The Sound of Silence: NJPW and Speaking Out
With the absence of any industry wide governing body and the very low rate of prosecutions for sexual abuse cases, the varying responses of promotions came under scrutiny. Being largely confined to the English speaking world, the stories were unaddressed by Japanese companies, but NJPW’s silence has become notable due to both allegations concerning contracted performers and the company’s positioning as a global brand.
As one of the biggest names facing allegations, renewed focus has fallen on current NJPW star, Will Ospreay. He and his partner, Stardom’s Bea Priestly, have been been accused of using their influence to take retaliatory actions against UK wrestler Pollyanna after she accused Ospreay’s close friend and former tag team partner, Scott Wainwright, of raping her. In November 2017 the story first gained attention after Ospreay publicly attacked Pollyanna’s claims and her character on Twitter, saying:
“Think it’s disgusting that people can use social media to accuse people of sexual assault. More than a handful of people know the real you. Trying to use your position to isolate and assault someone is pathetic.”
At that point Pollyanna had not yet named Wainwright as her attacker and Ospreay soon deleted the tweet and apologised following negative reactions to it:
“I cannot express how sorry I am that I may have turned people into thinking I’m so careless about this subject I care way to much about my fans and the victims. I really hope you guys can forgive me & will happily listen to any suggestions to make this right again.”
However, Pollyanna claims Ospreay’s attacks on her go back further:
“He had publicly bashed me because his Mrs and I fell out in August 2016, through Facebook and Twitter. I wanted nothing to do with Will after what he said, it was coming to the end of me wanting to wrestle full time and I only wanted to be near people who made me feel good about myself. When I left full time (January 2017), he began a smear campaign about me, telling people I had lied about his friend and I sleeping together, which put me into complete tears that they were making me out to be a bitter and crazy head case, when all I wanted was to get away and have space from them. Fortunately I had made the decision to only work in Europe, so he couldn’t affect the places I worked there (different locker rooms from the London group), but I knew from the stories I heard he would have ruined me working in the UK if I had tried. They were honestly telling people who didn’t even know me, I had stories from four different sources about Bea spending the whole time shit talking me in locker room, with Will obviously backing her up the whole way.”
After renewed interest in the story last year, Ospreay again took to Twitter to release a statement where he again apologised for his 2017 tweet but denied blacklisting. It is worth noting that in neither this or his previous statement did he show signs of seeking to understand Pollyanna’s experience or make amends, focusing more on self-image by highlighting the positive things he has done for the industry and detailing his own history of abuse. While his experience is not to be dismissed, this has no relevance to the situation at hand. He denied ‘blacklisting’ Pollyanna, saying:
“I’ve never spoken to any promoter about not having her on shows I won’t lie to people and say we got along because we didn’t, that’s normal in wrestling, some people will rub you up the wrong way.”
He accused Pollyanna of bullying Priestley, a claim both Pollyanna and wrestler RJ Singh (who was overseeing a training session when an alleged incident took place) dispute, and went on to say:
“Then this all came to my knowledge after she had left pro wrestling cos she wanted nothing to do with the business. So if you asked me about her I’d tell you my dealings with her but I can’t force anyone not to book/promote someone as during her last year in the UK I was on the same shows as her.”
The statement leaves a lot of uncertainty in terms of exactly what was said and to whom. There are unanswered questions over the extent to which this directly or indirectly affected Pollyanna’s career. The ‘London group’ she refers to includes the Resistance Gallery, a key venue to the city’s independent wrestling scene that is owned by two of Ospreay’s former trainers and close associates, Greg Burridge and Garry Vanderhorne. The building hosts events from various companies, including IWL, a promotion whose statements in June and later shift in emphasis October attracted much attention. On 21 June the promotion tweeted in reference to being asked by the Resistance Gallery to remove Pollyanna from the one of their 2018 shows or lose the venue, saying:
“The call went something like: Will’s our boy and feels uncomfortable with your booking Pollyanna.”
