WWE trainer Bill DeMott has resigned as head coach of WWE’s Performance Center, effective immediately. DeMott made the announcement via Twitter on Friday afternoon, amid allegations from several former WWE wrestlers claiming he propagated an atmosphere of abuse and harassment that included him freely using racial and sexual slurs.
“I deny the recent allegations made about me, however, to avoid any embarrassment or damage to the WWE, I’ve decided to step down from my role effective immediately,” the tweet reads.
“We accepted Bill DeMott’s resignation,” WWE said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post. The company chose not to comment on the ongoing allegations.
The first wrestler to go public with his allegations of extreme bullying from DeMott was Austin Matelson, who worked for NXT, the WWE’s developmental arm that DeMott led, under the name Judas Devlin. He first leveled his allegations publicly on the “Vendetta Pro Radio 2K15″ podcast and shortly thereafter, a letter he wrote to WWE executives complaining about DeMott in 2013 surfaced on the social media Web site Reddit on Monday.
“I am composing this memo today because I have had a number of serious concerns about the actions and words of head coach Bill Demott during my employment as talent for WWE developmental,” Matelson wrote. “Many of these actions I have tried to ignore or hope that they would cease but because they have now put me in a dangerous situation not only for my career but for my personal health and safety I feel the need to speak out to someone of a higher authority.”
The litany of allegations leveled by Matelson fall into two broad categories: 1) unnecessarily endangering wrestlers’ safety; and 2) physically and verbally wrestlers using racial and sexual slurs.
In one incident, Matelson claims he witnessed DeMott kicking a wrestler of Mexican decent in the groin and making fun of his accent. In another, Matelson says he’s heard DeMott repeatedly tell a black wrestler “to go back to Africa,” as well as criticize the sexual preferences of others.
Several other wrestlers who have worked with DeMott came forward with more allegations following the lead of Matelson’s letter, resulting in “#FireBillDeMott” trending on Twitter.
Marissa Payne writes for The Early Lead, a fast-breaking sports blog, where she focuses on what she calls the “cultural anthropological” side of sports, aka “mostly the fun stuff.” She is also an avid WWE fan.
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