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ESPN's Michelle Beadle shows poor judgement in online spat with Mark Madden

Michelle Beadle has given oxygen to the story over why she buried the hatchet with Triple H, despite his continued support of "serial abuser" Floyd Mayweather, Jr., by getting into an online spat with former WCW announcer Mark Madden.

By Keith Harris
Whatever you do, don't call Michelle Beadle a reporter!
Whatever you do, don't call Michelle Beadle a reporter!
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

On Monday, Triple H "buried the hatchet" with ESPN SportsNation co-host Michelle Beadle, who had memorably turned in her WWE "fan card" last May over Hunter's love for "serial abuser" Floyd Mayweather, Jr., believing that the WWE executive's public support for a convicted batterer undermined the company's high profile Be a STAR anti-bullying initiative.

Beadle's decision to end her WWE boycott came out of the blue and seemed incongruent to the highly principled stand she made last year. Triple H, to the best of our knowledge, is still an official friend of Floyd's, and has never apologised for backing the repeat offender so publicly. Nothing seems to have changed on WWE's end, so why is Beadle back in their fold?

According to Ryan Satin of ProWrestlingSheet.com, Vince McMahon set the wheels in motion for Beadle's unlikely return as a card carrying WWE fan with a sympathetic phone conversation to her several months ago:

"Michelle Beadle is done boycotting WWE … and Pro Wrestling Sheet has learned the change of heart occurred after she got a phone call from Vince McMahon.

Sources close to the situation tell us the ESPN anchor received a call from Vince a few months back and the boss was extremely understanding about why she made the decision to stop watching....

We’re told Michelle accepted the invite to RAW last night though because she felt like enough time had passed and talking to the current World Heavyweight Champ was the right thing to do. Plus, Beadle now understands that not everyone is gonna feel the same way as her about Mayweather."

It makes sense from a business standpoint for McMahon to reach out to Beadle, as his company now has a relationship with her employer ESPN. For Beadle, although caving in to pressure is equally as logical for professional reasons, morally it can be questioned.

One person to question her decision was outspoken wrestling writer and sport's radio host Mark Madden, who you may remember as an announcer for WCW in the promotion's dying days. Earlier today, he asked her via Twitter to explain why she had had such a sudden change of heart:

Beadle took the conversation to direct message and then published the private communication for the world to see when she didn't like the response:

Beadle's thin-skinned reaction to Madden's obvious line of questioning and by his standards not overly aggressive tone was foolish. It gave oxygen to the story over why she had jettisoned her principles over Triple H's hypocritical support of Mayweather, a discussion that I'm sure WWE would rather have been left dead and buried. As a fellow reporter (or media figure), I personally found it pretty unethical to publish a rival writer's private communication in order to show him up. It gave Madden the moral high ground, which he took full advantage of, while Beadle looked petty in her responses:

Dave Meltzer, even chimed in with his own criticism of Beadle, which likely wouldn't have happened if she had never responded to Madden's bait:

I wonder if Triple H is now regretting what a big deal he made of settling the issue with Michelle Beadle? What should have been a PR coup for him and WWE has turned into quite the farce.

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