Then, on 15 October, IWL stated that the situation was not as clear as they thought and stressed that Ospreay had not contacted them directly. Nonetheless, there are still questions regarding the motivation behind the Resistance Gallery’s demand and neither they nor IWL have responded to requests for further clarification.
However, Pollyanna remains adamant that Ospreay and Priestley actively sought to both remove her from the wrestling industry and prevent her experience being listened to:
“I ignored them, and if people were able to scroll back to 2017, you could see the tweets of Bea calling me the most hated person in the UK, which made me feel like if I ever honestly spoke out, no one would ever believe me. Will said things like when I attended a WhatCulture show to watch, he wrote in a tweet how I was on the other side of the barrier for a reason, when all of us had attended random shows before (so I didn’t get why I was being shamed for watching a wrestling show) and I was still wrestling in Europe. I have read him trying to again tell journalists that he was not the only one who had issues with me, whilst at the same time saying he had never spoken badly about me, which the journalist was quickly to call him out on the hypocrisy of that statement.”
That point is a reference to wrestling journalist Will Cooling, who revealed on the 22 August edition of PWTorch’s 'British Wrestling Report' that Ospreay had contacted him to complain about the coverage he had received. This was the first time Ospreay had spoken with Cooling and his readiness to complain about Pollyanna suggests that his 2017 tweet was not a one off incident that he had learned from. When we look at Ospreay’s public criticism of wrestler Sadie Gibbs in January 2019 for leaving a Stardom tour early due to a family bereavement, we see a pattern of someone who has repeatedly used his considerable leverage to damage women with far less power in the wrestling industry than him. Pollyanna points out that this was done by furthering Wainwright’s career as well as his alleged attacks on her:
“People ignored when I first spoke about what had happened. A handful of people spoke to me about it, one being Ash Draven, who ran RCWA (formerly belonged to Will) and spoke to me, I told him everything and he promised he would never have him on his show again. Will obviously spoke to him, and either he believed Will over me or he was scared for his position, and the next show I see him not only having booked my rapist, but also working the same match as him. Barely anyone contacted me to ask about it, and after a while Progress continued to book and sing the praises of Will, when before I had reached out to Jim Smallman to ask him to stop the online abuse from Will and Bea, he did nothing. After I spoke out, Frontline, the promotion Will ran, booked my rapist, and later began a sort of partnership with Progress so they could have matches on the beginning show. It doesn’t hurt you seeing that, you feel so sick that people you worked with for two years would never even reach out to ask you your side of the story, or that it only said to me they truly thought I was lying. It destroys you seeing people you thought you had helped in some way or other, just completely turn their back on you. Other wrestlers worked Frontline who I told about it too, they knew he was there, still worked the show.”
The question of how best to respond to cases such as this is uncertain. The absence of official action perhaps contributes to feelings of anger felt by some sections of fans unwilling to allow cases such as these to be forgotten. Others will decry what they see as ‘trial by social media’. It is true that there are those who take things too far. Anyone wishing physical harm on Ospreay, for instance, is completely unjustified and may hamper the campaign for greater accountability in wrestling. We are also not in a position to question the sincerity of his struggles with mental health. These are serious issues, worthy of compassion, but not ones that should be used to deflect criticism of Ospreay’s behaviour. This behaviour has, at times, been attributed to youthful and ill informed mistakes. Ospreay’s early rise to prominence has enabled the frequent excuse of him being nothing more than a young man prone to saying the wrong thing. However, Ospreay is no longer a child. He is nearing his thirties, one of the most celebrated wrestlers in the world, who has managed multiple promotions and actively seeks to position himself in a leadership role in the scenes of more than one country. I personally have been a long-standing fan of his ringwork, having first seen him in Progress in 2012, and his 2019 BOSJ final against Shingo Takagi remains the best match I have ever witnessed in person. But any attempt to separate the art from the artist is not without consequence. It is precisely because Ospreay is so celebrated that his words can have significant effect, whether he realises it or not. He is a major figure internationally and a dominant one in the UK. Even when out of the country, his presence looms over the local scene here and what he says and does matters. I know from direct experience how difficult it can be to process when a close friend is accused of sexual assault, but that difficulty must not be allowed to cloud one’s judgment and cause further harm. The effects of secondary victimisation can be severe and, in Pollyanna’s case are still keenly felt:
“In a summary, Will and Bea began their online bullying/smear campaign on me in August 2016, it went on for over a year, with when I spoke out in November 2017, Will was the first to remind me, because he had spoken to so many people in the locker room, that they knew the “real me”, people who I had never met or barely spoken to. I blocked them both in August 2016, but they were still reading all my tweets and instagrams (somehow) and were still tweeting about me, when I had to start telling my friends to stop telling me what they were saying as it was only messing me up more and more.
