WWE recently posted video highlights of Titus O’Neil’s TED Talk. The video was shot at UCLA University on May 20th. Amongst other topics, Titus was said to speak of “the domino effect of advocacy”.
40 year old, Thaddeus Michael Bullard Sr, has been with the WWE since 2009. Before then he was a standout college football player for the University of Florida, and then spent a few seasons in the Arena Football League.
He cracked the main roster in 2012 as part of the Prime Time Players. As of late he is currently the proprietor of the Titus Brand, and seems to be managing Apollo Crews.
Things couldn’t get much worse for the Titus brand. TMZ Sports is reporting that Titus O’Neil is being sued by a former WWE cameraman for injuries sustained during filming of the Network show “Swerved”.
The show featured WWE superstars being pranked, and evidently Titus had the least sense of humour about it. O’Neil received a small electrical zap from a prank on the show, causing him to become upset and kick the camera our of the plaintiff’s hand.
The camera operator is claiming he suffered injuries to his hand and fingers, and is suing Titus for $1.2 million.
Titus O’Neil
40 year-old Thaddeus Michael Bullard Sr. is better known to wrestling fans as Titus O’Neil. He was a standout football player at the University of Florida for four years. He would go on to play several years in the Arena Football League afterwards.
Following his time in the AFL Titus signed a developmental deal with WWE. He was 32 at the time with no wrestling experience, but his size and athletic background was enough to earn him a shot.
O’Neil would debut on the main roster in 2012 alongside Darren Young in the Prime Time Players. The team is former 1x tag team champions.
– WWE announced 12,708 fans in attendance for tonight’s RAW from the Allstate Arena in Chicago.
– WWE taped Lince Dorado vs. Tony Nese and Darren Young vs. Titus O’Neil tonight in Chicago for this week’s WWE Main Event show.
– WWE has confirmed Goldberg for next Monday’s RAW in Tampa, the first RAW of 2017. Below is a new promo for Goldberg and Brock Lesnar entering the Royal Rumble main event:
A few news items regarding Paige and Alberto Del Rio:
– Paige’s latest ‘wellness violation’ suspension ends today. She’s recovering from neck surgery and won’t be back in the ring any time soon, but there have been some reports that she’ll be back on the road with WWE in the near future.
– They were goofing off on Twitter last night, showing off their “lifestyle change” and joking about how their days now consist of private karaoke. They posted this late night video:
– Earlier this week, Paige tweeted and then deleted this cryptic message, “When you do nothing wrong but things still bite you in ass for no reason. Always fun haha.”
– Finally, its worth noting that WWE did not include any photos or videos of Paige and Alberto Del Rio in their weekly coverage of Total Divas after this week’s episode aired on E!. This episode was the first glimpse of Paige and Del Rio’s relationship on WWE programming but there’s not one single mention of the two on WWE’s website or YouTube. There was one video going around last week that teased the Paige – Del Rio storyline for this week’s episode but that clip was released by E!, not WWE. It appears WWE is trying to act like the relationship hasn’t happened. Photos on WWE.com from this week’s episode show the segment where other Total Divas were discussing their concern for Paige but even those photo captions were left blank.
– Seth Rollins vs. WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens was not originally scheduled to be a Hell In a Cell match, according to Wrestling Observer Radio. The change was apparently made in the last few days.
– This WWE RAW Fallout video shows Titus O’Neil giving another failed “Titus Brand” press conference after the loss to R-Truth on RAW:
– Seth Rollins tweeted the following last night after RAW, showing off some nasty scrapes to the back from his match with Chris Jericho:
– WWE taped The Shining Stars vs. two local jobbers and Darren Young vs. Jinder Mahal last night for this week’s Superstars episode.
– Tonight’s WWE SmackDown will feature the fallout from No Mercy plus Randy Orton and Kane vs. Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper.
– Below are backstage RAW videos with Titus O’Neil and Dana Brooke. Following her beatdown on Bayley, Dana says playtime is over because playtime is for kids and that’s exactly what Bayley is, a kid.
Titus tries to hold another “Titus Brand” press conference to address his loss to R-Truth but only Tom Phillips shows up and he has more technical difficulties.
