Bill DeMott | Wrestling's Evil History
The story of the seedy underbelly beneath the joy of early WWE NXT.
In pro wrestling’s olden days - when WWE was still the WWWF, before Brian Pillman first flirted with the worked shoot on mainstream television, before the content industry rendered the fading concept of kayfabe a long-lost artefact - wrestlers were broken in the hard way.
Back then, kayfabe was upheld, even if most people knew deep down that the pseudo-sport was indeed rigged - but the illusion was considered vital in order to convince the public otherwise and sell tickets for intense grudge matches. If an aspiring wrestler walked into a training school and was told on day one that it was all fake and here, this is how to protect yourself when taking a staged bump, somebody was bound to leak that information. This did not happen; instead, wrestlers were taught legitimate holds and stretched to the point of agony and injury before their trust was earned. Infamously, Hiro Matsuda broke Hulk Hogan’s leg on his first day of training in the most extreme example of this objective: to make the aspiring pro wrestler feel like they proudly belonged to an exclusive secret society that only inducted those tough enough. The badge of honour and the endorsement came with it a pact to protect the secrets of the industry. This was the common interest that united the brotherhood.
Years later, things changed. The process of becoming a pro wrestler was still very painful, but largely, not quite so toxic. Even the fabled dojo system of Japan, so legendarily awful that the masochistic Chris Benoit didn’t feel like he could cope with it initially, followed this new direction of travel. The secret was out, never to return. Why bother holding onto it with the literal grasp of an excruciating submission hold?
When Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque took over WWE’s developmental system, fans rejoiced. The man saved many lifelong supporter’s fandom. NXT wasn’t just very good, especially relative to the incoherent, goofy, and punishing main roster: it was nice.
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Yes, the actual wrestling was significantly better and more futuristic. Yes, the storylines were far simpler, logical, and more engaging. Yes, Triple H actually respected and pushed smaller indie darlings. But the real magic was in the feel-good factor, the promise of real change, which Triple H was savvy enough to reflect in the tone of the product. Bayley wasn’t cool; she was joyous. American Alpha’s NXT Tag Team title win was a similarly beautiful ascent. Baron Corbin as the blundering curmudgeon - a Vince McMahon-coded baddie who didn’t win in the end - was also inspired. NXT was nice. Except, behind the scenes, it wasn’t.
Bill DeMott was instated as the Head Coach in developmental, replacing Dr. Tom Prichard, in the spring of 2012 ahead of the relocation to the Orlando Performance Center from Florida Championship Wrestling. DeMott had developed a reputation during his previous stint as a trainer for WWE feeder league Deep South Wrestling in the mid 2000s. DeMott was said to be a strict disciplinarian, obsessed with intense drills said to be so brutal that the wrestlers would rather endure humiliation than pain. This allowed DeMott to further indulge his sadism. Once class, exhausted and in agony, pitched an offer to DeMott, per Devon ‘Hannibal’ Nicholson. Zack Ryder would crouch by the turnbuckle and place a jelly donut over his face as a bare-assed Luke Gallows smeared it to crumbs by performing a ‘Stinkface’. This degrading stunt, which DeMott corroborated and described as the funniest thing he’d ever seen, spared the class from that day’s training. DeMott did not change upon returning to what, only on the surface, was a more respectable corporate environment.
Whispers had followed DeMott for a while - all the way back in 2007, when Devon Matthews accused DeMott of misconduct in a 2007 MySpace post. Before the allegations erupted into a full-blown scandal in the spring of 2015, the former Chad Baxter in a 2013 interview with The Shoot alleged that DeMott would break a yardstick over the backs of trainees if they were to botch a move. In 2014, Ryan Nemeth participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), in which he accused DeMott of kicking him in the cast that protected his broken leg.
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In a 2014 interview with RF Shoot, when asked about the increasing news reports of developmental injuries, Ricardo Rodriguez offered a “Hey, Bill”. In the same year and for the same outlet, Curt Hawkins said that talents would write letters of complaint “all the f*cking time” back in Deep South; many were placed on a noticeboard by Bill in an attempt to let people know that he did not care. He might not have been alone; if due diligence was performed on DeMott before his return to WWE, NXT management appeared not to care, either.
