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| DeMott, right, had come under fire recently for vile behavior Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Bill DeMott, the former World Championship Wrestling midcarder who has been a trainer in WWE off and on since the first Tough Enough season, has resigned from the position of head trainer. DeMott has been under fire for improper treatment of his students since 2012, but he's received two separate serious laundry lists of accusations, first from former NXT wrestler Austin Draven and just two hours ago from an anonymous source on Reddit. DeMott has categorically denied any accusation, and claims to be stepping down in order to protect the good name of WWE.
I honestly have no clue what makes a good wrestling teacher, but I do know what entails being a good human being. If DeMott is guilty of a quarter of the shit he's been accused of, then he deserved to get fired before he even took any training position within WWE. A teacher is entrusted with not only the education, but the safety of his or her students, and DeMott, if these accusations are true, broke that trust on more than one occasion. Whether it was verbal berating like the gay-shaming done to Oliver Grey or out and out striking a trainee who was injured, DeMott exhibited immoral, unethical, and possibly criminal behavior. The fact that it's taken this long is proof of systemic ignorance from higher-ups at the very least, troubling to say the least.
WWE hasn't named a replacement yet. I've heard rumblings that Steve Keirn, who ran the Florida Championship Wrestling school, could return, but those were just rumblings. I would love to see Sara Amato (del Rey) get a shot at head trainer. She's done a terrific job with her charges at NXT, and I'd like to see what she could do with some of the rawer lumps of clay, especially one Baron Corbin, whom WWE seems insistent on pushing despite not having much more than presence and a cool finisher. But whether it's Amato, Adam Pearce, Keirn, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Norman Smiley, or someone completely different, I hope the next head trainer treats his or her students like human beings first and foremost. Wrestling is a rough business without external forces aggravating the situation.