Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: lars sullivan, wrestling, wwe

WWE Finally Looses Lars-Sullivan-Sized Albatross From Company Neck

Published Tue, 02 Feb 2021 20:35:49 -0600

Greetings, comrades! It is I, your El Presidente, bringing you the latest shocking pro wrestling news with a socialist slant. It looks like Lars Sullivan is no longer working for WWE, according to the latest report by PWInsider's Mike Johnson. Johnson reports that WWE officials confirmed to the website that Sullivan was quietly released last month after only recently returning from injury.

Sullivan, who WWE hoped to book as their next monster heel, was plagued by issues, only the least of which were his injuries. Sullivan's history of racist, sexist, and homophobic posts was a public relations nightmare for WWE, a company that, more than many, is often willing to buckle down and try to ride out controversies. Indeed, it was back in 2019 when WWE was forced to issue an apology from Sullivan for his past comments, which read:

There is no excuse for the inappropriate remarks that I made years ago. They do not reflect my personal beliefs nor who I am today, and I apologize to anyone I offended.

But they still kept him around for two more years, comrades!

However, in the modern, increasingly insular pro wrestling landscape, with a shrinking WWE audience more likely to follow backstage industry news and gossip, it's nearly impossible to keep scandals and allegations secret from the general audience. Nowhere is that more evident than in the lukewarm fan reactions to Sullivan and other scandal-prone talent like Jaxson Ryker, who was taken off television last year after making comments attacking the Black Lives Matter movement (though he did earn the praise of WWE Hall-of-Famer President Donald Trump), and Velveteen Dream, who was named in allegations during the #SpeakingOut movement last Summer, even as WWE has stood by them. Add to that a growing cultural refusal to accept misconduct or injustice, and the tactic of laying low and waiting for a scandal to blow over may no longer be viable, even for a Titan of the industry like WWE.

Back when I was running an authoritarian dictatorship, comrades, I would just order that everybody forget about any scandals involving members of my government, and if people kept bringing it up, my secret police would abduct them from their homes in the middle of the night and lock them in a dungeon until they began to see things El Presidente's way. But I guess you can't get away with that anymore. Cancel culture, am I right? Haw haw haw haw!

Anyway, all of that is your El Presidente's own personal feelings on the matter, as both a cultural Marxist and a regular Marxist. There is no official reason given for Sullivan's release, comrades, so I guess we will never know. Until next time, my friends: socialism or death.

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