Raychell Rose Says She Was Released From Booker T’s Promotion Over Incident Where She Was Stalked

Former Reality of Wrestling regular Raychell Rose says that she was released from the company due to an incident that saw her being stalked. Fightful has posted a detailed report in which Rose alleges that she was stalked by trainee Shawn Reed, who had been told to stay away from ROW shows, training facility and Rose herself due to several incidents in which he behaved in a way that made both her and others uncomfortable, and that she was fired by Booker T after an incident involving multiple arrests including Reed in December of 2022.

Fightful noted that they have obtained conversations that go as far back as August of 2021 in which Reed was told of issues with his behavior, and have also spoken with a number of people named on incident reports and who were witnesses to the events in the report. Reed continued to make himself present around Rose and others, leading to Rose trying to file charges of stalking and harassment. Those charges were denied due to the fact that the two were not in a relationship with each other, though Rose says an officer contacted Reed and told him he should leave Rose alone.

The report notes that Reed claimed that Rose had “manipulated him into thinking she was single,” even though it was well-known within the company that Rose was in a long-term relationship. An official for ROW, who Rose said was Kevin Bernhardt, told Reed to train at the Premier Wrestling Federation and noted that his attendance at Reality of Wrestling had been sporadic as it stood. Reed countered that he had been bullied and was dealing with circumstances that had exacerbated his absences and was still urged to leave. Rose performed for Premier and told the outlet that Bernhardt knew this but still told Reed to go there; she further alleges that Bernhardt was supposed to inform Booker T of the matter but did not do so.

The report goes on to say that Rose was wrestling at the Houston Premier Arena on March 5th, 2020 when Reed showed up. JJ Blake told the site that he ejected Reed from the venue and that Blake made a comment that alluded to harming people there. There was an incident report filed on March 7th, and Bernhardt told Reed on March 10th not to show up at an upcoming ROH show that Rose would be pert of. Reed attempted to gain permission from Bernhardt to show up at an upcoming show on June 27th of that year but was denied in what the site refers to as an “amicable exchange.” It is noted that both Blake and Rose allege that Bernhardt referred several trainers who were “problematic” to the PWF. Bernhardt has not responded to several requests from Fightful about the story.

Reed then attempted to contact Rose, despite being told numerous times not to including by police, on September 9th.

Three months later in December of 2022, everything blew up after a Reality of Wrestling show. The report notes that Reed appeared at the show, which had Rose competing on it. Reality of Wrestling officials removed him from the venue and Rose was not told he was there, though she says that she was supposed to notify police immediately if Reed was ever around her. The report notes that Booker T, who was not aware of the situation or of Reed, encountered him in the parking lot. Talent at ROW say that Reed made threats against himself and implied to Booker that he had considered attacking others at the school; it was claimed by some that he mentioned something about shooting up the venue. Booker reportedly walked Reed into the venue after he was ejected; Booker said this was an effort to calm Reed and keep him from doing anything “crazy.”

After the show, Reed went to the Stuttgarden Tavern, a bar that ROW performers visit after every show. Several people the site spoke to say that Reed knew the bar visit was a tradition and had appeared there previously. When Rose showed up, she saw Reed and approached him, telling him to stay away and that she was calling the police. Before the police showed up, Reed was confronted by ROW talent. Reed says that Rose hit one wrestler with a glass mug and tried to hit her. He was arrested after the fight as was a ROW talent, the latter for disorderly conduct in conjunction with the situation. Booker T says that the latter talent’s charges were expunged and that he was quickly bonded out.

Rose told Fightful that according to ROW, there was a trespass warrant for Reed after December but that police confirmed in the report on the incident that this was not the case. Rose also alleges that she was told ROW would have armed security and cameras to help prevent any issues but that did not happen either. She says that after she spoke with Booker T about the matter, she was fired from the promotion. She felt like that was not justified and that she was cut from the company because she had a stalker despite warning the company about the problem. Several people familiar with the matter believe that she was blamed for causing Reed to be around despite his being warned several times to stay away.

Booker T has confirmed to the site that Rose was fired from the company, citing internal issues and not wanting to go into further detail. He also confirmed that the incident at the Tavern happened and said he believed ths ROW talent should have avoided Reed instead of confronting him. Both current and former ROW talent say that Reed was knew talent would be there and believed that he showed up intentionally. Booker also alleges that the timing of the story, coming out a year after the incident, was due to a meeting at the January 13th ROW show discussing loyalty among the talent. Fightful has confirmed such a meeting took place, which saw Booker and ROW telling talent they didn’t want them working for other independent companies in Houston. He called the situation a “non-story” and referenced ROW’s track record of no similar stories coming out.

Rose alleges that she didn’t talk about the story before because she feared retaliation from Reed, and now finally felt safe sharing it. She said, “Booker screamed and cursed at me when he arrived on the scene while I was talking to police at the December incident that this was my fault and I’m the reason people got hurt and arrested.”

