This whole situation feels like the worst collision of streaming culture, kayfabe, and real combat training. Raja clearly had no business being in that ring, but what stands out is how many layers of responsibility broke down around him — from the wrestlers who “set up the spot” to his own crew that let him spiral for the camera.
The scary part is how streaming platforms are actively rewarding this kind of volatility. When the live chat is egging someone on mid-adrenaline dump, it’s basically a recipe for tragedy.
Curious what you guys think: is the bigger story here Raja’s personal accountability, or the fact that an entire ecosystem (Kick, the school, the stream audience) let this get to the point where someone’s life was in danger?
Rampage Jackson worrying about his son losing his livestreaming gig is a huge red flag for judgment. But given his professional and personal history, it's hard to be surprised. Doesn't mean he is a horrible person but he is a person that has demonstrated a long track record of horrible judgment. These things can be bifurcated when analyzing behavior.
Anyone and everyone can make their own assessments about Raja Jackson. The evidence is in front of our face.
For me, the biggest story that will be hard to comprehend for the general public is this "wrestling school" and their behavior. I can only judge their behavior and reputation based on their own words and actions presented in the video.
From everything I saw on the livestreamed video, this was very irresponsible and negligent management on display. Raja Jackson wasn't protected when he got hit with a can. Syko Stu was not protected when they chose, on the spot, to integrate a trained MMA fighter into an untrained spot. The other wrestlers and officials were clearly not trained to protect their fellow wrestler Stu or on how to protect themselves from Raja Jackson.
This entire drama, from the beginning until the end, was a catastrophic failure and abandonment of all the principles that makes professional wrestling the industry that it once was and can still be. I'm talking from *both* a philosophical and health/safety standpoint.
Watching all of this unfold, I felt like I was watching the world's wildest and weirdest Bar Exam essay question. A lifetime of my world experiences all wrapped up into one explosive civil and criminal Socratic test. I still can't believe it.
I think Kick is the story angle that has driven this story into the mainstream.
I think the gross negligence at the WWE ID school is the most important angle from our perspective.
The human tragedy of Stu, Raja, and Quinton is the kind of thing we don't usually dive into. We haven't touched B.J. Penn's downward spiral, and hopefully won't have to.
ive only been sad about this so far. including im sad that this is why my life is devoted to practical violnce - because not one man stepped in for some time. and then it wasn’t even the closest guys
im so sick of every man in society staking their own personal claim to violence. and then being completely useless children when violence erupts
i wholesale condemn the usa military. but we need to love and deeply admire our vets. this is so sad
and that it’s considered masculine by some to beat a man after he’s out. let’s also consider how such beleifs directly relate to date rape and roofies
i also condemn prison rape. yet i respect how the tao has a way of sorting things out
This is a good, fair overview. Sadly, the situation is a highly complex one given the way Kayfabe and the tradition of 'receipts' functions in wrestling. There is, however, at least some precedence in the history of wrestling, where wrestlers giving receipts have taken their shoot too far - but in these cases, other wrestlers, the referee, stagehands etc have responsibly stepped in. This incident is not even the worst - Nu Jack repeatedly stabbing a fellow wrestler takes that crown.
It seems obvious that Raja has both anger issues and zero conception of kayfabe and the initial hit with the bottle being 'a work.' He then performed what he thought was a 'receipt' - encouraged beforehand by the promoters etc. - in an mma style shoot. In mma fights, of course, at this point the referee stops the fight when it clearly has ended, but here nobody did so.
The 'MMA Guru' has once again shown himself to be an imbecile with awful takes, in this case clearly falling into racial stereotypes that he is too dull to even be self-aware of encouraging. I guess that is also the geist and the crowd he plays to.
The reason this story is generating such huge traffic online is because it has about 10 different topics and each of them alone are explosive. I'll approach it from my perspective.
If you are running a wrestling school, it is your job to prepare students and those who are associated with you to be able to handle business at all time. It starts with the workplace environment. That environment displayed on camera was, in my opinion, highly questionable.
Management attempting some sort of compromise involving a "receipt" is a huge red flag. Who would do that? Well, given what happened with Travis Scott at Elimination Chamber in Toronto with Cody Rhodes, I guess a naturally closed business is entirely open to outsiders. Yes, kayfabe is a thing, but part of that is because wrestling was never meant to be as open and transparent to outsiders as possible.
As one Japanese commenter stated, "Any idiot can do MMA but not every idiot can be a pro-wrestler."
The school creating this "compromise" and then having other wrestlers egg on someone who clearly was not in the right state of mind is accelerating a bad situation into a terrible outcome. This isn't protecting the business nor is it protecting or respecting the person you're suddenly integrating into the circus.
The big question is whether or not authorities go after everyone at the school who was involved in the decision making and consulting of this ill-conceived plan. Forget civil negligence claims. What about criminal liability exposure?
And if you are a prospective student wanting to get into wrestling and *this* is what you see a WWE ID branded school as, why would you want to pay to be a student when you have real live video of the complete lack of protection from an outsider nearly killing a wrestler?
I could ask about 5,000 different questions but I'll save it for our next podcast. I'm beyond disgusted.
This whole situation feels like the worst collision of streaming culture, kayfabe, and real combat training. Raja clearly had no business being in that ring, but what stands out is how many layers of responsibility broke down around him — from the wrestlers who “set up the spot” to his own crew that let him spiral for the camera.
