Why is Davey Richards’ ‘unprofessional’ and ‘disrespectful’ behavior ok?

Professionalism isn’t always the most important thing in the wrestling industry. Some extremely unprofessional people have also been some of the most successful.

Ethan Page, Impact Wrestling star and generally everywhere on the indies, is also a promoter of Alpha-1 Wrestling in Canada. He recently ran into his second bout of unprofessional behavior from Davey Richards, which was one of many things we discussed on this week’s Bitter Boys Club podcast.

Here are some of the highlights and you can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or embedded above:

Page: In ... it seems like it was 2011 because it was our second year open, I ran our “WrestleMania” show which is called Final Act. At Final Act it was supposed to be Davey Richards vs. Josh Alexander. Josh went to the airport himself to pick him up. Josh is waiting at the airport, the show is happening as he’s waiting.

Davey just never got on his flight. He stopped responding halfway through the day, it was a nightmare. So we lost nearly $500 American, who knows what that was back then in Canadian.

Josh ended up back up in his gear and calling a match with Michael Elgin on the fly. Elgin wrestled twice already, he had a blowoff match with Mike Rollins earlier in the day and then I had Brodie Lee (Luke Harper) and Elgin call a match on the fly to main event in preparation for Josh not being able to make it back. Josh did make it so I just put all the belts on Josh -- I’m booking this as the show is going on. The show is available on IndependentWrestling.tv.

Davey Richards never shows up. Then on the Kevin Steen show, he interviews Davey Richards and he brings it up saying “Hey, you were booked on a show near Toronto where you just ended up not showing up. Is that true?” And Davey is just like, “Yeah, I just didn’t want to go.”

So he admits it. Then somewhat recently he put a tweet out in 2018 saying he was coming back to pro wrestling and if he ever did any promoters wrong, he wants to make good. Those were his words. So we contacted him and gave him the scenario he put us in many years ago which is also why we posted the DM on our Twitter because it was his idea to work for free, all we had to do was pay his travel and a hotel. AND, I offered to book guys from his area to make the drive easier on him. I would have flown him, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But I think he said drive so he could just bail if he didn’t want to come. Which is what ended up happening.

So he made the commitment, we paid the graphic designer, we had it all announced, put out and it was literally my favorite poster we ever put out. I even named the show “Here We Go Again” because … here we go again.

He cancelled the minute the poster got any sort of traction. It was exploding, people were so happy to see him. People were like, “I can’t believe he’s coming. Are you just announcing him without confirmation?” No, I got Davey, it was his idea, why would he offer if he was going to bail.

Then he did. So I said, fuck this, I’m not putting up with this shit twice, I’m getting something for my money I spent years ago when he never showed up. So fuck him. I think he’s unprofessional. Why would I waste my fucking time? Grow the fuck up.

Are you just not going to show up to your real job? Because some of us actually treat this like a real job instead of just showing up willy nilly and showing up when you want, getting money and some sort of fame and good lifestyle you’ve gotten to enjoy. You just disrespect it, piss on it and shit on it. I hope I never see Davey Richards again. I hope I never see him in a professional wrestling ring again, I hope I never see him personally again. I’m not a fan.

Fuck him.

The conversation continued.

Page: The amount of people texting me, who are in the industry so I’m not going to add them to my public hate for Davey Richards, everyone I told the story to was like, “Eh, that’s Davey.”

I don’t like that that is ok. Only in our job is that an answer. Eh, it’s Davey? No! When does professionalism ever become the most important part of our job? It won’t because skill will always dictate success and that’s so annoying to me.

I have no problem burying him. I have no respect for that guy. He used to be one of my favorite wrestlers. He’s a joke.

Brent: Especially to come back and say, “If there’s any promoter I’ve ever done wrong, I want to make it right” that’s an admission you’ve been a dick in the past. You know you’ve fucked people over and you want to make it right.

I just keep going back to what you were saying, accepting unprofessionalism because he’s good at wrestling? I don’t get it.

Page: If he comes back, good for him. Don’t ever look in my direction.