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Last December, former WWE developmental wrestler Kevin Matthews caused controversy by alleging on Twitter that current head NXT trainer Bill DeMott was a backstabbing bully that was trying to cover up a trainee injury plague caused by his gruelling workouts to WWE management.
Now, with the recent firings of Chase Donavan and Chad Baxter, Matthews has found two former NXT wrestlers that were willing to speak out publicly and back up the claims that he has been making for over half a year now.
The disgruntled trio did a podcast together two weeks ago where they made the following noteworthy allegations against DeMott:
- The rumour that DeMott once pulled out a handgun in his workplace premises as part of a rib on some of his trainees.
- That DeMott routinely uses demeaning terms like faggot, fag and pussy towards his trainees.
- He was also accused of frequently telling developmental wrestlers to go kill themselves if they've had a bad day in camp (even a couple of days after Florida wrestling legend Mike Graham committed suicide).
- That DeMott has returned to his old habit of breaking yard sticks over trainees backs on a regular basis as a form of punishment.
- That DeMott blamed the developmental record of 31 trainees being on the disabled list at the same time on John Cena's personal trainer Rob MacIntyre's bodybuilding techniques leading to him being unfairly fired.
- When Triple H complained about an NXT wrestler getting blown up during a TV taping, DeMott blamed it on the guys being out of shape rather than overtrained, which led to yet more cardio training and blow up drills in practice.
- That DeMott told the women wrestlers not to complain to management about new strength coach Matt Wichlinski taking pictures of the Divas and behaving like a "sexual predator".
According to Jason Powell of prowrestling.net, WWE has internally investigated these claims of bullying and sexual harassment in their NXT training facilities and unsurprisingly concluded that no wrongdoing occurred:
WWE conducted an investigation stemming from claims made by former developmental workers regarding NXT head trainer Bill DeMott. Chase Donovan and Chad Baxter appeared on a recent "Two And A Half Wrestlers" podcast hosted by Kevin Matthews, and the trio told a secondhand story about DeMott pulling out a gun in front of trainees, a firsthand accounts of DeMott using a homophobic slur during training sessions, and made other accusations.
"There have been no sexual harassment complaints filed against any employee at the WWE's training facility in Orlando," reads a statement issued to Prowrestling.net by WWE. "Instead there have been baseless allegations made by disgruntled talent recently released by WWE. Regardless, WWE takes these issues seriously and investigated this matter, concluding that there was no wrongdoing."
It's probably just a slip of the tongue, but it's worth noting that the Orlando training facility has just opened and these incidents (if they took place) would have occurred in their old developmental centre in Tampa. Also, given the latest NXT cuts, those that remain will be so job scared that they wouldn't dare confirm these accusations to WWE management, especially as they realise that DeMott was handpicked by Triple H to run the training in NXT.
Equally as predictably, the determined Kevin Matthews wasn't satisfied with WWE's response:
They didn't conduct any investigation.. Complete BS"@fitnkozy: @2CockyKM @wwe yet again sweeping it under the rug http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/news/18267/wwe-responds-to-bill-demott-sexual-harassment-claims …"So @wwe claims they investigated & found NO sexual harassment in NXT. Yet made the perv trainer delete his FB posts. pic.twitter.com/GyfK9pAM5vSo @wwe sweeps the Sexual Harrassment claims under the rug yet don't make mention of Guns,Calling talent FAGS daily & beatings w Yardsticks!
Regardless of the veracity of these claims (though with all this smoke, it's hard to believe that there isn't some fire), Triple H hiring someone with such baggage as a heat magnet and having such a checkered history of rubbing his trainees up the wrong way in Bill DeMott, may be his worst hiring decision since becoming WWE's Executive Vice President of Talent and Live Events, even considering how Sin Cara and Kharma quickly backfired on him.