ROH launches investigation into reported Bully Ray fan incident

[cero2k]

Source: f4wonline.com

First reported by POST Wrestling's John Pollock, Ring of Honor is launching an internal investigation after a fan incident at Sunday's 'State of The Art' event in Portland, OR.

Josh Ketch, a fan who attended the show, tweeted several times Sunday night that after he was heckling some of female heels (Velvet Sky and Mandy Leon) in several of the matches, security took him backstage and left him with Bully Ray (real name Mark LoMonaco).

According to Ketch, LoMonaco intimidated him and told him he was done talking to the women and needed to treat them with respect. He then told Ketch to "go be a fan" at which time security brought him back to his seat. Ketch didn't indicate whether he remained for the whole show.

Ketch also said that Leon facepalmed and spat at him and that Sky (real name Jamie Lynn Szantyr) got into with him as well, spraying perfume in his mouth at one point.

Ketch never admitted to using obscenity or foul language, but said that after Szantyr called him a virgin, he reminded "her she has sex with that fat turd Bully Ray" and said he called them "the tramp stamp trio."

ROH GM Greg Gilleland issued the following statement to POST:

"ROH has always taken fan-first approach, with fan experience being at the forefront of all of our live events. We consider this to be very serious and will be conducting an internal review over the next 48 hours to determine the appropriate actions."

At the time of this writing, LoMonaco, Szantyr or Leon have tweeted about the incident.

[NWK2000]

God I hope Bully gets fired. Been sick of his "We do things old school" bully approach since he started in ROH, and there's no point in intimidating the fans for real. The girls are no better, but Bully desperately hanging on to kayfabe makes him look like a loser.

[Big Red Machine]

Assuming this guy is telling the truth about what he said (and fans should be able to vouch for him if he is), it's a bad look for ROH in the first place because he said nothing even close to the line, an even worse look because they took him backstage to be intimidated by a wrestler, and an even worse look than that when you realize that two of the supposedly offended parties are dating the two guys who seem to be in charge of the promotion.

[KILLdozer]

Yeah, I know he's a "tough guy", and such a "bad ass son of a bitch"...but it could've ended up dangerously for Ray. Idk about their weapons protocol in the arena and stuff...but suppose the guy you're tying to go tough guy on pulls a gun or a knife?

[Big Red Machine]

Alvarez has said that he has heard from friends who were right there and that the guy is telling the truth.