The scary part is how streaming platforms are actively rewarding this kind of volatility. When the live chat is egging someone on mid-adrenaline dump, it’s basically a recipe for tragedy.
Curious what you guys think: is the bigger story here Raja’s personal accountability, or the fact that an entire ecosystem (Kick, the school, the stream audience) let this get to the point where someone’s life was in danger?
Rampage Jackson worrying about his son losing his livestreaming gig is a huge red flag for judgment. But given his professional and personal history, it's hard to be surprised. Doesn't mean he is a horrible person but he is a person that has demonstrated a long track record of horrible judgment. These things can be bifurcated when analyzing behavior.
Anyone and everyone can make their own assessments about Raja Jackson. The evidence is in front of our face.
For me, the biggest story that will be hard to comprehend for the general public is this "wrestling school" and their behavior. I can only judge their behavior and reputation based on their own words and actions presented in the video.
From everything I saw on the livestreamed video, this was very irresponsible and negligent management on display. Raja Jackson wasn't protected when he got hit with a can. Syko Stu was not protected when they chose, on the spot, to integrate a trained MMA fighter into an untrained spot. The other wrestlers and officials were clearly not trained to protect their fellow wrestler Stu or on how to protect themselves from Raja Jackson.
This entire drama, from the beginning until the end, was a catastrophic failure and abandonment of all the principles that makes professional wrestling the industry that it once was and can still be. I'm talking from *both* a philosophical and health/safety standpoint.
Watching all of this unfold, I felt like I was watching the world's wildest and weirdest Bar Exam essay question. A lifetime of my world experiences all wrapped up into one explosive civil and criminal Socratic test. I still can't believe it.
I think Kick is the story angle that has driven this story into the mainstream.
I think the gross negligence at the WWE ID school is the most important angle from our perspective.
The human tragedy of Stu, Raja, and Quinton is the kind of thing we don't usually dive into. We haven't touched B.J. Penn's downward spiral, and hopefully won't have to.
ive only been sad about this so far. including im sad that this is why my life is devoted to practical violnce - because not one man stepped in for some time. and then it wasn’t even the closest guys
im so sick of every man in society staking their own personal claim to violence. and then being completely useless children when violence erupts
i wholesale condemn the usa military. but we need to love and deeply admire our vets. this is so sad
and that it’s considered masculine by some to beat a man after he’s out. let’s also consider how such beleifs directly relate to date rape and roofies
i also condemn prison rape. yet i respect how the tao has a way of sorting things out
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I agree with every point and share your sadness. This was a completely pathetic fiasco.
This is a good, fair overview. Sadly, the situation is a highly complex one given the way Kayfabe and the tradition of 'receipts' functions in wrestling. There is, however, at least some precedence in the history of wrestling, where wrestlers giving receipts have taken their shoot too far - but in these cases, other wrestlers, the referee, stagehands etc have responsibly stepped in. This incident is not even the worst - Nu Jack repeatedly stabbing a fellow wrestler takes that crown.
It seems obvious that Raja has both anger issues and zero conception of kayfabe and the initial hit with the bottle being 'a work.' He then performed what he thought was a 'receipt' - encouraged beforehand by the promoters etc. - in an mma style shoot. In mma fights, of course, at this point the referee stops the fight when it clearly has ended, but here nobody did so.
The 'MMA Guru' has once again shown himself to be an imbecile with awful takes, in this case clearly falling into racial stereotypes that he is too dull to even be self-aware of encouraging. I guess that is also the geist and the crowd he plays to.
The reason this story is generating such huge traffic online is because it has about 10 different topics and each of them alone are explosive. I'll approach it from my perspective.
If you are running a wrestling school, it is your job to prepare students and those who are associated with you to be able to handle business at all time. It starts with the workplace environment. That environment displayed on camera was, in my opinion, highly questionable.
Management attempting some sort of compromise involving a "receipt" is a huge red flag. Who would do that? Well, given what happened with Travis Scott at Elimination Chamber in Toronto with Cody Rhodes, I guess a naturally closed business is entirely open to outsiders. Yes, kayfabe is a thing, but part of that is because wrestling was never meant to be as open and transparent to outsiders as possible.
As one Japanese commenter stated, "Any idiot can do MMA but not every idiot can be a pro-wrestler."
The school creating this "compromise" and then having other wrestlers egg on someone who clearly was not in the right state of mind is accelerating a bad situation into a terrible outcome. This isn't protecting the business nor is it protecting or respecting the person you're suddenly integrating into the circus.
The big question is whether or not authorities go after everyone at the school who was involved in the decision making and consulting of this ill-conceived plan. Forget civil negligence claims. What about criminal liability exposure?
And if you are a prospective student wanting to get into wrestling and *this* is what you see a WWE ID branded school as, why would you want to pay to be a student when you have real live video of the complete lack of protection from an outsider nearly killing a wrestler?
I could ask about 5,000 different questions but I'll save it for our next podcast. I'm beyond disgusted.
The MMA Guru is the id of modern MMA fandom.
The MMA Guru and Jesse on Fire are literally two sides of the UFC fan coin in 2025.
We have to navigate the current news climate with the fact patterns that exist.