10 Secret Messages Wrestlers Sent
9. Various Wrestlers Say The Quiet Part Loud About The Velveteen Dream
Velveteen Dream was, and you'll understand that care must be taken when phrasing this entry, accused of deeply unsavoury sexual advances towards minors in 2020.
WWE conducted some sort of internal investigation or other, and it can be inferred from the fact that he continued to appear on television that WWE, at least, found no wrongdoing. It needn't be inferred, even. "We looked into what was there," Triple H told Brent Brookhouse of CBS Sports, "and we didn't find anything".
Certain hints cropped up that this view wasn't shared by Patrick Clark's peers.
At NXT TakeOver XXX, after Clark was accused amid the #SpeakingOut moment (for, indeed, a second time), he worked the five-way Ladder match for the North American title. At this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, various wrestlers cosplayed as fans to emulate something approaching a normal atmosphere. As such, they were performative, popping for entrances and expressing shock and awe in reaction to high spots. Not so with Clark; everything he did was met with blanket, seemingly defiant silence. In his big high spot, he crashed through a ringside table. Nobody reacted at first, instinctively. A member of the production team had to signal for them to make noise. Earlier, when he scaled a ladder to tease victory, no noise was made, either. Everybody else was met with hushed expectation.
Meanwhile, Rhea Ripley liked a tweet imploring Dream to be fired, and later, when her partner Adam Cole was announced as working Clark on the December 23, 2020 NXT, Britt Baker tweeted "LOL" with no context.
This might be nothing, it should be noted. Perhaps this is all connecting dots that simply aren't there - but Clark certainly didn't appear to be popular in wrestling circles.
Many talents seemed to let their feelings be known in subtle, secretive ways.