Backstage Update – Joey Styles Also Fired From CHIKARA

Nov 14, 2016

Partial Source: Pwinsider

UPDATE x 3: CHIKARA’s Mike Quackenbush posted the following blog today, confirming that the company has terminated their relationship with Joey Styles, due to Styles’ inappropriate comments at EVOLVE 72 over the weekend. The comments also led to his termination from EVOLVE. Here is what Quackenbush wrote about his decision.

The events of the last few days have been just cause to take a look at the state of professional wrestling. The art form that I love, and have dedicated my entire adult life to, is embarrassingly behind the times. It is beholden to outdated tenets that threaten to render it…obsolete at worst, and a punchline at best.

I know there are others, influential and celebrated, that imagine pro-wrestling to be a bubble in which the social norms from a bygone era are still relevant and valid. At CHIKARA, we rail against them, and those ideal, with everything we make. It is one thing to speak, to voice an opinion. It is one thing to call for change, to wish for change, to imagine how that change might come about. It is another thing to make it. At CHIKARA, we make it happen. It doesn’t matter to us in the least how many people show up to see it, or how many people recognize it for what it is. Our mantra is not about critical acclaim or pats on the back: “We believe pro-wrestling should be fun. That’s why we make it for everyone.”

Effective today, we are terminating our relationship with Joey Styles. Effective today, we are instituting a zero tolerance policy for misogynistic, racist, and/or homophobic speech, written or verbal, whether it’s directed toward our cast, our crew, or our patrons. This is the shape of CHIKARA.

To all that craft and shape pro-wrestling, we must fully understand this: the patrons of our art form demand more of us. It is to them – those that empower us to create the larger-than-life spectacle of professional wrestling – that we are beholden. Not to an archaic sub-culture made up of turn-of-the-last-century carny values.

The time for us to do away with antiquated and insulting vocabulary, like the term “mark,” is right now.

The time for us to relinquish any last vestige of power we’ve given to outmoded wrestling rhetoric is right now.

The time for us to draw a line in the sand, and to say this is where we stand on equality and integration in our art form, is right now.

-MQ

UPDATE x 2: One of the big reasons why Joey Styles was released from EVOLVE after last night’s show was the fact that Gabe Sapolsky told the locker room specifically that they were not to say or do anything that referenced the election or politics at the weekend shows. Sapolsky wanted the show to be an escape for the fans after the tension of the past week in the United States. Styles made a joke about how announcer Joanna Rose looked so good that President Trump would want to grab her by the p**sy and was released by the company in the aftermath.

Styles’ comment was not a planned one and was instead an improvised line. He was apologizing to everyone backstage including Rose, who was reportedly not offended because she saw it as a comedy line about Trump and not an attack on her. Styles refused his pay for the show and left before show’s end.

UPDATE: The EVOLVE 72 iPPV is being edited to remove Styles’ remarks.

Once the show was complete, Styles was apologizing to everyone in the back before he left the show early. He also refused to be paid and was said to have been extremely upset with himself backstage after the promo.

The line was not something scripted ahead of time, as EVOLVE would not want to hurt their relationship with WWE or their new deal with FloSPorts.

ORIGINAL: Following last night’ s EVOLVE 72 event Gabe Sapolsky posted the following on Twitter, revealing that Joey Styles is no longer with thee company. While doing an angle with Stokely Hathaway Styles joked that he wasn’t supposed to get political, then made a Trump joke about how the new president would want to grab ring announcer Joanna Rose in the pussy because she looks so good.

I deeply apologize for Joey Styles' comments and am furious

— Gabe Sapolsky (@BookItGabe) November 13, 2016

We've parted ways with Joey Styles and that's my final comment on this. Thank you for your support.

— Gabe Sapolsky (@BookItGabe) November 13, 2016

We do not support or condone Joey Styles' remarks tonight in any manner, and we support this decision 100%. https://t.co/ZHszatdXjl

— FloSlam (@FloSlam) November 13, 2016

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The EVOLVE Promo Which Got Joey Styles Fired From The Company (>>) ……..