Ex-WWE Writer Comments On Recent Lawsuit
Former writer Dave Schilling has spoken about WWE's recent racism lawsuit
Apr 30, 2023
It recently emerged that former WWE writer Britney Abrahams had filed a lawsuit against WWE on the topic of racist stereotypes, among other things. For instance, it has been alleged that controversial pitches had been made from members of the creative team, such as Mansoor being behind the 9/11 attacks, which is among the worst of those mentioned in the lawsuit.
Another ex-WWE writer has commented on the recent lawsuit and landscape of the company from a racial perspective. Dave Schilling spoke on In The Weeds with Jeremy Lambert and Joel Pearl;
“My thoughts were probably similar to a lot of people who are people of color who work for WWE, which is not terribly surprising that someone would be upset about things they experienced at the company. It's not the best place to work if you're a person of color, you're a woman, you're LGBTQ.”
Schilling used the specific example of something mentioned in the lawsuit, detailing why Apollo Crews’ exaggerated Nigerian accent was pitched and put on television;
It's all about what Vince likes. A lot of these broad caricatures are things that Vince likes. I can't speak to what happened after I left, but I'm sure he thought that Apollo Crews doing an accent was going to get over. You look at the history of WWE, and there are tons of examples of stereotypical characters. This is not a new thing or a new phenomenon."
Schilling also went on to say how a culture change in WWE would require retirements from names such as Vince McMahon, Bruce Pritchard, and Michael Hayes, otherwise things would likely stay the same. He also gave praise to Tony Khan in AEW, talking about how professional wrestling needs “youthful energy”.
H/T Fightful