In all father-son relationships, tough love should never be anything like this.
Last monday, WWE Raw featured what was billed as a showdown between Mr. McMahon (head of the WWE itself) vs. Hornswoggle, the supposed son of the head honcho guy (though WWE superstar JBL would beg to differ, but that’s another story). In reality, it was “tough love” with a brutal twist — more accurately, I shall call it “abusive behavior.”
Because that’s what it was, pure and simple. Mr. McMahon beat up poor Hornswogle live on national television! Slammed him all over the ring. Made a bedroom fighting pillow out of him, figuratively speaking. Boom! Into the mat. Bam! Around the ring, and on the steel cage surrounding the roped edges. And to top it off, superstar JBL got into the act, slamming the poor little guy into the cage walls so hard that he had to be carted off on a backboard by ****ing medics, for crying out loud!
Related: Video of the beatdown on WWE.com (WARNING: Graphic content not suitable for all audiences)
This is unacceptable. Treating a little guy like that with abusive tactics, even on national television, is still abusive by any definition. It’s like the late Steve Irwin when the “Crocodile Hunter” held his one month old son in his arms while feeding crocodiles in a pit, only much worse. If anyone should be held accountable for this outrageous public insult, it’s Mr. McMahon himself. And he should not be allowed to keep his post as head of the WWE.
Why? Because he is morally unfit for heading a major organization. First, he has violated the public trust in his leadership. Second, he has taken a violent tack that modern family structures do not mesh with, simply because it violates basic human rights. And finally, this just adds to the fuel heating the fire in the minds of people who don’t like the WWE or who find the sports entertainment organization to be fundamentally flawed in execution and/or competitive structure whether internal or external to the WWE itself.
Also liable for this outrage is JBL (that’s short for John Bradshaw Layfield), if only for his vicious, devastating follow-up attack on Hornswoggle following Mr. McMahon’s initial trouncing routine. Folks, adding to an already bad idea is grounds for pushing the button too far by any standard. What I mean is that all of this is only setting a particularly bad example for sports entertainment fans, no matter how you look at it. Anger only begets anger, and I know this from experience. Having had a few arguments go over the top recently myself, I (almost) know just how badly this could have ended. If JBL had realized what happened, and taken it out on Mr. McMahon instead of poor Hornswoggle, this could have been very different, and only JBL would have been called into a public call for his firing, unless Mr. McMahon had beaten me to the punch first.
But instead, I am taking the closing of this article to call for the both of them to be fired. Abusive behavior like this should not be taken lightly within the WWE, and it’s time Mr. McMahon was called into query on his overall sanity. And should only one be fired, I hope it is Mr. McMahon who gets the shaft first and foremost, because his actions last week show he is unfit for running any kind of business, sports entertainment or not.
And I hope that God shows mercy on his soul for this.
