GraphJam Presents: What Does It Take to Get Fired from Impact?

There was a rumor going around Monday night that Jeff Hardy had been fired from Impact. That rumor turned out to be false, but I believed it at first because hey, if you can't get fired for making an impaired-ass out of yourself on Youtube while you were supposed to be in rehab after showing up high to a PPV main event match, what the fuck can you get fired for? Well, I asked that question to my crack team of researchers at GraphJam Institutes, USA, and got this handy-dandy bar graph in return:

The results are incontrovertible!

TNA Is Not the Best Place to Work If You're a Woman

Goldylocks

Via Cageside Seats

S. Bruce has chronicled the shady behavior of TNA/Impact for the last year or so, and in his travails he's pretty much established that if you're a woman and work for TNA, you get the short end of the stick. According to his latest piece, apparently this isn't a new behavior either. Goldylocks, the company's first real notable female performer, claims she was sexually harassed every day, and despite not speaking up about it and being a "team player" *wanking motion*, she was rewarded by being quietly let go by the company after several male wrestlers painted her as a troublemaker because her exposure didn't match her training. Furthermore, apparently Terry Taylor is a real ladies' man, hitting the trifecta of getting accused of sexual harassment in WWF, WCW and TNA.

Putting this in context of the Randy Orton/Kelly Kelly comments from the other day, can you see how dangerous it can be to start vicious rumors about female performers in a male-dominated workplace? Granted, Goldylocks was called a "troublemaker", not a slut, but the situations are analogous, in my opinion. Women, especially in wrestling, much less margin for error in terms of behavior, and yet they don't get the same treatment as the men. So that's why any implication that K2 might have slept her way to the top (and whether Orton meant it or not, I truly believe he didn't, but still, it's irrelevant given that he can't control the imaginations of his peers or bosses) needed to have the kibosh put on them. It's also why Orton's sincere apology from yesterday is very much appreciated.

As for TNA/Impact? Well, it's hardly surprising that a company whose Knockouts division is almost exclusively built on its competitors calling each other sluts, tramps, whores and golddiggers has such a hostile environment towards women. Getting rid of Taylor was a good first step, but as Cageside has documented in the past, that's only the tip of the iceberg.

I will say this though. Part of it is Goldylocks' fault. Not the getting harassed part, but for thinking that keeping quiet is being a "team player". It only appeases the harassers or the good ol' boys who turn a blind eye to this kind of shit. In retrospect, by not speaking up, she set a terrible precedent for future female employees to the company. I feel sorry for her that she had to work in a terrible environment, but by keeping quiet, she added to the problem. Plain and simple.

Randy Orton Puts Foot in Mouth

Criticizing her in-ring? Cool. Insinuating she's a slut? Totally not cool.
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Via Cageside Seats

Randy Orton recently did an interview with a local rock station in Arizona where he made some hair-raising remarks. The one he's catching the most flak for is his insinuation that Kelly Kelly may be a bit on the promiscuous side:

Egged on by the two hosts, he makes some very unflattering remarks towards current divas champion Kelly Kelly after noting he worked a short romance angle with her in early 2009. ("I would be a method actor, and actually sleep with her," jokes host John Holmberg. "I could name a few method actors in WWE," Orton says. "Like, ten guys.") The disparaging remarks about who Kelly has or hasn't slept with continue throughout the show. Kelly has yet to directly respond to the remarks, sans a cryptic remark on Twitter which could be interpreted as a response to Orton: "The best way to fight stupidity, is by ignoring it."

On the surface, those some pretty heavy implications. These comments have caused a furor on the Internet, both by people outraged by the continual double standard about the number of sexual partners you can acceptably have based on gender and by people who think those complainers are taking things way out of proportion. I feel like I sympathize more with the former, but there's a lot of context here that we need to wade through before we start carrying effigies of Orton through the street with our local chapter of NOW. That isn't to say that what Orton said wasn't heinous, because it was. However, I'm not so sure he's the only one upon whom we should be heaping scorn.

