A wrestling legend is backing up Becky Lynch’s accusations.
Mantell worked for the WWE as Uncle Zebekiah and just plain old Zebekiah in the nineties and part of the 2000’s as Zeb Colter, Jack Swagger’s manager. On his Story Time with Dutch Mantell podcast, Mantell supported Lynch’s claims.
“I’ve heard that from the girls before. See, I’d be talking to them on a plane ride or something and I guess they considered me safe because I’m older than Moses. So, they’d be talking to me and they’d say: ‘Yeah, there’s certain guys that hit on them all the time.’ Of course, that’s nature. I don’t mind that but you know if the girls accept they do mess up their career. They really do,” he began.
He then explained the culture back then and who he thinks it was:
“I think that is a clue to throw people off. I don’t think he was on the roster, not in a working capacity, but he was there and everybody knew who he was. I don’t doubt what Becky’s saying. I think she is telling 100% truth here. Okay, it was a relationship between a male talent and a female talent and they go together and you know they’re on the same brand and everything. Then, when it falls apart, it’s usually the girl that gets the boot because she’s the easiest one to replace because if it was a star with the guys, yeah, you’d have to keep him around. That’s just business sense,” he said.
WWE has launched an investigation into recent claims by Lynch that a male superstar blacklisted women who wouldn’t sleep with them.
On the Bert Kreischer’s podcast, Lynch explained that at the time word spread quickly through the women’s locker room to stay away from him.
“I’m not going to name names but there was a guy on the main roster who basically said, “Be careful. Be careful because, one, he will try to sleep with you, and if he does, he’ll blacklist you. And if he tries to sleep with you and you don’t, he’ll also blacklist you,” she said.
When Kreischer asked if he would know who this wrestler was Lynch answered: “You know him. Definitely.”
At one point, Lynch became worried when the individual obtained her phone number.
“There was this thin line where you had to walk a tightrope. At one point he got my number, and I remember thinking, Ugh! I mean, how do you navigate that?” she said of how awkward it was.
At that time in WWE, getting involved with another member of the roster could be a dangerous proposition, if you were a woman in the equation, said Lynch.
“There was always this fear that if you got into a relationship and things went south, they weren’t going to fire the guy. They were always going to fire the girl. It was a very, very scary situation,” she said.
It is being reported that nobody has come forward with the identity of the person Lynch was referring to although former WWE superstar Rene Dupree gave his theory.
On his Cafe de Rene podcast, he said: “[John] Cena? I don’t know if he’s like that. Brock [Lesnar]? I doubt it. Bray [Wyatt?] No. ‘Taker? No. Kane? No. [CM] Punk? No. Big Show? No. Batista? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Possibly. He was, no, I don’t know how much I can say, but… [Randy] Orton? I don’t think so. [Alberto] Del Rio? No.”