He had to make sure I knew people wouldn’t believe me which was my biggest fear, because wrestlers seemed to love seeing him write those things about me. Then, after a year, I realised I wasn’t the only one reading it, people who were fans, had seen his tweets and when he wrote that final one, I think it hit the nail on top of the coffin how truly bullying and intimidating Will wanted to be to me, with Bea using the fact she was dating the biggest in the UK and they were both, more or less, untouchable. I was so glad to see I was wrong on that front, and that people told him it wasn’t right on so many levels to do that to someone.”
A lack of documentation and transparency throughout the wrestling industry means that the extent of Ospreay’s actions, in either direction, may never be fully known. However, even the events that are publicly known could be considered inappropriate to a level that would prompt investigation and disciplinary procedures in many workplaces. We know that Ospreay has attacked Pollyanna publicly and in conversations with both journalists and figures within the wrestling industry, and continued to book Wainwright for Frontline, the promotion he formerly owned, as recently as 2019. Rev Pro, NJPW’s UK affiliate for whom Ospreay is the current champion, has deferred responsibility to the star’s primary employer. To date, NJPW has remained silent, but Ospreay is not the only contracted wrestler to have faced allegations.
A 19 June Reddit thread saw multiple people accuse Bullet Club undercard performer Chase Owens of sexual harassment, bullying, sex with minors and violence against women. The thread’s initial author said:
“Prior to him working in Japan, Chase and I worked multiple shows together across the southeast of the US in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and South Carolina. He would often travel with other wrestlers in the area, such as Ricky Morton or Matt Sigmon. Because he is such a talented worker, he always got a pass with his behavior at shows. He made multiple advances at me, even after multiple attempts to shut him down. Before I started wrestling myself, I was still around in locker rooms so I was around him when I was 16 years old. He asked me how old I was, and I replied “16." He said, “18?", and I said “No, 16." He kept on trying to get me to say that I was 18 so that his behavior would be justified in trying to get me to sleep with him.
He also on multiple accounts would tell stories in the locker room about hooking up with “rats" as the boys called them that he knew were "close enough" to 18. I've also seen Chase bully locker room members that had relationships go south to give the number of the girl that person was dating to him because he "had always wanted to fuck them." He also bragged about how he tried to get a married male wrestler to have a threesome with him and another girl he pressured into having sex with him. The married wrestler refused to do so, but he would tell this story like it was a badge of honor that he almost got a married man to cheat on his wife so that they could fuck a fan.”
This account was supported by multiple posters claiming to have witnessed similar behaviour from Owens, with one female wrestler saying:
“I am female wrestler who interacted with Chase Owens for some time. I have seen him sexual harass women, heard him brag about it, heard him try to manipulate women, and known for a fact that he has hit a woman one time. I have seen women confront Chase. I have seen men get bullied into being disgusting pigs by Chase. I've seen chase spread false rumors about women in order to get revenge. I've also seen unsolicited/unwanted picture of chase in his underwear. He's the embodiment of what “the boys” do in wrestling. Chase Owens was for a long-time untouchable in the wrestling community because of his connections. I hope that this story changes that. Know that I thought I could never post this information online out of fear before now.”
