloody mess. However, not all of JBL’s victims were passive as back in 2008
during a Tribute to the Troops show in Iraq, a drunken JBL received a black eye after he
was punched right in the face by former ECW commentator, Joey Styles, who had enough of
his bullying. A testament that bullies never do win.