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Public Incident, Private Apology? No Way.

Posted: Jul 17th 2023 By: Arya Witner

In October 1992 two-sport athlete Deion Sanders attempted to make history by playing in a professional football game for the Atlanta Falcons in the afternoon and a professional baseball game for the Atlanta Braves in the evening. Since the Braves were in the middle of the National League Championship Series at the time, this was a point of contention with the baseball media, specifically Hall of Fame catcher and broadcaster Tim McCarver. McCarver publicly blasted Deion, calling him selfish for not devoting all his time to helping his team win the pennant. After the Braves won the NLCS in 7 games, Deion Sanders, who had heard about this from his Mom, responded by dumping four buckets of water on McCarver, who was reporting in the locker room that night.

In the aftermath on this incident, which is covered in the ESPN 30 For 30 Documentary “Deion’s Double Day”, McCarver said in an interview that due to the public nature of the incident he would not accept a private apology from Deion, stating that since the incident was public, it deserves a public apology. Deion never did and Tim passed away in February 2023.

In a story that was reported on, talked about and editorialized on at the time, in April 2023 at the WrestleCon convention Rick Steiner decided to let his transphobic side shine through and publicly lambasted and shamed Impact Wrestling’s Gisele Shaw for being a transgender woman, calling her “filth” and “a piece of trash”.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Rick Steiner was kicked out of the convention and was announced to be permanently banned from WrestleCon. Everyone had something to say about the incident, including me writing an article that was published both in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and AngryMarks that week. We all accepted that the incident was taken care of and moved on with our lives.

It turns out, like with most stipulations in wrestling, a permanent ban doesn’t really last long. Today, slightly more than three months after the original incident, WrestleCon announced that Rick Steiner would be a part of their next convention in Detroit over SummerSlam weekend.

Michael Bochicchio, the owner of WrestleCon, went to Twitter to defend this booking. Michael stated that Rick “immediately apologized” during a “private mediated event” with other Impact Wrestling staff which Gisele had refused to attend. Due to this private apology WrestleCon agreed to book Rick for this upcoming event, placing him on a “zero-tolerance scale” where Rick will be permanently banned if he does this again.

Maybe this time the permanent ban could last all the way until January.

Now there will undoubtedly be people who are like “Why are you making a big deal? He apologized!." The fact is, much like with Tim McCarver and Deion Sanders, if you are going to publicly shame someone, then you need to follow that up with a public apology.

The fact is Rick Steiner has never said anything publicly regarding this incident. Nor has he even “released a statement” talking about regret.

While I do not represent the entire transgender community or the entire LGBT community, I can tell you from experience that if you say something incredibly stupid, we will normally accept your apology once, as long as you show actual contrition and show that you have learned your lesson and are making an effort to become better educated.

If he had done that, or if Gisele comes out and says he apologized to her and she forgives him, then I am more than happy to allow bygones be bygones and let everyone move on with their lives. Unfortunately, neither of those things have happened and WrestleCon has chosen to make whatever money you’re going to make with a Rick Steiner meet and greet in 2023 over making a stand and doing what was right.

Whether or not you agree with our existence, being transgender is not a fad, we’re not undergoing years of therapy and spending thousands of dollars in surgeries just because it’s cool or so we can win a swim meet vs cisgender women.

In a way it makes the aftermath of Jay Briscoe’s comments even crazier. As mentioned, Jay once said something really stupid. He immediately apologized and donated his pay to an LGBT charity. The response was Jay was never allowed to work for a major league company with US national television.

Meanwhile, let’s face facts, at some point Rick Steiner will be on WWE television again doing an angle with his son and by that point no one is going to care.

So, WrestleCon has made their choice and so have I and I choose to not patronize WrestleCon or spend my hard earned money at their sponsored events. Of course, I cannot force anyone else to follow along, but I know the transgender community would appreciate anyone’s support. Ultimately all this has done is make me, and people of my ilk, even more nervous to attend public events such as this.