First thing's first, there is an overt double standard in society about the acceptable number of sexual partners that each gender can have. That number for men seems to be infinite, while the number for women approaches zero. It's awful, heinous and it supports the culture of victim blaming in sexual assault cases where "she was asking for it" is an acceptable defense of a predator. This double standard seems to be more prevalent in the sports community, even moreso in the combat sports/sports entertainment community. I mean, look at how poorly women seem to be treated in WWE. That treatment has gotten better over the years, but in a promotion where babyface Jerry Lawler fat-shames heel Vickie Guerrero when Vickie Guerrero is not fat, there's still a lot of work to be done. And of course, who could forget the whole Joe Rogan/Maggie Hendricks hullabaloo where people were falling all over themselves to make excuses or defend Rogan's use of the word "cunt" as a modifier for Hendricks' justified calling out of a borderline sociopath who just happened to work for the same company as Rogan.

That being said, there is some merit to the argument that Orton may have been goaded, or that he realized his mistake and backtracked or that maybe he was just joking. For one, the actual wording reads like a joke. If you listen to the actual audio, the host, John Holmberg, keeps hounding and hounding Orton for salacious answers. This is his MO according to Arizonan and TWB superfan Joe O'Toole. Orton also tries to backtrack, and his tone is never really all that sure. There's an argument for mitigation here.

That being said, any mitigating factor, to me, is trivial at best and irrelevant at worst. It certainly does not absolve Orton of criticism. Whether he was sorry or not or whether he was goaded or whatever is irrelevant to me. It still speaks to a much larger problem in this double standard, or slut-shaming as I'll be calling it from here on out. It wouldn't be as big of a problem if it didn't affect people professionally, which I really feel it does. A woman has to feel shame for whom she chooses to share a bed, regardless of whether it's for a sinister motive or not. Regardless of any ulterior intentions, whom people fuck is their own damn business, and if they choose to share that business with you, you're a piece of shit if you share it against their will to an audience of strangers. So, for that to affect a woman professionally, especially if those relationships were non-career advancing, is beyond reprehensible. No one has the right to know these things, and now they're making an impact on the work environment?

Furthermore, those mitigating factors? They're out the window when looking at Orton's history. He has a history of anger issues and disrespecting other co-workers, ESPECIALLY women. I mean, do we remember his alleged bag-defecation? Yeah. When you're a repeat offender, you're looked upon with much more scrutiny than if you're a first-timer with a clean track record.

Then again, the truth is Orton is a product of his environment to some degree. This doesn't excuse him, but it means he isn't the only one whom we should be blasting. Again, going back to the fat- and slut-shaming in angles (hell, Impact's entire Knockouts division is built upon accusations of sleeping to the top) in both major companies and the general "boys club" atmosphere of wrestling, it can be hard to make changes. That doesn't mean the business is long overdue for a women's equality movement. Change has to start with the workers, especially as women wrestlers are starting to become more than just tits, asses, pretty faces and personality-devoid automatons built for nothing but boner fuel for the target audience.

And again, if Orton realized he said a dumb-shit thing and started backtracking, that's a start. However, he needs to train himself to not make those kinds of comments in the future. I don't know if you've noticed, but with the Vickie fat-shaming, John Cena making homophobic statements IN CHARACTER and then backtracking by saying the problem was us, not him, Michael Cole calling Josh Mathews a "faggot" on Twitter and a couple of questionable segments involving R-Truth, the WWE isn't exactly setting an example for being the friendliest or most accepting company for which to work. The WWE shouldn't be so accepting of these kinds of incidents, and they need to start cracking down. Whether you agree with it or not, sponsors don't generally like associating with companies that are seen as controversial in a bad way, or harboring unsavory characters.

However, I'd rather see change be made by the wrestlers themselves. I know that's a tall order, but instead of having to backtrack on the air or make excuses, maybe in the future, Randy Orton should not make those kinds of comments towards fellow co-workers, and most importantly, maybe he ought not to think those things either. Then again, I can't police a guy's thoughts.

Therefore, I'll just take him shutting his mouth and not insinuating that a female co-worker of his sleeps with everyone she can spread her legs for, okay?

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!