Almost a year ago, I ran into Dean Ambrose\nat an airport. It was somewhat late at night and he was waiting at the baggage\nclaim carousel and I was just coming down the stairs after a long, turbulent\nflight. It actually took me a few minutes to recognize that, yes, it was indeed\nDean Ambrose and not my travel-induced exhaustion playing tricks on me. Sidling\nup to the next carousel over, I contemplated my next move. I retrieved my phone\nfrom my backpack and quietly went up to him, getting his attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our five to ten minutes of interaction,\nhe was very kind despite probably being just as fatigued as I was. We chatted,\ntook a selfie, and he signed my Shield snapback. He grabbed his bag and gave me\na quick side hug before leaving and I returned to my own baggage claim\ncarousel, hugging my newly autographed hat to my chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I opened with that story to talk about a\ntruly genuine chance encounter that I had with one of my favorite wrestlers. I\ndidn\u2019t know that Dean would be at this particular airport on this night; I just\nhappened to be in the right place at the right time. I gave him the clear\noption to disregard me but he consented to the interaction. That\u2019s the\ndifference between being a fan and being a stalker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently Dean appeared on Zach Ryder and\nCurt Hawkins\u2019 podcast and talked about people stalking him in airports. He\u2019s\nnot the first wrestler to speak up about this either. The guy who\u2019d been\nwaiting for him told him that there\u2019s a \u201cwhole system\u201d in place to track\nwrestlers\u2019 flight and hotel plans. That is beyond creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wrestlers do not owe their personal time\nand plans to us as fans. While many of them are nice enough to take a picture\nor sign an autograph while out and about, they are by no means obligated to.\nAnd in no way is it acceptable to purposefully stalk someone in an airport. I\nthink one of the more pressing issues, other than the obvious invasion of\nprivacy, is that some of these people truly believe that they are entitled to a\nwrestler\u2019s time because they buy tickets or merchandise. They go on to say\nsomeone is rude or mean when they blown off. Often the people doing the\nstalking are also asking the wrestler to sign multiple things, probably looking\nto sell the items later. How impersonal! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact there\u2019s a system in place to help\npeople find wrestlers\u2019 accommodations is appalling. I\u2019m sure none of us would\nlike to go out and find a horde of people waiting for us. And being in the\npublic eye does not invalidate someone\u2019s right to privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Running into our favorite wrestlers in\npublic is great, but we also have to respect their time and privacy. I\u2019ve met\nseveral wrestlers outside of events and all of them have been friendly enough\nto at least acknowledge me; most have stopped for a picture or autograph. We as\nfans need to understand respect wrestlers\u2019 privacy, whether it\u2019s their personal\ntime and space or their bodily autonomy in regards to their pictures and\nvideos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It only takes a few bad apples to spoil\nthe entire bunch so let\u2019s ensure that this stalker behavior will not be\ntolerated by the wrestling community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-Wynter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Almost a year ago, I ran into Dean Ambrose at an airport. It was somewhat late at night and he was waiting at the baggage claim carousel and I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2W6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/ambrose-3.jpg?fit=670%2C384&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11296,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290\/revisions\/11296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}