Lars Sullivan seems like a troubled pro wrestler with a lot of personal identity issues to iron out. The WWE contract star is still living under the shadow of homophobia, anxiety, and injury—and now a boatload of controversy. Last week, gay porn videos surfaced starring a “Mitch Bennett” who looks a lot like Sullivan…and sports one of his tattoos.
Here’s the backstory: Dylan Miley (his legal name) has been a wrestling fan since at least 2009, when he was featured in WWE Magazine. He appears to have done some gay porn from 2009 to 2010, all while making lots of bigoted comments online about racial groups, women, minorities of most kinds, and even—interestingly—the mentally ill and gay people.
In 2013 he was signed to a developmental deal by the WWE, which led, after much training, to the WWE teasing his main roster debut in late 2018. However, Miley’s WWE debut as his character Lars Sullivan was postponed after—get this—”before he could make his debut on “Raw” in January 2019, Sullivan walked away because of an anxiety attack,” reported Heavy.com. His launch was pushed back to April, 2019, but that was almost immediately shadowed by the revelation of his earlier bigoted behavior online. One redditor went so far as to compile reams of evidence of Sullivan’s awful online behavior, including comments like: “Homophobia, racism, sexism, these are all hilarious things to make light of” and “there is a grey area when it comes to the definition of rape.” Gross.
Sullivan apologized publicly, and the WWE forced him to pay a $100K fine and undergo sensitivity training.
In June, he suffered a knee injury that promised to keep him out of the ring until 2020. Then, in October, his dad died.
And then, last week, Twitter discovered his gay porn videos.
There don’t appear to be many of them, and Sullivan never looks to have pursued a career as “Mitch Bennett.” But, for someone who’s earned himself a reputation for being a homophobe, these videos are a particularly poetic form of justice.
But, hey, there are plenty of out gay pro wrestlers! I’m not saying that Sullivan is gay. Lots of people who don’t identify that way have done gay porn, after all. But, if he searches his soul and discovers that he is indeed homosexual, well, that’d be fine.
No word yet from Sullivan about the videos—he seems to have mostly disappeared from the public eye for now. And the WWE has also not weighed in on the latest scuttlebutt.
But here’s my hot take: I know that the WWE is a “family” entertainment company, but entertainment is entertainment—even the adult kind. Sullivan did the “adult” kind nearly a decade ago, and now he’s clearly got some grappling to do with his identity. So here’s a perfect opportunity for WWE to make a statement! They could cast Sullivan as a do-gooder who’s learned from his past as a bigoted, self-denying heel and is out to kick some bigoted butt.
He could wrestle racists, sexists, homophobes—and sex-negative, anti-porn jerks—into submission! Then he could school them about the errors of their ways. He could speak from experience! He could dole out basic sex ed during bouts! He could turn this whole thing around and make the WWE as wholesome as they say they strive to be!
Just putting that out there, professional wrestling world. You’re welcome.
Wrestling photo by Mike González from Pexels
