The Raja Jackson situation is one of the most deplorable things that’s happened in professional wrestling recently.
Thankfully, Syko Stu will be okay and his wife set up a GoFundMe page following the incident. As far as Jackson is concerned, he’s still remaining quiet over the situation. As of this writing, the Los Angeles Police Department are still investigating the situation so no arrests have been made. But the court of public opinion is heavily against Raja and what he did at KnokX Pro Wrestling.
But Raja isn’t the only man catching heat for Saturday’s incident.
AJ Mana, the man who encouraged Jackson to give Stu his “receipt” has gotten massive flack over him encouraging the MMA fighter to tag him for real.
Mana has finally spoken out about his role in this incident through a Facebook post and apparently he was in character when he was talking to Raja.
"I want to take a moment to address the recent incident at KnokX Pro. First and foremost, my thoughts are with Syko Stu and his family – no one ever wants to see a fellow performer get seriously hurt. There's been a lot of speculation online about my role that night. The truth is, I was in character and speaking in the language of wrestling. Everything I said was part of the show, and I never intended – or encouraged – real harm.
This was a situation that unfortunately got out of hand due to miscommunication behind the scenes. Wrestling is built on trust, respect, and protecting each other in the ring. That's what I stand for, and anyone who has worked with me knows that. I respect this business, I respect the fans, and I respect the performers who step between those ropes. I hope we can focus on Stu's recovery and making sure something felt like this never happens again."
So I guess wrestlers saying, “get your receipt” is something that they always say in character then. His excuse doesn’t make any sense and honestly, this feels like a way for him to soften the heat he’s getting. He's literally on video encouraging Jackson to get his “receipt” and he even offered to come down and help if Stu had a problem with it.
Does it mean that AJ knew that Jackson would take it that far? No. In fact, I don’t believe AJ knew of Jackson’s true intentions, but encouraging a fighter who has no insider knowledge about the business (Jackson was only there for AJ as he made it clear that he didn’t care about wrestling) to do it for real does not help him in this situation.
There’s no telling what will happen next. However, one thing’s for sure, WWE is done with Rikishi’s promotion. PWInsider confirmed that WWE officially severed ties with the wrestling school run by Reno Anoa'i and Rikishi.