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Yesterday during a radio appearance on Busted Open, GFW champion Alberto el Patron and WWE star Paige appeared united in showing the world they were the real life Maria and Mike Kanellis, professing the power of love and showcasing that all is OK with the couple. That may be the case, today, but the idea that they were blaming the "Internet" for their issues at the Orlando Airport on 7/9 and the subsequent fallout that came with it, is absolute garbage.
It's easy to dismiss things as being the fault of the Internet, as if its this malevolent entity that is out to hurt someone, but the reality is that if someone - public persona or not - doesn't make the mistake of putting themselves into a situation where people can publicly comment on their actions, then they don't have a reason to react to that criticism.
Over the past year, Alberto and Paige....
....have been suspended by WWE (and in the case of Paige, twice, with WWE telling the New York Post the second suspension was for an illegal substance).
... became embroiled in an incident that led to Paige running through traffic in Las Vegas before police grabbed her and took her for a medical evaluation.
.....were part of an incident backstage at an event in Mexico where Patron beat up another wrestler for allegedly inappropriately touching Paige.
....were involved in a stabbing incident in San Antonio where Alberto was attacked by a homeless man...not wait, was involved in an auto incident...no wait, was defending Paige....all three versions of which were never truly explained and hey, despite being stabbed by some ruffian in public, there was no police report that anyone in the San Antonio Police Department could find.
.....were involved in the airport incident that led to Alberto's GFW suspension, which he claims is cleared up - although GFW has yet to confirm to PWInsider (which has reached out to the company for comment) that the suspension has actually been lifted.
Mind you, these are just the instances that we know about and the ones that have been documented- and I am only including events that involved the two of them together. Could there be others? Possibly? Were there? We don't know (yet), but above is a pattern of behavior that doesn't just happen to most loving, adoring couples, even the ones under the ever-watching spotlight of public life.
Even if one of the incidents - as opposed to multiple ones - took place, the idea that the "Internet" is to blame for the attention put on the Orlando Airport incident is laughable for a number of reasons.
Are there a-holes in the world, including the Internet? Of course. Are there going to be people spouting off garbage and lies on social media and assuming the worst? Of course, but to paint everyone with the same brush and throw everyone - rational fans, irate fans and legitimate media alike - under the bus as "The Internet" is just an ill-thought strategy. It's easy to blame everyone else and hope no one looks deeper, but the reality is that it would be wrong to do so, just as describing every wrestling media outlet - good, bad and garbage - as simply "The Dirtsheets" is inane.
All of PWInsider.com's reporting came from official statements from the Orlando Police Department, so unless that Department also counts as "The Internet" and were making things up, we stand by our reporting of the incident from the moment I first learned from a reader that they saw Patron being escorted through the airport by police.
Let's also not forget that the Orlando Police informed media outlets that they felt they had enough evidence to charge Paige with domestic battery violence. It's not the Internet that made that decision, but the local police and now it's up to the local prosecutor to make the distinction as to whether it is worth pursuing the charges. That is on Paige and Patron, not the media and not the Internet.
This isn't fake news. It was hard news, with a story that was rooted in an official police investigation with official statements about that investigation.
Paige and Alberto dismissing the situation as something the Internet made a bigger story than it needed to be is silly. If anyone, celebrity or not, got into an altercation in an airport, where federal law is in place, it's a newsworthy story. When two celebrities are involved, the level of newsworthiness just multiplied tremendously. This did not start as a made-up a witch hunt over two pro wrestlers and hey, Internet, let's pile on and get them!
No, it was a case of two adults acting out in a way that led to a police investigation and as of this writing, one of them still being potentially charged with domestic violence battery. None of that changes because they are cooing on a radio show over each other a month later. Love doesn't retcon what happened.
It's unfortunate there were people out there accusing them of terrible things that have no basis in reality on social media, but at the end of the day, that's what happens in 2017 when you end up in the middle of a police investigation. You can't control the ripple effect, but you can control the root cause before those ripples are ever felt.
Paige and Patron are responsible for their own lives and decisions. The "Internet" was not playing Puppetmaster that day. It did not make Patron say whatever he said to Paige that led to her throwing a glass at Patron. It didn't cause her to dump a glass of water on Patron. It didn't make Patron chase her out of a restaurant and through the airport, something that was at least partially recorded and later ended up on TMZ (something the loving pair didn't acknowledge in their interview yesterday), nor did it make Paige scream out that Patron was ruining her life and that she wanted to get away from him. There were a lot of choices they could have made that day and unfortunately, like anyone, they are only human and that day, their decisions led to the police getting involved - but none of that can be blamed on the Internet.
It's unfortunate for the couple that this played out in front of someone who knew who they were and hit record, but that doesn't remove the responsibility, at its root, from Patron and Paige. They were and are responsible, and while they did apologize yesterday (well, Paige did), that doesn't mean that they now get to point the finger of blame elsewhere.
The "Internet" didn't make the events in Orlando transpire, Alberto and Paige did. While the couple can say now that sometimes they fight like all couples do and say things for 20 minutes that they don't mean before making up, that's not the Internet's fault that it happened and it's not the Internet's fault they didn't have the wherewithal to keep themselves from acting that way in public. Mistakes happen for everyone but when you are at the level of celebrity they are and making the level of money they are, they know what comes with stepping out in public. If they still let their tempers get the better of them, blaming others for the fact they put themselves into this predicament still shows, in my opinion, a lack of awareness about the entire situation and that quite frankly, is concerning itself.
We've seen lots of instances where those in pro wrestling have blamed the media and the Internet for taking interest in their decisions to do stupid or illegal things. It's human nature to want to be voyeuristic towards others doing stupid things. When something illegal happens, however - an incident or an arrest - that's now on public record and well, public records fall into fair game when it comes to the media writing about them.
It's easy to blame the Internet and the media when someone finds themselves under scrutiny, but it's also a crutch, an excuse, a veil to hide that they themselves are to blame for any hot water they have gotten themselves into. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes and everyone deserves a second chance when they do, but blaming others after the fact isn't the best way to handle the beginning of that second (or third, or fourth) chance.
If Patron and Paige are looking forward to going back to work at WWE and GFW - and I hope they come back and have awesome wrestling matches because I would much rather be spending my time writing about that - they both need to realize that the blame falls on their own shoulders - for getting themselves into these situations over and over without addressing whatever the root cause of those issues are.
Mistakes were made. They need to own up to it (at least privately, to themselves), learn from it and hopefully, move on. Perhaps they are. I truly hope they are, but yesterday's radio appearance seemed to be more about using a Jedi mind trick to say "There's nothing to see here. Move along. Move along." to get everyone to forget. Whether they were trying to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi or not, only they know.
Still, one doesn't get to run through an airport screaming at each other after a physical altercation to the point police are called (at, according to the TMZ recording, Alberto's request) and then turn around and blame the Internet for the entire mess - not if they want those concerned and worried about them to truly believe these issues have been resolved and are in the past.
Time will tell if there is ever another Paige/Patron incident, but if there is, we know who they will blame.
They will be wrong when they do.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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