Beyond Wrestling and CHIKARA announced on Monday that they would also be parting ways with former ECW and WWE announcer Joey Styles.
These announcements come just a few days after EVOLVE’s Gabe Sapolsky announced that the promotion would be parting ways with Styles after comments he made on commentary on Friday night during a live iPPV broadcast of EVOLVE 72.
Styles issued a lengthy open letter to PWInsider.com on Monday afternoon apologizing for his remarks and revealing in detail his apology to Sapolsky. He has since removed any mentions of EVOLVE, CHIKARA and Beyond Wrestling from his Twitter account bio.
CHIKARA’s Mike Quackenbush issued blog announcing the departure of Styles, with a portion of the blog noting that the promotion would now be instituting a “zero tolerance policy” going forward regarding forms of speech (written or verbal).
“Effective today, we are terminating our relationship with Joey Styles. Effective today, we are instituting a zero tolerance policy for misogynistic, racist, and/or homophobic speech, written or verbal, whether it’s directed toward our cast, our crew, or our patrons. This is the shape of CHIKARA.”
Beyond Wrestling issued this tweet regarding Styles.
Joey Styles will no longer be appearing at Sunday’s live event in Worcester or any future Beyond Wrestling live events. Thank you.
— Beyond Wrestling (@beyondwrestling) November 14, 2016
Sapolsky also issued further tweets regarding Styles.
EVOLVE is meant to be a fun escape from the world, not a basis of political debate. There was a mandate not to get political last night.
— Gabe Sapolsky (@BookItGabe) November 13, 2016
Jim, if you specifically instructed someone not to do something like that on a show & they did it, you would have gone after them with a bat https://t.co/Cxu6lUfffw
— Gabe Sapolsky (@BookItGabe) November 13, 2016