Plus find out why some backstage in AEW have heat with Kenny Omega.
This week, a huge revelation about the wrestling business has come to light – wrestlers do cocaine. What? I can’t believe it either. EC3 started this (ahem) narrative after the news surfaced about the former Velveteen Dream being arrested.
To recap, I wrote a few weeks ago about Dream’s arrest. “The former Velveteen Dream in WWE NXT was arrested on Friday, August 26 in Orlando, FL, and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. While I initially assumed he was picked up with a marijuana pipe, it turns out it’s a pleaded-down charge from a previous arrest where Dream was caught with 0.1 grams (barely any) cocaine.” You can read the in-depth details of his arrest here.
After the arrest, EC3 was interviewed by Sportskeeda and claimed that Dream tried to tape him in his bathroom saying “He got arrested again. When’s he gonna get rehired? Probably not if that’s on his record, plus he has a lot of demons in the closet. Oh, what do you mean? I’m glad you asked, why not? Because in NXT there was always some speculation about him being a little off, but you welcome that. You can be friends,”
“We had a party and it was at my place, and he came over because I’m being friendly and I’m top guy and I tried to welcome everybody into the thing. He left his phone in my bathroom with the camera on trying to capture people taking pisses, so there.”
“How did I know? Because it’s my bathroom. When I walk in there and I see a phone selfie-style, propped up, on, filming, where if somebody is going to take a pee, they would have their phallus out urinating into the water…”
“I’m not gonna lie to you, too, this was a late evening of partying, so maybe there were a few cocktails shared, who knows what everyone else was on. As we know, if he’ll do it in front of a cop, lord only knows what he’ll do behind a cop’s back.”
He later added “So delete, put it back, turn it back on so it looked like it was still happening… ha ha, the big elaborate ruse… I walk out of my own bathroom because this is where I live, I sit on the couch, I go and I wait, and he goes right back in the bathroom,” said EC3. “I go back in right after that… phone’s gone. I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this.’”
“Here’s the problem. Unnamed talents, that I will not name, in this moment in time were probably doing other things in that bathroom, so instead of a blatant confrontation, I just said, ‘Everybody get out, I’m going to bed, go, get out.’”
In a later interview, EC3 claimed WWE knew of the incident. A few days after, Patrick Clark, the man who portrayed Velveteen Dream returned to social media and began streaming an Instagram Live video, where he defended himself and accused EC3 of being paranoid because EC3 was actually on cocaine and accusing other wrestlers currently employed by WWE of doing the drug. Here is the video along with a transcript of what he said (transcript via Inside the Ropes):
“Okay. Let me tell you this. I’m trying to help my old man out on a computer, and I just type in WWE, right? Tell me why the first thing I see is EC3 has talked to the dirt sheets, I guess since I’m on TMZ now I’m somebody again. EC3 has gone to the dirt sheets saying that, if you haven’t seen it, he had a party at his house one night. And if I’m to be correct, this was about 2017/2018 EC3?
“And I’m not going to tell people who was at this party out of respect for our mutual friends. But one of our mutual friends is a former NXT talent that no longer works for the WWE, and the other person is a current Monday Night Raw talent who used to wrestle, talent for NXT.”
“Okay, Mike, EC3, you go out here after I give you the best match you’ve ever had in your entire career. You go out here, and you… I’m tired of people throwing dirt on my name, you throw this dirt on my name, saying that I tried to record you in your bathroom.
“Let’s be honest, Mike, you’re leaving out a lot of details. What were we doing that night Mike? What type of powder was on the table Mike? Okay. Okay, let’s be real. So let’s not leave out all the details. We were all drunk. You were pissy drunk, because you were in your place. You were damn near passed out in the corner. You and your home girl, whichever chick you were screwing at the time, okay?
“And the other two people, our mutual friends were there. I left my phone on your bathroom counter. And because you were not sure of my sexuality at the time because of the character I played on TV, and because we’re not friends in real life at all, okay? You try to accuse me of recording you in your own home.
