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Only a select few will know the circumstances of Bill DeMott's resignation from his position as the Head Coach of WWE developmental today, but it's interesting that it came just three days after a WWE statement noting that a previous investigation "was unable to validate the claims" against DeMott.
That statement did little to stave off the onslaught of continued allegations this week, which continued over the last 24 hours leading into DeMott's exit.
Former WWE developmental talent Austin Matelson returned to the Vendetta Wrestling radio show last night to respond to the aforementioned WWE statement about his letter, now alleging that WWE Talent Relations informed DeMott about what Matelson had written. Matelson claimed that DeMott "interrogated" him in a room alone, a room that Matelson claimed it was well known DeMott kept a firearm. Matelson, claiming he was "in fear for his life" then denied the charges to DeMott, leading to the end of the investigation as Talent Relations did not feel he was being truthful. If you wish to listen to the entire interview, you can hear it in Matelson's own voice at this link.
As if that (and the previous few days' allegations) were not enough, female independent wrestler Terra Calaway took to Twitter last night with a series of Tweets alleging that during a WWE tryout several years ago, DeMott took to using racist phrases and comments towards a wrestler with a Middle Eastern background, whom she did not name.
There were other talents, including the former Brandon Traven, preparing to come out with statements via their own podcasts later this week as well as those, like Kevin Matthews, who has been championing the exit of DeMott for years, all over social media.
As if that wasn't enough, there were other postings from "anonymous" talents that piled on to the situation over the last several days and from reading some of them, they were far too detailed with circumstances to be ignored, even if they couldn't be proven.
Each claim, each interview, each posting began building a case against DeMott in the court of public opinion that is social media, where he was being attacked regularly all week. Similar to the Bill Cosby accusations of the last few months, what began as a snowball on Monday had suddenly become an avalanche to the point that WWE and DeMott really had no choice but to part ways. What had formerly been whispers or attacks dismissed as coming from "bitter" former developmental talents who had washed out in training were now out in the open, coming from all directions.
Whether DeMott fell on his sword alone or at WWE's behest, we will likely never 100% know, but it was obvious the stories and the allegations weren't going away. They were either going to grow as more talents spoke out or something had to give. Something finally did - and it was Bill DeMott.
DeMott's last date for the company was last night working the NXT TV Taping in Columbus, Ohio. We are told that nothing was said to the NXT roster last night, so it's believed the resignation went down today. No one working last night's taping had any indication that something was going down although privately, there was a lot of discussion as to whether DeMott's days were numbered amongst the wrestlers.
DeMott's resignation Tweet was his only comment publicly, and privately, he did not address the NXT talents in Ohio about his departure.
PWInsider.com has confirmed that Matt Bloom aka Jason Albert, formerly Tensai, has been named the interim Head Trainer and will take over DeMott's duties at the Performance Center and WWE developmental. Whether he is named to that position permanently will remain to be seen.
The change to Bloom was announced via an email from Mark Carano of WWE Talent Relations to the developmental roster shortly after DeMott issued his resignation publicly.
Among WWE developmental talents we've heard from, there was something of a celebratory feeling as the crew traveled to tonight's house show as DeMott was, as you might imagine based on everything that has come out, not beloved. What all involved should remember is that while DeMott had a lot of resentment among the talents, the position he was in was going to lead to that, as he was in charge and was going to be the one delivering the bad news when it needed to be delivered. Whoever ends up in what was formerly DeMott's position will also have to do the same, so it will be interesting to see how long it is, if ever, before they are seen in the same negative light as DeMott.
As of this evening, it appears WWE's only official statement on the matter will be that they retweeted DeMott's resignation announcement on their own social media accounts.
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