WCW Nitro Sign Nearly Gets WWE Fan Arrested On Raw?

A fan sign that was prominent during the angle with Stephanie McMahon, the Bella Twins, Paige, and AJ Lee on this week's edition of Monday Night Raw led to a lot of discussion online in the last couple days, as stories started circulating that the fan had been kicked out and even threatened with arrest. What actually happened appears to be more complicated than WWE not liking the sign, though. On Monday afternoon, the fan in question, who uses the name "rynoIA," posted on Reddit asking for sign suggestions. One of the responses, from a user named "Evertak," was "I could be at home watching Nitro (for only $9.99)," and obviously, rynoIA took him up on it. It was one of the most clever signs we've seen on Raw in a long time, parodying the old "I could be at home watching Nitro/Raw" signs from during the Monday Night War. With the first two years of WCW Monday Nitro having been released on WWE Network on Monday, it was topical and especially funny to long time fans. However, it was still telling fans to turn away from Raw, and it was dead center across from the hard camera. One could see why WWE would take issue with it, and a number of fans started sending in reports to wrestling news sites that the fan had his signs confiscated before eventually being ejected. Eventually, rynoIA posted this comment as a reply to the original suggestion from Evertak (edited for profanity but otherwise quoted verbatim):

I got threatened with arrest. They tried getting my id for records. F**k the entire company. They kicked me out because of the sign. It's fine that I got kicked out but trying to bully me. Bring it. The piece of s**t guy in the suit with the WWE logo on his suit is a little bitch yes man for Vince. They threatened me with everything in the the book and I walked out of the arena on my own will. F**k Vince trips and Steph suck my f**king d**k you c**ts

It doesn't appear that his version is the whole story, though. Especially since he changed his story pretty dramatically in his next comment (emphasis ours):

They came up to me at about 9pm and we're like give me the signs. I was like which one. They took one of the three I had and walked away 2 minutes later came back with a big black guy in a suit and asked me to follow them. Which I didn't told them to f**k off. Which they threatened me with arrest and I laughed in their face. After about 5 minutes of time being assholes I walked to th e area where they sell everything and tried talking to them. All I got was surrounded by d**k heads in suits telling me WWE didn't like me and wanted me gone. I refused to leave and begged them to bring the Des Moines police department so I could be taken to jail and they wouldn't. I walked down out on my own free will after being fed up with the bulls**t F**k the WWE and their bullying

He also started a new discussion thread with a similar post. So was he threatened with arrest or not? If they did, why did the situation escalate to that degree? Well, a WWE source told Mike Johnson of PWInsider that the fan was indeed removed, but for "abrasive" behavior that included throwing the signs in the air and swearing, not the content of his signs. In addition, it looks like the post starting the second thread was edited later on, as replies to it quote him and reference him talking about drinking and getting high before the show, but those lines are not in his post at this moment and nobody in the discussion is acting like they were made up. Another fan sent the following email to LordsOfPain.net:

I was about 6 seats away from this guy and he had it coming. He appeared to be intoxicated, was chanting for Chris Benoit and was throwing his signs. We were glad to see him go. He left out a lot of details on his own behavior.

One posted, using the name "AcneBalls," claimed to have been sitting right behind rynoIA: I'm glad you got kicked out. You were ruining the experience for everyone around you. Source: Sat behind you. When another user suggested rynoIA start the second thread because what happened was "bulls**t," AcneBalls added this reply: Yeah, getting kicked out after yelling "F**k her right in the p***y" is bulls**t. And then addressed a (now deleted) rynoIA comment with this: Sat behind you. You were being a grade-A prick. When another user started a new thread to point to the LordsOfPain.net post, he added a longer comment: I was sitting right behind him and his friend. Now, it was his friend that actually chanted for Chris Benoit, but everything else that was mentioned was true, plus more. He was chanting things like "f**k her right in the p***y" around little kids. I even overheard him saying that he was probably going to end up getting kicked out by the end of the show. I'm not sure, but I think it might have been a goal of his. At first, I thought it was cool to see someone with an /r/SquaredCircle sign, but I was proven wrong not long after. At the very least, it looks like he deserved to get thrown out of the show. As for what exactly happened when he talked to security guards in the concourse, that's more of a mystery, but his accounts don't exactly seem reliable. If he was actually drunk, high, constantly swearing, and throwing things, then there's honestly nothing wrong with telling the guy he might get arrested.