Details Of Alleged WWE Pitch For A White Wrestler To Hunt Reggie

More details have emerged regarding a lawsuit filed against WWE by a former writer that includes questionable ideas for a superstar named Reggie.

Reggie has been a part of WWE since early 2020 as the French sommelier of Carmella in a role that didn’t last that long. After that, he became a part of the neverending 24/7 Title storyline involving Dana Brooke, Tamina & Akira Tozawa in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022.

These days, Reggie is known as Scrypts on the NXT brand with WWE not acknowledging that fans knew him as Reggie in the past.

A lawsuit was filed against WWE earlier this week by a former writer named Britney Abrahams who alleges that she was discriminated against and retaliated against for objecting to “offensively racist” pitches and scripts. She was fired after WrestleMania 38 for taking home a commemorative chair while she claims that others did the same thing and were not reprimanded for it.

As you’ll read below as outlined in the lawsuit (will open as a PDF file), a WWE writer named Ryan Callahan pitched for former Australian WWE star Shane Thorne, a white male, to “hunt” Reggie, who is a black male.

“In a nutshell, the said hunting gimmick pitch for new wrestlers, Shane Thorne, and Reggie was, “since Shane is Australian, we should make him a crocodile hunter, and instead of crocodiles, he hunts people.”

Subsequently, a storyline was pitched by CALLAHAN where Shane would capture Reggie and constantly beat him up, but Reggie would always escape after being captured.

Holding Reggie captive in cages was also discussed.

Plaintiff (Abrahams) found CALLAHAN’s pitch highly offensive and objectionable.

Plaintiff again objected to her superior’s racially motivated misconduct, specifically stating that a gimmick where a white man hunting a black African American man for sport is racist.

CALLAHAN laughed and sarcastically responded, “OH, WHAT? IS THAT A BAD THING?”

CALLAHAN’s comments and conduct had the purpose and effect of humiliating and intimidating Plaintiff, and dramatically altered her work environment for the worse.

As the WWE writing team’s sole person of color, Plaintiff was devastated that none of her white, Caucasian co-workers stepped in to complain about this discriminatory and offensive pitch.

Afterwards, Plaintiff spoke with Mr. (Brian) Parise, a white, Caucasian WWE writer, who revealed that he agreed with Plaintiff that the pitch was racist, but he felt too nervous to speak up about it in front of CALLAHAN.

However, despite Plaintiff’s complaint, Defendants refused to address the complaint and instead continued the discriminatory and retaliatory campaign unabated.”

That wasn’t all involving Reggie in the lawsuit as you can see below.

“By way of example, it was discussed in the WWE writer’s Slack channel before a show, that a new wrestler, Reggie, would dress in drag complete with wig and tights, “so he could partner with Carmella, a female wrestler, in a tag-team match against other female wrestlers.”

Reggie is a dark-skinned, African American, black straight male wrestler.

Given this pitch was shared via the Slack app, Defendants MR. MCMAHON (Vince McMahon) and MS. MACHON (Stephanie McMahon), as well as other WWE higher-ups, including Mr. Pritchard (Bruce Prichard), and Mr. Ed Koskey were included on the thread.

Plaintiff’s co-worker, Ms. (Andrea) Listenberger, responded to the thread, observing that putting a straight black man in drag might perpetuate harmful stereotypes that would offend viewers.

WWE eventually scrapped the discriminatory pitch, but only in response to a white, Caucasian individual’s protected conduct in the form of Ms. Listenberger’s complaint.”

WWE has not publicly responded to the lawsuit.