Clarification & Retraction Over A Recent Roddy Piper Story

Ryan Clark July 27, 2012 16

Clarification & Retraction Over A Recent Roddy Piper Story



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Tuesday, here on the website, we posted a rumor on Roddy Piper and WWE Diva Kaitlyn. The story noted that there may have been an incident backstage at the 1,000th RAW event, where Kaitlyn was allegedly upset by some suggestive comments Mr. Piper may have made to her.

Many of you have likely caught wind by now of Mr. Piper’s continuous tweets, blasting myself and our website for the article. Mr. Piper has also claimed the story accused him of “sexual harassment” and claims I’ve made fun of people in “wheel chairs”. These claims are completely unfounded, and outright untrue.

In an update to our story, we were contacted by a source who worked for an independent contractor who was backstage at RAW this past Monday evening. For those unaware, WWE hires independent contractors from local cities to unload WWE’s trucks and help with the setting up of television sets and other production-related matters. The person who contacted us had provided some information that coincided with what we had been reporting (i.e. – WWE Legends backstage, portions of the creative script, etc). There was information given to us that 100 percent proved he was backstage at RAW on Monday. One of the pieces of information we received from the aforementioned source was a report that Roddy Piper was spotted talking with numerous WWE Divas, and in specific, “Kaitlyn angrily walked away from Piper after the two were speaking.” When questioned further, this person told us it appeared Kaitlyn was upset by something Mr. Piper had said to her during their conversation.

With that being said, we reported a story that purposely stated numerous times this was a rumor and could not be verified by the time the article went to print. The article only stated that there may have been an incident at RAW involving the Legend and WWE Diva. The report stated “the wrestling legend made some suggestive remarks toward Kaitlyn that made her uncomfortable.” Again, we went out of our way to point out that this was, in fact, merely a rumor. Had it been fact, and something a trusted source of ours had passed along to us, that would have also been made clear in the publication. The fact that it wasn’t prompted the specific usage of the word “rumor” and could not have been more clear by anyone who actually read the story.

The following day, Mr. Piper was made aware of the report and posted numerous tweets on his official Twitter account denying the specifics from within our article. We followed up, as we always do, and posted said-tweets from Mr. Piper here on our website. We wanted to get his side of the story out as well, as to be fair and allow all sides of the story to be viewed equally, from all perspectives involved. WWE Diva Kaitlyn responded to Piper later that night and it once again appeared that she was not upset by any events that may have occurred. We also posted Kaitlyn’s tweets here on the website. Again, all sides of the story were given the same amount of attention and promotion here on our website. There were absolutely no biases, slants or favoritism used to any one particular angle or side of the story.

When both talents involved in the story denied our report, we immediately pulled the article.

As far as Mr. Piper’s tweets are concerned, he’s being fed a substantial amount of inaccurate information regarding myself, the story and our website as a whole by certain fans of his. I have never bashed a handicap person or “someone in a wheelchair.” The article also never referred to Mr. Piper “sexually harassing” the WWE Diva, or anyone else. We would never report something of that nature without having it 100% confirmed, and as stated, this was a rumor, so it was carefully worded as to not slander any parties involved.

Apparently the alleged rumor was discovered to be untrue. At least according to the parties involved themselves. In that case, given the fact it was a rumor and not a piece of information confirmed to us by a reliable/regular source, the right thing to do is to remove the story and immediately issue a retraction. That is what we always do and is what we have done here as well. I’ve reached out to Mr. Piper numerous times over the past 24 hours to attempt to clear the air. Thus far I have remained unsuccessful in my attempts to reach him. I’ll make another plea here. My email is [email protected]. He can also send a DM to me via Twitter. There are a number of ways to get into contact with me. I’m not “hiding,” despite claims to the contrary. As you can tell by the interactive nature of this website, regardless of Mr. Piper’s internet-based accessibility, there are numerous ways he can reach me directly at his complete and total convenience. I believe the correct way to resolve such an issue is in a direct, man-to-man fashion and not through a social media platform where people can, and already have, acted unprofessional and inappropriate, to say the least.

On behalf of everyone here on the website, I want to sincerely apologize to both Roddy Piper and Kaitlyn. We’ve had Mr. Piper on our WZR Radio show numerous times in the past (years ago) to promote his book, his acting roles, among many other appearances Mr. Piper was looking to publicise. We’ve openly stated many times that he has always been a very entertaining and polite guest. Frankly, we’ve mentioned specifically that Mr. Piper is perhaps one of our favorite and most entertaining guests of all-time. All of our radio shows are archived and dated, so you can listen for yourself. Why do we point this out? To prove we have no agenda against Mr. Piper. We have no agenda against anyone in the business. Everything we do is above boards. Again – nothing to hide.

It’s quite simple. A source fed us a piece of information. We reported it. We made sure to point out that it was in fact not 100 percent substantiated, and that it was merely a rumor we were passing along. Once both parties denied it and a reliable source was unable to confirm it, the story was pulled and a retraction was put in its’ place. We followed the same business practice we have always adhered to on the website, and no special treatment, positive or negative, was involved in this situation.

In closing, we will apologize one more time and ask that Mr. Piper contact us directly at his convenience.

Thank you as always for your continued support of the website.