The grim extent of DeMott’s behaviour started to surface when Judas Devlin, who later found fame as Luchasaurus in AEW, spoke with Vendetta Radio in February 2015, shortly after which a complaint letter he had written to WWE’s human resources department was made public. Per Devlin, DeMott frequently engaged in rancid behavior. He nicknamed Olier Grey ‘Joel Paedophile’. It was also stated in the letter that, when grieving the suicide of Florida wrestling royalty Mike Graham, students were told to “kill themselves”. This was an example of a pattern; when trainee Dante Dash revealed that he had named his finisher ‘The Davey Boy’ in tribute to the British Bulldog, DeMott said “What’s that? Turning blue and dropping dead on the lawn?”
That was not verbal abuse. That was nothing you could even begin to argue was said as a harsh motivational tool. That was a glimpse into a thoroughly nasty mind.
Accusations of homophobic and racist language were also levelled against DeMott. As more NXT personnel came forward, Terra Calaway went into specifics, accusing DeMott of verbally abusing a trainee of middle eastern descent. DeMott called the trainee a “terrorist” “Aladdin” who “needs to go back to making bombs”. As more wrestlers came forward, Trent Barretta tweeted “About f*cking time” - insinuating that he agreed with the accusations, and was relieved that DeMott might finally be held accountable. He was. DeMott, who was also accused by Nemeth of enabling and protecting Matt Wichlinski - the strength and conditioning coach who left a social media audit trail of his sexual harassment - resigned in disgrace on March 6, 2015. He denied the allegations.
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Bill DeMott was a relic, a small man, and wrestling has flourished without him - but the disturbing truth is that his methods once worked, in a roundabout way. AEW World Champion Kenny Omega has actually credited DeMott for his evolution and outlook as a professional wrestler.
Omega was a virtual nobody in the Canadian indie wilderness when he signed his WWE developmental deal in 2005. This wasn’t his dream. He felt this instinctively, but the lure of the opportunity convinced him to ignore that. He left of his own volition in under a year, feeling an intense wanderlust for Japan and desire to express himself. While he didn’t enjoy his time in Deep South Wrestling - nobody did - he is grateful for it. He told his Twitch followers on a 2025 stream that he’d like to one day shake DeMott’s hand. DeMott toughened him up and allowed him “to develop a palette to eat sh*t on a daily basis again and again and again”. Omega reckons that without this abuse, without getting “the f*ck beaten out of” him, he would never have survived the American indies. The modern AEW and NJPW legend might not have reached that peak without his brutal formative experience. Does this justify DeMott’s conduct?
No, it does not.
Certain professional wrestlers who were trained by reputable modern schools have accomplished far more than DeMott did in what was a deeply mediocre career, throughout which he was never over nor drew any money.
An idea exists that wrestling has gone soft and that a certain brand of tough, toxic love is necessary to instil within trainees. It is inevitable that a wrestler will suffer some sort of knock or even serious injury mid-match with the expectation that they must finish it regardless. How else to equip the trainee with this intolerance to pain other than by subjecting them to repeated batterings in the training ring? DeMott might argue that the verbal abuse was also justified.
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A wrestler needs to develop thick skin. They perform in front of a live audience that, while increasingly detached and performative, can be cruel. While this is overrated by the more defensive people within the industry, some wrestling fans are massively fickle and liable to turn on their favourites - and very quickly. Wrestling fans have never been less likely to incite a riot, but they can still hurl abuse, develop icky parasocial relationships, and even stalk those that they idolise to a psychotic extent.
A wrestler either has the mentality, or they don’t. Some need pushing to find it within themselves, but you don’t need to be a cruel and nasty piece of sh*t to extract that. Pro wrestling has very recently produced a unicorn of a heel, a man able to conjure actual heat, without a trainer debasing him. The Create A Pro academy has developed a solid reputation in recent years - and the school also developed MJF. MJF can shut down a heckler like nobody else. MJF finished a match - against Jay White at AEW Full Gear 2023 - while suffering a dislocated hip and labrum tear. Moreover, MJF has grasped the old art of protecting his character and convincing the public of its credibility despite breaking through in an environment that wasn’t toxic. MJF essentially carries himself as a method actor like the wrestlers of yore. The new way can still develop a wrestler with old school values.
Of all people, Jim Cornette inserted himself into the conversation as the voice of the reason. This might have been unexpected; after all, Cornette is notorious for his inflexible views on presenting pro wrestling as a realistic form. While Cornette was so staunchly protective over kayfabe that he once slapped Santino Marella for breaking it, he drew the line at DeMott’s conduct.
This probably tells you that a line was indeed crossed.