A lot has been said about Alberto Del Rio, both positive and negative. On one hand, he was a great in-ring technician that managed to pull off good matches with almost any opponent placed before him. On the other hand, he wasn't very charismatic, wasn't that believable of a heel, and didn't have much in terms of concrete character development. What's important, however, is that Del Rio was an important member of the roster, a main-event level Superstar that appealed to the Latino fan base. So it must've really stung for them when Del Rio was terminated in August of this year. The reason for his release has been well-publicized. Del Rio allegedly slapped a WWE employee who made derogatory remarks towards Mexicans, after this employee, later identified as Cody Barbierri, WWE's Manager of Social Media Live Events, refused to apologize for his words. While it wasn't a very professional thing to do on Del Rio's part, many of his fellow Superstars believed that he was in the right to stand up for himself and his people, and that WWE was too harsh on him. Either way, Del Rio's departure was bad for the company in more ways than one. They lost a talented Superstar and more or less solid in-ring worker, and they had to face mounting criticism regarding racism within their company's inner culture.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
