Less than a week after allegations went public, former WWE NXT Head Trainer Bill DeMott has tenured his resignation. The resignation continues to raise more questions and polarize the pro wrestling industry.
[adinserter block=”1″]It didn’t take long for the shat to hit the fin. A couple of days after a post on Reddit.com accused the WWE of failing to thoroughly investigate Bill DeMott’s bullying and use of physical and mental abuse on trainees, the company and DeMott took action. DeMott resigned, while continuing to deny all charges as the pro wrestling industry continues to debate the situation from all sides of the spectrum.
The biggest piece of news that came out of the Reddit.com post is that allegations were made aware to the WWE and Human Resources. The company claimed to have exonerated DeMott after a full investigation. However, this “investigation” soon became embarrassing when one wrestler identified in the complaint to HR claimed that he was never contacted, thus making the investigation look suspect at best.
It didn’t take long for DeMott’s allies in the pro wrestling industry to come out and fully support the former trainer. Chris Jericho was the first to tweet about it, although Jericho later deleted his tweet. Jim Ross wrote about it in his blog, although he kind of danced around the issue and said a lot without really saying anything. Former WWE star Bob Holly criticized DeMott. Lance Storm defended DeMott on Wrestling Observer Live which is also very ironic since Storm was critical of JBL’s bullying when Storm was a trainer in OVW. In other words, everyone is all over the place on this one.
I don’t blame DeMott entirely on this mess. Triple H is not an idiot and most of these allegations have been public for years regarding DeMott. There is almost no way that Hunter has not heard about these allegations. As a matter of a fact, Dave Meltzer reported it was Hunter who instructed DeMott to go harder on the trainees as Trips felt they weren’t in good enough shape. At the end of the day if DeMott was only following orders from above, how culpable is he in this mess?
Unfortunately for DeMott I can’t imagine Triple H’s orders included physically assaulting trainees who are injured, making racist remarks, and making homophobic remarks. The business has changed. Personally, I have never been offended by a word or words but to each their own. Yet at the end of the day he is the head trainer in a publicly traded company. A company who actively markets their anti-bullying and anti-homophobic efforts and campaigns.
I think the bigger problem with DeMott is that he hasn’t produced anywhere close to the quality of new talent that were being produced on a regular basis in OVW. Sure you have the Shield but I am talking about guys who came into the developmental center with little to no training and turned into WWE superstars who draw money. Rusev looks good and the jury is still out on Reigns. Yet this isn’t the kind of production previous developmental coaches offered to the company. Ultimately that falls back on Triple H, who was a critic of OVW. Yet if you look back over the last few years there is nobody that has been developed successfully the way Jim Cornette and Danny Davis produced talent in OVW and that is just a fact.
I don’t think you necessarily have to be a top drawing star to train pro wrestlers. I look at every other sport and see dozens of Hall of Fame coaches and trainers that were average players in their sports. Heck, arguably the greatest NFL coach in history Bill Belichick never even played a down of football in the NFL. Lance Storm is universally regarded as one of the best trainers in the business yet as great as Lance was, I don’t think anyone would call him a big draw. That said, you have to wonder how not only DeMott has kept his job for so long without accountability, but why he was hired for this position in the first place.
[adinserter block=”2″]The irony of all of this is that many WWE stars have mocked the Power Plant system WCW had for years. Yet if you compare notes, DeMott isn’t accused of doing anything that different from Buddy Lee Parker. Even more similar, the Power Plant ran off several guys that would later become WWE superstars including Batista. WWE creative has been compared to WCW often in recent weeks yet there is probably more that the WWE has in common with WCW these days than ever before and that is pretty scary.
Matt Bloom, the former Tensai has taken over DeMott’s position as head trainer. Bloom was trained by the legendary late Killer Kowalksi, the same trainer that Triple H had. Kowalski was never known for using the tactics that DeMott is accused of using, so I would expect a much different system under Bloom. Bloom was never a big draw but probably drew more money over his career than DeMott did and at least that is a start in the right direction.
The developmental system needed a change and it had everything to do with DeMott. I am excited to see what kind of results Bloom can produce over the next several months. A new head trainer is exactly what the company has needed. It’s just a shame it took a situation like this that got them to move in that direction.
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