Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
For the last several weeks, there has been a great amount of scrutiny and speculation online surrounding WWE star Roman Reigns after an independent filmmaker, using the name Jonny Bravo, claimed he was going to release a video with proof connecting Reigns to a steroid ring that authorities raided in February 2017.
Although Reigns immediately released a statement to PWInsider.com and other outlets that he had "never heard of Richard Rodriguez or Wellness Fitness Nutrition", the name of the principal in the ring and the company under which the ring operated, the scrutiny continued online as the allegations and the speculation surrounding Reigns continued to swirl.
PWInsider.com, beyond discussing the original allegations in an Elite audio and running Reigns’ statement, never covered the story as it evolved, for a simple reason. Without any sort of concrete proof, the allegations are just that: allegations. Allegations are not evidence, not even in a world where social media opinion drives false narratives. There was nothing to the story beyond Bravo’s continued teases and promises that the video he would release would reveal the proof to the world.
Late yesterday, Bravo released a 20-minute video that was to rip the lid off Roman Reigns and other WWE stars allegedly connected to this steroid ring.
This morning, I spent the time to watch, waiting to see what sort of evidence had been collected.
I’d really like my time back.
The video, which had been hyped and pushed by Bravo (and by others on social media, falsely assuming something major was about to break) that it would be the major evidence proving Bravo’s claims instead featured well, nothing, beyond a sort-of admission that Bravo still had no verification that Reigns had ever ordered anything from the ring.
Bravo’s asterisk to that admission is that – while he had already promoted that he had received a laptop with the proof needed - he could not actually cross-reference any of his alleged proof because another device needed was still in the hands of the DEA, due to their investigation into this ring.
So, one might ask, why did Bravo even begin building all this speculation and spark the stories to begin with, much less build to a video release that really amounted to nothing?
By even putting the Reigns story into motion, Bravo cultivated a belief among some that Reigns did something wrong – and despite not delivering, to date, any proof, that stink will still be on Reigns in the eyes of some fans, there must be something to the story. Except, there is no proof that there was, that there actually is or that there ever actually will be anything, ever, except this endless loop of teases that don’t deliver.
As someone who chases stories for a living, I can tell you there are probably about 50 stories a month that I hear and pursue that eventually turn out to be some combination of being outright false, a miscommunication or having been fed to me by someone trying to manipulate information with the express purpose of trying to make someone they don’t like look bad for their own purposes. For some time, I kept a notebook full of them, in part so I remembered who had lied to me, so I knew never to trust them going forward. As a writer, chasing these fruitless stories can be time consuming and annoying, because they distract from doing other work and chasing legitimate stories, but they are also part of my job.
However, another part of my job is not leading my readers on the wild goose chase I have chosen to take part in as my livelihood, because building them up and letting them down would be a waste of their time and dilute whatever credibility I have built up over the last 14-years of writing full-time. I very rarely, if ever, will take to social media to tease a story unless I am in the final process of writing it. I don’t want to create excitement for something where there may be none.
I don’t know what Bravo’s motivations for chasing his story may be, and it’s his story to chase, but by continuing to build the narrative that he was about to break a massive story about Reigns, he took fans on the wild goose chase that he had chosen to go on and based on the reactions to the video, when it finally came out, he created excitement over what, thus far, appears to be nothing.
Bravo would have been better served not releasing anything at all, much less a video that was hyped and failed to deliver what it promised.
Last night’s video featured a graphic with the following statement: "Even though contact information of Leati Joseph Anoa'i aka Roman Reigns and orders that Richard says are his were found on the laptop, without the direct communication between them, they cannot be verified until their received."
Ignoring the misspelling (one of many in the video, including the last name of Steve Austin being spelled ‘Austyn’), that statement hardly covers for the fact that this video was supposed to be the real proof that Bravo had been teasing, the moment the dam was supposed to break and the water was supposed to cascade over, taking Roman Reigns, his credibility, WWE and who knows what else down.
Yet, this didn’t happen, because Bravo provided no proof, instead once again teasing that he was moving the goal post, this time to points unknown.
So, what was the point? Did Bravo chase a story, get lied to about what he was getting and found himself in over his head? Was he someone who had nothing and lied about it? Was he himself being manipulated? Was he just trying to get attention on social media to get his name out there? Was he hoping someone was going to offer him something for his benefit to go away? I don’t know, and I don’t want to even begin to speculate on Bravo’s motives, but what he claimed he was going to deliver and what he delivered was the difference between the Artic Circle and the Sahara Desert – one was nothing like the other.
Perhaps there will be evidence to come out, perhaps not. At this point, he’s the Bravo who cried wolf. There certainly was a big interest among some online as to what Bravo was going to deliver and instead, if the objective was to “get” Roman Reigns and others, well, he failed, poorly. If there was another objective here, well, what exactly was it supposed to be?
Teases of a WWE wrestler who ordered $140,000 worth of steroids from Rodriguez disappeared with no wrestler ever named or even referenced in the video. While there were references to different names in professional wrestling in the video, there was zero, and I mean zero proof, connecting anyone from point A to point B. It was all speculation.
Speculation is great in conversation, but it doesn’t hold up in the court of law. Speculation doesn’t meet the laws of journalism. Speculation doesn’t even make for a good documentary, because at the end of the story you are chasing, at the end of the story you are trying to tell, you cannot tie it up on speculation alone. Speculation is something that doesn’t physically exist and cannot be proven. Bravo has shown nothing but speculation, even when he promised he would deliver proof in the video was that released yesterday.
There is an important lesson to be learned here, especially in the light of events of the past week. Allegations and speculation, especially when added up, do not amount to factual proof. Teasing of proof does not mean conclusively that the proof exists. It is important to never assume guilt based on accusations. All the white noise on social media is worthless, unless actual, legitimate proof can be delivered.
Bravo failed to deliver, and how can one be anything but skeptical that if/when he attempts to bring this story back around the bend for another round of allegations, that it will be anything but the same? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
This story has failed to evolve past speculation and innuendo. Those may be great for driving social media mentions, but unless the next video is an apology to Roman Reigns, all the speculation and innuendo has accomplished is leading all of them like lemmings off a cliff, with nothing to show for it but their collective wasted time, interest and effort.
I wasted 20 minutes of my Saturday watching the video. I won’t be making that mistake again.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