– Bayley will join Jonathan Coachman this Wednesday on ESPN’s SportsCenter for the weekly Off The Top Rope segment.
– WWE taped Curtis Axel vs. Darren Young and Golden Truth vs. Jinder Mahal & Titus O’Neil last night in Memphis for this week’s WWE Superstars episode.
– Steve Austin and his “Stunner” are featured in this new WWE Network promo:
– Cesaro is featured in this backstage video from last night’s RAW after tying the Best of 7 Series with Sheamus at 3-3. Cesaro talks about the Cesaro Section being behind him wherever he goes and the special connection they have, calling it a connection that other people don’t understand.
– Advertising industry publication AdWeek has named John Cena one of the most popular celebrity influencers on their annual Creative 100 list.
– WWE has announced that the weekly RAW and SmackDown Live pre-shows will no longer be exclusive to the WWE Network. Starting this week, that pre-shows will be available on “all digital platforms.”
“Led by WWE Hall of Famers Jerry “The King” Lawler, Booker T and Lita, the Raw and SmackDown Live Pre-Shows will provide expert analysis and highlight the main points of both brands every week at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.”
Starting tonight, the kickoff show will be available on WWE.com, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and Google Plus.
– Ahead of tonight’s RAW from Pittsburgh, several WWE Superstars including Titus O’Neil, Neville and Summer Rae visited the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
WWE announced this morning that Heath Slater was injured at Saturday night’s WWE Live Event in Bangor, Maine when a gash developed over his right eye during a match against Titus O’Neil. The contest was immediately stopped and O’Neil was declared the winner.
WWE ringside physician Dr. Stephen Daquino, who treated Slater, relayed the following to WWE.com: “Heath has a six centimeter laceration above his right eye. It was quite open, right down to the bone. He got 18 sutures and hopefully that will close it up.”
After the show, Slater tweeted a photo of the gash.
– In a correction from earlier, Monday’s WWE US Title Match on the 7/4 RAW will feature Rusev defending against Titus O’Neil, not Cesaro.
– Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff will host a panel on WCW at the Montreal Comic-Con 7/9. Details are below:
Montreal Comiccon is happy to bring wrestling fans Face Off: Bischoff vs Flair and the fall of WCW. For the first time on stage Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair discuss the rise and Fall of WCW. How they brought the fight to WWE? Why did they lose the Monday Night War? What happened between them? What do they think about Vince Russo jumping ship? Be there as the two time hall-of-famer Nature Boy Ric Flair face off with his former boss, the man who brought to life the NWO and most controversial man in wrestling Eric Bischoff. It will be as explosive as WCW Monday Nitro! An event not to be missed, on Saturday, July 9 at 7:00 p.m.!
– Below is behind-the-scenes video from The Bella Twins’ new Latina magazine shoot:
– Thursday’s episode of John Cena’s “American Grit” on FOX set a new record low for the show – 1.730 million viewers, down from last week’s 1.878 million viewers. The episode was the 2nd least-viewed show in the 9pm timeslot on all major networks, next to The Flash on CW, which averaged 1.098 million viewers.
– As seen below, WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko was backstage for Friday’s NXT house show in Cocoa:
– Titus O’Neil is officially back to work after serving a suspension for grabbing Vince McMahon’s arm in an unscripted moment on RAW two months ago. He defeated Tyler Breeze in a dark match before the SmackDown TV taping on Tuesday night in Manchester, NH at the Verizon Wireless Arena.
– A remark Ric Flair made at the SmackDown taping on Tuesday night is already getting criticism from fans on Twitter. During an in-ring segment with Dean Ambrose, Natalya, Charlotte and Flair, The Nature Boy told Natalya to kill herself after she said that Bret Hart could beat him up. It’s unknown whether this will make it to TV or not on Thursday. Here’s how it went down according to someone in attendance at the Verizon Wireless Arena:
Titus O’Neil’s suspension officially ended on April 10th, and he will reportedly make his return to work next week. O’Neil has been booked for the April 25th RAW in Hartford, CT. It’s possible he could just be backstage for the event and not appear on TV.