In his denial of these allegations, Owens initially claimed that these events were part on an angle for NWA Smoky Mountain in a tweet that has since been deleted. The thread’s author has stressed that she has never worked for that promotion. Owens has also sent direct messages to some of his accusers, encouraging them to delete their allegations.
Expectation of action in any of these cases may be naive. It has long been a commonly held understanding that NJPW do not concern themselves with the actions of foreign talent while they are outside of Japan. This was the case when Michael Elgin was publicly accused of mishandling a rape accusation stemming from his training school in 2017. The public backlash against Elgin in the West was strong, with Elgin being removed from a number of independent bookings. However, he continued working for NJPW until his eventual departure from the company in 2019, winning the NEVER Openweigtht title in the process, and the promotion did not publicly address the situation at any stage. We know they were aware of public feeling toward the wrestler as he was notably absent from overseas dates during that time. Elgin was subsequently hired by Impact Wrestling before being released in June of last year as a result of further allegations.
It is also clear that NJPW has at least some awareness of the issues surrounding their currently contracted talent. When the company’s English language social media feeds promoted a Q&A session with Zack Sabre Jr the majority of the comments concerned Speaking Out. The British wrestler has been strongly criticised for remaining silent on allegations against many of his close associates, despite his previous reputation for being outspoken on many political and social issues. The posts were soon deleted and the session did not take place. It would seem that with these stories attracting little awareness among Japanese fans, the company sees no need to confront them. This is a point raised by journalist, Emily Pratt, who has covered the story extensively for Fanbyte:
“The company's decision to not address the situation is not surprising to me because they've never addressed any kind of behavioral issue or scandal with their foreign talent, and they've only addressed this stuff with their Japanese talent when its a big enough deal to be a PR issue (ie it gets covered in tabloids, like Taichi and Taka's affairs).”
A Japanese promotion’s response to scandals can, in some cases, have an impact on domestic business. For instance, the demise of the Hustle wrestling and Pride MMA promotions were triggered by their parent company Dream Stage’s links to the Yakuza in the 2000s. NJPW's actions against the wrestlers Taichi and Taka Michinoku following extramarital affairs (issues typically considered purely personal matters in the west), does suggest a difference in how the actions of Japanese and foreign talent are approached, but that there may also be issues surrounding cultural differences of priorities. There was no public action in response to domestic violence accusations surrounding Tomoaki Honma and the country is considerably more culturally conservative than the UK and many parts of the US. The effects of this environment can be pronounced, as highlighted by Brooke Larsen in a 2018 article for The Culture Trip:
“Japan is a very safe country in many ways, but this culture of silence can be quite dangerous. Considering how discouraged people are about calling out sexual predators, it’s almost impossible to know how much of this type of crime actually occurs. Data compiled by the Japanese government suggests that 95 percent of rapes are not even reported to police.”
It is also possible that NJPW’s refusal to acknowledge allegations against their foreign talent is influenced by a desire to avoid drawing attention to issues closer to home. In his 2008 book 'Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Intustry', Matthew Randazzo V described the NJPW dojo environment that led to death of trainee Hiromitsu Gompei in 1995 as follows:
“It’s usually teenage pupils endured merciless emotional abuse, constant and arbitrary corporal punishment of the most extreme sort, sexual humiliation, and cult-like indoctrination.”
We may like to believe that things have changed since then, but the same thing would also have been thought by many of the British wrestling scene until relatively recently.
However, NJPW is no longer a solely Japanese company. It has by far the highest profile of any Japan based wrestling promotion internationally, caters to an English speaking audience, employs many foreign wrestlers and has a US based subsidiary. It is from this overseas fandom that any pressure for a change in direction is likely to come, as Pratt points out:
“I think fan response could prompt a change in direction if, once they're able to run shows with fans outside of Japan again, it clearly hurts ticket sales... and MAYBE if it provokes a fan response that's really different than what they want. However, they already seem kind of out of touch with what US fans at least would like to see from NJPW in the US (based on their last US hour show tour in winter 2020) so I think it might have to be VERY obvious for them to respond to the situation. so overall, I think it's really unlikely they'll address this stuff at all. MAYBE somebody will get the equivalent of when they stopped booking Elgin in the US but kept booking him in Japan, but I'm not sure.”
