10 Banned Photos WWE Don’t Want You To See
4. This Still Of Mel Phillips
[Content warning: descriptions of sexual assault follow.]
WWE scrubbed a lot of the bad stuff from archives across the migrations from tape to Network and again to Peacock, but they could not scrub everything. There wouldn’t be a great deal left.
This is a still image of Mel Phillips introducing Randy Savage as he readied himself for a match against Dusty Rhodes in Binghamton, New York. The date is key.
The taping took place on June 6, 1990.
Phillips was subbing for Howard Finkel, and hadn’t been present much as an announcer, but continued to lead the crew that put the ring together. A key name in the 1992 ring boy scandal, following which he was fired by the WWF for good, Phillips was accused of grooming and sexually abusing the underage boys brought into the WWF under vague classification to help assemble the ring. Tom Cole, who alongside Chris Loss went public to the San Diego Union-Tribune, alleged that Phillips would fondle his feet and rub them against his genitals.
Phillips had been fired and quickly rehired in 1988 for, as Vince McMahon had suspected, taking a “peculiar and unnatural” interest in underage boys.
In an revolting, shocking and phenomenally naive decision, McMahon rehired Phillips - as he told New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick on the record - “with the caveat that Phillips steer clear from kids”.
Testifying in the deposition of a defamation lawsuit, Mushnick said Vince said that Phillips was “returned by [Linda McMahon.]”