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  • Kelsey

    Rumor has it that Ryan Clark’s entire staff is made up of 2 people (himself being one) and that he passes himself off as a journalist in order to build up his confidence that is lacking due to a small penis. It has also been said that he is a very big Jerry Sandusky fan. So many rumors, so little time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003005299300 Ricky Sheffer

    wow look at the butt hurt fangirl below me lmao.. how gay

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=50203556 Steve Turcotte

    I have to say, it’s good to the apology and retraction. But you may want to take it into consideration next time when posting a story like this. You might want to check every source possible before posting. I know you want to be the first to reveal a story, but integrity is more important.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=572172179 Michael Repak

    wow kelsey u know nothing about ryan and this site and the work he does its people like u who like to start trouble and just be a plain pathetic ass… ryan is fair in everything he reports and if he has wrong info he always lets ev1 know piper is just starting crap for publitcy piper need to just contact ryan like a man and not just stupid silly childish shit

  • AlbertoCastaneda

    I understand what Ryan Clark has said and did read it as a not confirmed. But the retraction did not come up immediately, its about 24 hours later after Piper going crazy on twitter. Ryan should’ve printed up an immediate retraction once it was said to be completely false and Piper also should not have acted the way he did on Twitter.

  • RPatrick

    Piper is the one who went way over board and needed to man up and shut up. He should appoligize. This was stated to be a rumor from the start. What’s nit a rumor is Piper is a big cry baby.

  • steve

    you just wanted more attention to your website because your a loser who always just copies and pastes from other websites cuz you just like stiring shit up

  • DTruth316

    went to print? the internet has a deadline? why such a long winded speech to say “i fucked up”

    so basically,someone saw two ppl talking and one walked away unhappy…Hmmm guess he wanted to bang her and she shot him down.

    /report

    anyways, i’m backstage at Smackdown for tonight.
    i pinky swear im there,i’d take a pic but the camera on my phone isnt working since the latest android update.

    I just saw The Rock with his arms around Zack Ryder.
    they MUST be gay.

    better report that before anyone else.
    like i said, i am at smackdown and i swear on my mothers grave.
    look Booker T just walked passed me.
    so cool.

    don’t forget to credit me.

  • Martini

    The problem is when wrestling sites pretend to be journalists. Having worked as a news reporter for nearly two decades, I can tell you that it is completely unprofessional to report on “rumors.” It basically opens the door to say whatever you want, add the rumor tag to it and then remove it later when it appears it is wrong.

  • jay

    If I was piper id be raging too, the report stated that he made suggestive remarks to kaitlyn who angrily walked away. That would be sexual harrassment!! Piper is a legend and is respected the world over by fans and his peers, it seems everyone likes Piper and why anyone would think he would do this is beyond me. However I dont think Ryan was out to get him but he should nt have reported anything until he could pass it off as fact. no one is interested in rumours and bullshit only facts. I hope Ryan has learned his lesson. Speculating on what the two were discussing and trying to pass it off as info from a credible source is just ridiculous. I cant believe folk are defending Ryan……Marks! Instead of following wrestling events live or on TV they sit in front of their computers playing dungeons and dragons waiting on the next piece of gossip they can devour and agreeing with every remark the dirtsheet writers make. Ryan made a mistake and hopefully he will be a little more careful in future but lets face it he was wrong, very wrong!

  • tyler morgan

    The fact that you stated it was a rumor should have been enough of a clue to not post the story. Very unprofessional, and bad journalism. When clicking on this link I expected to see a proper apology.

  • MikeT

    Ryan, you keep saying you never said sexual harassment, just wondering what your definition of suggestive is..One of the definitions of the word “implies something improper or indecent”. Not something I would like to be accused of without all the facts, calling it a rumor or not.

  • Evan Devereaux

    Ryan – you appear to be missing two points here:
    1) The interpretation of your original report could only reasonably be taken to mean sexual harrassment. This is different from reporting on a backstage rumour such as “wrestler XYZ refused to job to wrestler ABC”. That you cannot appreciate why a higher standard of care was owed in this case is part of the reason why people are so upset. You’re general attitude seems to be “mistakes happen, sometimes we get it wrong”. And even the best journalists do make mistakes, but the difference is a reputable reporter would not print something like this without a concrete source, and not without approaching the people involved for comment first.
    When you are posting something this sensitive “special treatment” SHOULD be shown.
    2) You admitted that this was not a “trusted source” and that this was posted without verification. What deadline did you have exactly, other than to be one who posted it first? That’s a ridiculous assertion. If you didn’t have it verified, you could have written the report in a different way and still report it. You could have ommited the names until more details were available, or you could have stated something like “a source has alleged that there was some sort of backstage heat between Roddy Piper and Kaitlyn”. Almost ANYTHING would be better than what you actually did.
    3) You seem to be under the mistaken impression that labelling something as a “rumour” gives you carte blance to simply post whatever you want. It doesn’t. Secondly, (and i could be open to correction here as i might have misinterpreted what you wrote), it appears that this “source” actually claimed to have witnessed the incident by the wording used. This means that you didn’t hear a rumour you recieved a statement by someone claiming to have witnessed an incident. The two are not the same.
    I’m sure you are a great guy, and work very hard. I’m also sure that you genuinely feel bad about this, but this comes across as more of a defence against your actions rather than a sincere apology.

  • dere

    ryan has been known to report false stories in the past for hits on his site. as long as he gets hits, he makes money. He will not respond to these comments either. If he notices them, he will just start IP blocking the comments. This does not even sound like a “professional” apology. Ryan needs to get it together.

  • Jason Westlake

    Everything you do is above the boards? “Pics of Jessica Simpson looking FAT and PREGNANT!” or “Visit youngmoney.whatever to see the latest on something NOT related to wrestling”. Jesus, sometimes I think you believe your own BS.

  • DTruth316

    got web traffic up, go cash that cash that check next month from the ads and buy yourself a milk shake.

    you earned it

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