Lars Sullivan And WWE's Recent History Of Turning A Blind Eye To Bigotry
Lars Sullivan's alleged past as a message board misogynist and a bodybuilding bigot is slowly, but surely, coming back to haunt him.
The ongoing scandal, which
dates back to unsettling old posts on a Bodybuilding.com message board that resurfaced last November, reared its ugly head yet again when African-American WWE Superstar Big E weighed in via Twitter.
Big E tweeted the following in response to a fan inquiring the New Day members' thoughts on Sullivan's now-infamous posts:
Screenshots linking Sullivan to these bigoted comments are available at
this link in a post on Reddit's slightly less racist Squared Circle message board. Most of the 30-year-old Sullivan's Tweets ran from 2008 to 2013, so there is no "it was a different time" defense.
Lars' five years of dicey philosophies also conspicuously ended right around the time he was signed by WWE in October of 2013. The timing leads me to believe that the rhetoric didn't stop
because Sullivan had changed his ways, it most likely stopped so it wouldn't haunt the future WWE Superstar now that his dream was real.
Too late. The fascist freshman is now under fire after waxing poetic with material that would make him overqualified as a speechwriter for David Duke.
Some of Sullivan's greatest hits include praising white power music group Blue Eyed Devils (sic)—an idiot rock band that doesn't even know
how to properly hyphenate compound adjectives—denouncing Muslims, denouncing immigrants, mocking social anxiety (
ironically), spewing gleefully homophobic rhetoric, making light of domestic violence, referring to black people as wanting a piece of the "pity pie" and enough alt-right hate speech to fill up the streets of Charlottesville.
If bigotry was baseball, Lars hit for the cycle.
Sullivan's past is further complicated by WWE's clear intentions to make him its latest monster of the month. With
Braun Strowman cooling down, it's now Lars Sullivan who is in the early stages of a patterned push, systematically destroying tenured WWE Superstars and living legends such as The Hardy Boyz, Rey Mysterio, R-Truth and Kurt Angle.
Sullivan was even
heavily rumored for an elusive feud with John Cena, but plans were scrapped when he reportedly (and, again, ironically)
suffered an anxiety attack.
WWE was made aware of Sullivan's comments prior to signing him and reportedly intends to "stay low and hope it disappears" according to WWE insider account @
WrestleVotes. The account went on to surmise WWE officials "aren't going to do a damn thing."
WWE is no stranger to erring on the wrong side of bigotry when faced with similar situations. Last year saw the
Clash of the Titans of xenophobia when disgraced former WWE champion Hulk Hogan
snuck back onto WWE programming to kick off the promotion's radioactive Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia.
Hogan's appearance was his first since being
fired in 2015 for making racist remarks that included repeated use of the n-word.
The Hogan-led opening ceremonies officially cemented WWE's
controversial decision to move forward with Crown Jewel. This despite heightened international tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia
following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
WWE also came under fire for agreeing not to feature any performers in its women's division in addition to keeping Sami Zayn off the Greatest Royal Rumble in Jeddah. Zayn's absence was due to his
Syrian descent clashing with Saudi ideals.
It's estimated that WWE's decision to condone bigoted practices within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia cost it around
37,000 subscribers to the WWE Network. Still, in 2018 the promotion raked in an estimated
$70 - $80 millionfrom Year 1 of its 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia.
This sums up what has become an eternal flaw within WWE as it has proven to never let a little racism get in the way of perceived star power or a big-money deal.
It's estimated that WWE's decision to condone bigoted practices within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia cost it around
37,000 subscribers to the WWE Network. Still, in 2018 the promotion raked in an estimated
$70 - $80 millionfrom Year 1 of its 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia.
This sums up what has become an eternal flaw within WWE as it has proven to never let a little racism get in the way of perceived star power or a big-money deal.