O’Neil was suspended for 60 days after an incident on RAW two months ago, when O’Neil grabbed Vince McMahon unexpectedly while the cameras were live. As previously reported, the reason for WWE’s suspension was to send a message to talent to stop “messing around” and be more “professional.” The company has a certain set of rules they expect talent to follow, especially on TV.
– Titus O’Neil’s WWE suspension for unprofessional conduct ends on April 10th, next Sunday, so he could be back on television by next week’s RAW from Los Angeles.
– Former WWE, WCW & ECW star Lance Storm raises an interesting point regarding the booking of Shane McMahon and The Authority at WrestleMania & RAW:
Titus O’Neil is taking responsibility for the incident that led to his 60-day suspension from WWE. The Prime Time Player made national headlines last month when word got out that he was suspended for horsing around with WWE head honcho Vince McMahon live on RAW. Some publications played the race card. Even his close friend Batista urged Titus to quit WWE over the incident.
In a recent interview with RapZilla.com, Titus explains that he’s never quit anything in his life and accepts the punishment handed down to him. “Regardless if it was too harsh or overreacting or whatever people have deemed it, it all stems from my mistake,” he said. “Whether I agree with it or not, I am owning it. I’m doing what I’d normally do in any other situation.”
The article notes that Titus plans on leaving WWE when his current deal expires. In the meantime, he’s making the best of a bad situation by spending time with friends and family.
Titus O’Neil is in the midst of a 60 day suspension for grabbing Vince McMahon last month on RAW and is now publicly acknowledging that the incident will result in him missing WrestleMania 32.
Prior to Monday’s RAW, a fan tweeted that he expected Titus to be the man to answer Rusev’s bodyslam challenge. Titus responded that such crazy talk would result in the person losing credibility with their friends .
On Tuesday, WWE Hall of Famer Scott Hall said Titus is his pick to win this year’s Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Titus thanked him for the vote of confidence, but said he unfortunately won’t be there.
Former WWE Superstar Batista is speaking out once again about Titus O’Neil’s suspension from WWE. Shortly after the incident, Batista revealed on Twitter that he urged Titus to ask for his WWE release due to the way they handled the situation.
TMZ caught up with Batista at the airport this week and the former WWE Champion did not hold back with his thoughts about the company. When asked if this whole thing could have been avoided if wrestlers were unionized, Batista said that will never happen because wrestlers are too expendable.
Batista said Vince McMahon should have simply had a man-to-man conversation with Titus about their physical altercation. Instead, Vince “f**ked him” by suspending him and then “double f**ked him” by keeping him off WrestleMania 32, the wrestlers’ biggest payday of the year. He feels that Titus doesn’t need WWE, he’s there because he loves it and it’s really not right how it all went down.
Earlier today, Eric noted that on one of Steve Austin’s podcasts this week, he chimed in on WWE’s suspension of Titus O’Neil. Austin felt that while the length of O’Neil’s suspension (60 days, reduced from 90) was excessive , grabbing Vince McMahon as he’s said to have done is a legitimate offense to be punished for. As a result, Austin also feels that this negates the racism allegations that have come from some fans throughout the news cycle of this story. Here’s what he said, and his wording in how he tried to get his point across:
Vince is 70 [years old] right now and that was a serious moment for him. He was totally in character. He cares about Daniel Bryan. He gets jerked pretty forcibly over there to Titus O’Neil and it was completely inappropriate. This may be pro wrestling/sports entertainment, whatever you want to call it, but that was a serious moment. It’s not a time to be shucking and jiving out there, so lay some type of punishment down. Fine him, this, that, or whatever. I don’t know. Something was appropriate, but when I started hearing the racism things, I was like, ‘I’ve got to roll my eyes and I’ve got to call complete and utter bulls–t in this one.’
