WWE had to deal with a social media mess that had shades of the Philadelphia 76ers’s Twitter debacle involving Bryan Coangelo and Gossip Girl when Luke O’ Brien of the Huffington Post deduced and revealed the true identity of the controversial Twitter account, Amy Mek, on May 31st. The account belongs to Amy Mekelberg, the wife of Salvatore “Sal” Siino, the now former senior vice president of global content for WWE.
Amy had cultivated a huge following with her highly racist posts over the past 5 years. Sean Hannity, Roseanne Barr, Donald Trump, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders are among the prominent followers and endorsers of Amy Mek. The WWE fired Salvatore Siino after an investigation some days later. The move came on the heels of WWE and Saudi Arabia’s General Sports Authority (GSA) signing a 10 year deal. WWE’s recent estimated $1 billion dollar TV deal with Fox also put WWE in the spotlight. Those lucrative ventures made Sal expendable. The Saudi Deal doomed him the most since Amy’s racism especially targets Islamic People. It also didn’t help that he directly represented WWE in negotiations for the deal and that Amy continued tweeting during the investigation. The WWE has already had to deal with criticism stemming from not having any of the women’s roster present at the Greatest Royal Rumble from the public and within the company.
Familiar territory
This also isn’t the first rodeo with racist social media for WWE either. In 2015, WWE fired developmental talent, Zahara Schreiber, for a plethora of racist posts dating back to 2012. Zahara had a proclivity for Nazi images and antisemitism but found the time to include African-Americans in her racist posts. She also made some homophobic comments and posts as well. The situation was further worsened by the fact that Zahara was dating Seth Rollins, who happened to be engaged at the time. The scandal worsened when nude pictures of Seth and Zahara were leaked. After issuing a questionable “apology” after her dismissal, she has since made her social accounts private to a degree. Zahara resurfaced last month when she and Sonya Deville announced that they’re an item on Twitter. Here’s hoping that Sonya’s career won’t be affected by her association with a known lightning rod.
How’s it going to go?
Given America’s current political climate and the mutual dissent present on both sides, one has to wonder about the reception that awaits the WWE upon its return to Saudi Arabia. Fox is a magnet for controversy, especially Fox News. Fox News is good for saying something absurdly racist or otherwise controversial on any given day. Al-Qaeda recently issued a warning to Prince Mohammad bin Salman regarding Western influence, especially regarding The Greatest Royal Rumble. It’s reasonable to wonder if something said on Fox News could also carry over to public reception of future WWE shows there. Riyadh will be the venue in November for the WWE’s followup to The Greatest Royal Rumble. While it may be the case that nothing would come from the statement, one can’t help but wonder about how Saudi Arabia’s modernization campaign, how resistance to it will play out, the current overt racial tension and intolerance in American Culture, and the poor regard the rest of the world has for America regarding those topics will play out.