It is probably true that these issues are not the biggest current obstacle to global expansion. Of more pressing concern may be what some have perceived to be a decline in quality of the on-screen product, the lack of a major US TV deal, increased competition from other promotions and COVID-19’s impact on touring and accessing talent. It is difficult to ascertain the exact extent to which fans are both aware of and concerned about these issues and response has been mixed. Feelings would seem to be felt most strongly in the UK and Ireland, the epicentres for the largest concentration of Speaking Out related stories, and the countries are, at best, a distant third in terms of NJPW’s primary markets behind the US and Japan. It does remain to be seen what the effect will be on ticket sales and the reaction to certain wrestlers among the fans in attendance once the company is able to stage events abroad again, but there is a risk of alienating some who had been among the company’s most ardent followers long term, those who would previously have been big spenders and likely to share their passion with others, and limiting the potential for future growth. NJPW’s Japanese live audiences have often been noted for the number of women and young families in attendance. In the West, crowds are overwhelming comprised of adult men aged 18-49. To appeal to more diverse groups of people, it may be advisable to respond to their concerns. Pratt explains:
“I think wrestling companies should see those as incentives because they would pay off in the long term, but I think a lot of companies and people in wrestling don't see that as something they need to do. In NJPW's case, it's hard to know what they think their audience outside of Japan is and what their potential audience outside of Japan is. Like, part of their current success in Japan is because of attracting a more diverse audience (mainly more women) than they had before, but maybe they think the only wrestling audience outside of Japan is like 20-50 year old adult men. It's hard to say.”
Of course, more pressing than any business imperative to address the situation, should be a moral one that would not be entirely at odds with precedent. In a 13 May YouTube video, former NJPW President Harold Meij discussed the company’s “corporate social responsibility” in reference to their COVID-19 response. They were, rightly, praised earlier last year for their handling of the pandemic, not rushing to run empty arena events or releasing talent during the first wave of the virus, despite the resulting financial pressure. They may have missed the opportunity to be similarly praised in this instance. Even if none of the company's wrestlers were implicated, it would arguably have been reassuring if NJPW, as an industry leader, addressed Speaking Out in solidarity with survivors.
To date, neither Owens nor Ospreay, have experienced any impact on their careers. Owens remains a mainstay on events and Ospreay, at the time of writing, is now the leader of the company’s newest faction, has just completed the biggest match of his career to date against Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 15 and seems likely to become IWGP champion in the near future. It also remains to be seen whether other controversial names, like Marty Scurll, are brought back in future. This perceived indifference and lack of empathy could have damaging consequences. Pollyanna confirmed to me that she has had no contact from NJPW and the company's decision to remain silent could make others less likely to share their experiences for fear of retaliation or being ignored, this would mean other serious offences are more likely to occur.
These are not easy situations. None of these events to place under NJPW’s watch, but the behaviour of their contracted wrestlers is their responsibility. It is not the intention of this article to lay out exactly what action should be taken, but to stress that absolute silence from both NJPW and their parent company, Bushiroad, should not be an option. If we are to criticise the responses of our local independent promotions to Speaking Out, then we should hold the biggest wrestling organisations in the world to an equal, if not higher, standard.
NJPW did not respond to a request for comment.
- Jack Groom
You can let NJPW know of your feelings on the matter here: Contact NJPW
Here are some funds you can donate to in support of those affected by Speaking Out:
Help Mariah May with legal debt from #SpeakingOut
Sexual and domestic abuse victim fighting civil litigation from abuser
Comments
Post a Comment