“So what did I do? I went to our mutual friend who no longer works for the WWE a former NXT talent, and I showed him my phone and had him go through my photos and videos and my recently deleted [items] just to prove to you and the other person that was there, who because I respect him and he has a job okay, I’m not gonna put him out there, okay? I had him prove to you that I was not recording you.
“Cocaine is a hell of a drug EC3. Get your sh*t together.”
“And if anyone would like to go to my friends list right now and check out who follows me, because I’m not following him, EC3 is a follower of mine. I would think, I would really think that if you thought that much of me that you couldn’t trust me, you definitely wouldn’t be following me on social media on Instagram all these years later. EC3, you’re pathetic. Control that narrative, you a**hole.”
EC3 responded to the accusations with a statement to PWInsider “In life, I forgive everyone for everything that has been done to me. I personally have never failed a drug test from any employer, nor been arrested for drug usage, paraphernalia, assault, battery, or any inappropriate behavior. My forgiveness includes Patrick Clark for setting up a video recording device in the bathroom of my home. As far as any other accusations and allegations against him, I hope that he finds the help he needs.”
There were some reports, prior to his recent arrests, that WWE was discussing bringing back Velveteen Dream, but after the drug allegations, he seems pretty untouchable. He has significant heat with the locker room.
New information has surfaced from a meeting held in late August that left members of the AEW locker room upset with Kenny Omega. Omega is currently on suspension, dealing with the fallout of the altercation with Punk after All Out. But even prior to the fight, some backstage took issue with a supposed joke he made during a backstage meeting.
When the meeting happened the week prior to All Out, I wrote in my column ‘Multiple reports say that when Kenny Omega spoke that he was the harshest of all the speakers, with some describing it as “tough love” and others saying it was more “heavy-handed,” according to PWInsider. Meltzer reported Omega’s speech as “Omega was adamant about certain issues and was harder on the talent, showing frustration at points with the current situation. Some took him being hard on talent as passionate and trying to make people step up. But it was a mixed reaction.”’
Turns out what Omega said was that if it was up to him he wouldn’t have hired 8 out of 10 of the people in the locker room.
Dave Meltzer tried to say that friends of Kenny’s claim he was making a joke and looking at Will Ospreay when he was saying it, even though Ospreay isn’t even under contract to AEW. Others did not find the joke funny and took offense.
WWE Smackdown on Fox tonight at 8pm announced:
AEW Rampage on Friday on TNT announced:
RAW next Monday has announced:
New Japan has some house show on New Japan world this weekend.
Why is Logan Paul appearing on Smackdown? WWE is looking to build towards a Roman Reigns vs. Logan Paul match, according to Dave Meltzer. The angle began on Paul’s podcast. and will continue on Smackdown tonight. Meltzer notes that Reigns was not initially scheduled for the Extreme Rules premium live event and his next match was in October at the Saudi show Crown Jewel. It is unknown if WWE will wait that long to book the match, but looks like the angle starts tonight on Smackdown.
Meltzer also reported that Triple H has more surprise appearances planned for WWE in the next few weeks of people who are not expected. Separately, he notes that there is still interest in bringing back Bray Wyatt.
PWTorch’s Wade Keller notes that the ongoing silence about the suspensions should end soon, saying on his audio show “I will say I’m expecting the silence to end soon as far as this goes. So keep your ear to the ground, I will say…There should be a breaking of the silence on the issue, I’ll put it that way. Probably this week but by early this week but I think most likely this week.”
Jeff Hardy is expected to complete rehab and return to AEW soon.
Months after turning down facing Ric Flair in his last match, Ricky Steamboat has announced he will wrestle for a Big Time Wrestling event scheduled for November 27 at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Viral wrestling star Luigi Primo, who debuted briefly on AEW this week has a great interview with Sports Illustrated this week. Check out some footage.
Read previous editions of this column here. You can always follow me @robinjection on Instagram and Twitter and @Squaredcirclpit.
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