STEP DOWN: Heath Slater
Goodbye, Heath Slater.
I don’t know how it’s taken three years for an arrest warrant to be issued, but I remember posting the story for this one after WrestleMania 27 and wondering how long it would be until WWE pulls the trigger. Three years later and he’s still…well, he’s not doing anything, but he still has a job.
Heath Slater is not worth the public nightmare this thing could cause if it goes all the way. Ray Rice changed the game. He changed it for the better, obviously, but the game is still changed. In the past you could sweep stuff like this under the rug, handle it internally, and deal with the backlash using politically correct statements to make it all go away. But even if Slater is innocent – and after three years it’s hard to believe there’s really anything substantial against him – people are only going to remember the headlines.
The only way the “One Man Band” keeps his job through all of this is if he’s declared innocent, the charges are all thrown out, and the WWE decides bad press is better than a lawsuit for wrongful firing. He’s an independent contractor though – they can fire him for anything. It’s hard to imagine, with the talent down in NXT, he’s worth keeping around at this point.
Later, Gator.
