Alleged Details Of ‘Racist’ WWE Pitch Involving White Wrestler ‘Hunting’ Reggie For Fun

WWE

As we’ve been covering on the site, former WWE writer Britney Abrahams – a black African American female – has filed a lawsuit against WWE and several individuals regarding offensive script writing and creative pitches, and other discriminatory behavior towards minorities.

We’ve already covered allegations of a pitch for Mansoor to have been revealed as being “behind the 9/11 attacks” and “racially offensive” scriptwriting for Bianca Belair, but there’s more.

Another of the alleged pitches involved Reggie, who now wrestles under the name SCRYPTS in NXT, and Shane Thorne, who was released by WWE in November 2021.

In or around spring 2021, Ryan Callahan allegedly pitched that Thorne, a white Caucasian male, would “hunt” Reggie, a black African American male, for fun.

This allegedly included an idea for Reggie to be “held captive in cages”.

Callahan is currently WWE’s ‘Vice President, Friday Night SmackDown’, but at the time would have been a lead writer for SmackDown.

The lawsuit alleged the following:

In a nutshell, the said hunting gimmick pitch for new wrestlers, Shane Thorne, and Reggie was, “since Shane is Australian, we should make him a crocodile hunter, and instead of crocodiles, he hunts people.”

Subsequently, a storyline was pitched by CALLAHAN where Shane would capture Reggie and constantly beat him up, but Reggie would always escape after being captured.

Holding Reggie captive in cages was also discussed.

Plaintiff (Abrahams) found CALLAHAN’s pitch highly offensive and objectionable.

Plaintiff again objected to her superior’s racially motivated misconduct, specifically stating that a gimmick where a white man hunting a black African American man for sport is racist.

CALLAHAN laughed and sarcastically responded, “OH, WHAT? IS THAT A BAD THING?”

CALLAHAN’s comments and conduct had the purpose and effect of humiliating and intimidating Plaintiff, and dramatically altered her work environment for the worse.

As the WWE writing team’s sole person of color, Plaintiff was devastated that none of her white, Caucasian co-workers stepped in to complain about this discriminatory and offensive pitch.

Afterwards, Plaintiff spoke with Mr. (Brian) Parise, a white, Caucasian WWE writer, who revealed that he agreed with Plaintiff that the pitch was racist, but he felt too nervous to speak up about it in front of CALLAHAN.

However, despite Plaintiff’s complaint, Defendants refused to address the complaint and instead continued the discriminatory and retaliatory campaign unabated.

That wasn’t the only alleged pitch involving Reggie that was included in the lawsuit, as it was also separately outlined:

By way of example, it was discussed in the WWE writer’s Slack channel before a show, that a new wrestler, Reggie, would dress in drag complete with wig and tights, “so he could partner with Carmella, a female wrestler, in a tag-team match against other female wrestlers.”

Reggie is a dark-skinned, African American, black straight male wrestler.

Given this pitch was shared via the Slack app, Defendants MR. MCMAHON (Vince McMahon) and MS. MACHON (Stephanie McMahon), as well as other WWE higher-ups, including Mr. Pritchard (Bruce Prichard), and Mr. Ed Koskey were included on the thread.

Plaintiff’s co-worker, Ms. (Andrea) Listenberger, responded to the thread, observing that putting a straight black man in drag might perpetuate harmful stereotypes that would offend viewers.

WWE eventually scrapped the discriminatory pitch, but only in response to a white, Caucasian individual’s protected conduct in the form of Ms. Listenberger’s complaint.

Another claim in the lawsuit was regarding an alleged “sexist” and “discriminatory” storyline involving Aliyah, which you can read about at this link.

You can read the full lawsuit, which includes several other allegations of offensive script writing and creative pitches, and other discriminatory behavior towards minorities, at this link.

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