Austin’s usage of “shucking and jiving” was quickly noticed in the comment section of Cageside Seats’ article about Austin’s comments, where it became a heated topic of discussion. The term is very loaded, as its origins are as a reference to black slaves singing while shucking corn (more details in this 2012 Slate.com article), and it’s generally used in a racial context of some kind. ESPN’s Bomani Jones found out about what Austin said via Cageside’s article and chimed in on Twitter:
when you try to say something wasn’t racist, but you say “shucking and jiving.” that’s unfortunate. https://t.co/rjIzv9a4e0
A wrestling fan quickly replied and accused Jones of ” misconstru[ing] the usage here” because “[i]f you know Southern wrestling history, that is long used vernacular,” but Jones quickly shut it down:
None of this means that Austin or the fan who replied to Jones is racist. Still, it’s hard for a lot of people to see “shuck and jive” in a non-racial context for obvious reasons, and Jones is not wrong that using the phrase made Austin look completely oblivious (or worse). As for the fan quoted by Jones who argued it’s a pro wrestling term: I’ve only ever heard it used to describe wrestlers (both black and white) who tried to appeal to black audiences. So it’s a bit strange to see that argument, and doubly so since, unfortunately, the N-word was the “official” insider term for black wrestlers in some circles for decades. Being a pro wrestling term doesn’t excuse anything, especially in a business with so many decades of racial issues.
WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin has weighed in on Titus O’Neil’s controversial suspension from WWE for unexpectedly grabbing Vince McMahon’s arm on RAW. On his podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer said that while O’Neil’s actions were inappropriate, a 60-day suspension was “overreacting.”
“Vince is 70 [years old] right now and that was a serious moment for him. He was totally in character. He cares about Daniel Bryan. He gets jerked pretty forcibly over there to Titus O’Neil and it was completely inappropriate,” Austin said. “This may be pro wrestling/sports entertainment, whatever you want to call it, but that was a serious moment. It’s not a time to be shucking and jiving out there, so lay some type of punishment down. Fine him, this, that, or whatever. I don’t know. Something was appropriate, but when I started hearing the racism things, I was like, ‘I’ve got to roll my eyes and I’ve got to call complete and utter bulls–t in this one.’”
“If you’re going to suspend somebody, I think 30 [days should suffice]. I think 60 [days] is still a little overreacting. Did something need to happen, a come to Jesus meeting or a stern talking to backstage? Something [needed] to happen because I do believe it was inappropriate. It was the wrong person, at the wrong time.”
You can listen to his whole podcast here. You can watch a video of the incident here.
Titus O’Neil reportedly gave an explanation to WWE management for grabbing Vince McMahon’s arm on RAW that wasn’t good enough to get him out of his suspension.
According to ProWrestlingSheet.com, O’Neil told WWE management that he grabbed Vince’s arm when he was walking to the back so Stephanie could walk in front of him. O’Neil reportedly claimed it was a gesture to indicated “ladies first,” so Stephanie McMahon could exit the stage first, ahead of Vince. O’Neil intended it in a playful manner, but Vince was having none of it and shoved O’Neil away.
O’Neil is currently serving a 60-day suspension for unprofessional conduct. ProWrestlingSheet.com reports that the lengthy suspension is to send a message to the roster to be more professional, as management feels several wrestlers have been “riding the line” when it comes to following company rules.
When a fan on Twitter asked Batista to call WWE to talk about Titus O’Neil’s suspension, the former WWE champion said he had a better idea. Batista wrote after hearing the news of O’Neil’s suspension that he called him and told O’Neil to request his release from the company. Here’s what Batista had to say:
On Wednesday, O’Neil was suspended for 90 days after an incident where he appeared to pull Vince’s arm on live TV. His suspension was later reduced to 60 days. You can watch a video of the incident here.
Do you think Titus should request his release from WWE, or wait out his suspension and stay with the company? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
WWE has responded to allegations that their suspension of Titus O’Neil, which has been reduced to 60 days, was racially motivated. WWE issued the following statement to The New York Post this week:
“The suspension of Titus O’Neil had nothing to do with race and everything to do with unprofessional conduct.”
WWE also sent The Post a copy of a text message they claim O’Neil sent someone high up in the company. The text from O’Neil read:
“I feel like sh** now so if you have to let me go, I understand. Stupid mistake.”
O’Neil is reportedly well-liked by his peers backstage and does lots of charity work with WWE. If his 60-day suspension is upheld he will miss WrestleMania, which is typically a WWE wrestler’s biggest pay bonus of the year.