One witness to the bar incident told the story as follows:

“When Shawn Reed was kicked out of the show, he went to the bar that he knew we all would go to after the show. Kevin, Booker, and many others told us ‘If Shawn is at that bar, you need to leave and we will go somewhere else. We’ll go to Whataburger or something.’ I remember that vividly. We go to the bar, Shawn is there, some of us decided that we didn’t want to go elsewhere. So while he is sitting at the actual bar, we are sitting at a table all the way across the bar. Eventually, more people start piling in. Raychell Rose and others. They’re yelling at him, get the fuck out of here, screaming, losing their minds. He was sitting at the bar, they went and antagonized him. 7 wrestlers surrounding him at the bar, and of course things broke out in violence because that dude felt crazy threatened. I’m not claiming he did nothing wrong. The creepy fuck shouldn’t have been at the bar, or near the venue. But it’s really no shock to anyone that it blew up this way. Things got intense, everyone separated, and then Kevin had to call Booker and bring him in. Booker also got a call from the bar owner. Booker comes in, lines everyone involved in the brawl on the wall and did come down hard on them. Because the bar owner was great friends with Booker, and it was really embarrassing for Booker to have a local business owner know that his kids caused a bloody fight in a bar (Several) were let go. One person was brought back because he came to Booker with a heartfelt apology for his involvement, and now things are good with him again. But for the others who were asked not to come back to shows, everything was handled very emotionally and blown up.”

The witness went on to say,

“The heat has been so pervasive in this scene for so long – everyone knows about it, and there have been plans in motion from one side to another to try and fuck with ROW. I’ve heard so many groups of people talk about how they want to take down ROW, and this just feels too close to me… A group of wrestlers, all of whom coincidentally are at New Texas, want to take ROW down and it feels like they’re striking at the point where ROW is in the most limelight with the recent NXT signees they’ve been bringing in, etc. This feels motivated in a lot of ways that aren’t true to the message. ROW does not abuse their guys, ROW doesn’t treat people unfairly, and I’m bothered that these claims have been made in the first place. Booker T and the other guys there are strict, they’re harsh sometimes, but they’re fair. They’ll let you know that you fucked up, you suffer the consequences, and they hope you grow as a person and come back to them. You look at Booker’s track records of arrests and the way he changed his life around, this is a guy who loves second chances, but a lot of people on the opposite side went and started talking a lot of smack, and then the door to rehab the relationship closed.”

Fightful confirms that multiple wrestlers say they left ROH in protest after the situation unfolded, with one telling the site that it left them feeling unsafe and unprotected at the venue.

Rose told the site, “To speak on the personal side of things, My safety has not been secure for years due to Shawn Reed and the lack of support I received from the people in charge at Reality of Wrestling which allowed Shawn’s actions to escalate the way they did unchecked. This issue being allowed to fester for so long has resulted in many hours of speaking in person to and on the phone with police officers, district attorneys, and lawyers because of this situation. I’ve spent and continue to spend a great deal of time in therapy sessions to process trauma related to this incident in hopes of one day fully overcoming the effects of it. That itself comes with a stigma, but it’s all a part of the healing process which I am learning to navigate and fully embrace.”

She added, “Overall I hope what comes out of this is Booker, along with the people placed in charge at his school, implement procedures and protections to ensure all threats are taken seriously in the future. Should they continue to not make students’ safety their priority, I hope that at the very least any women who train there or are looking for a place to train see this and are able to make an educated decision before they to put their safety into the hands of Reality of Wrestling… I’m thankful for the start that Reality of Wrestling gave me. Especially the original trainers that used to be there, they taught me so much but more importantly they protected me and created a culture that encouraged everyone to look out for each other. Despite these positive feelings about how things used to be, it doesn’t absolve the actions taken by Booker T and Kevin Bernhardt that were geared towards protecting their reputation and downplaying the events that led up to and followed the events of that night.”

Rose has appeared on WWE and AEW/ROH programming this year, including a match against Billie Starkz on the February 8th, 2024 episode of ROH TV.

Reed posted a statement on Facebook in relation to the story which read:

Yeah that whole incident was lied about and she abused the hell out of me to get what she wanted which was for me to get kicked out of wrestling so her friend’s had one less talent to deal with. I never thought we had anything, I was confused by some similarties with our character’s and thought maybe she was coming onto me, I didn’t know if she was single or not because we never really spoke but I did hit her up once with no reply and that was it. After that I got kicked out of ROW due to attendance and went to a Premier show to see if I would like to ask them about training. I saw her there but never spoke to her and she had Blake kick me out which got me heated because after ROW I felt like I was getting booted out of the buisness in what was a complete political bullying move. I did say I’d come back and fight them because I was angry but I cooled off and let it go.

“After that awhile went by and I wanted to go up to Booker’s to apologize for my late attendance and asked if I could come back, I did mention that when they let me go after 4 Year’s of cleaning up and setting up their shows and dealing with all the ribbing that comes with the buisness and because I was in a horrible mental state having had my phone hacked and sent on both Facebooks videos and YouTube videos recommended death threats that yeah I brought a gun to the school the day I got let go but I knew I wasn’t gonna do anything, I was just angry and seeing red that I had my career halted over being to poor to attend training regularly.

“I went home that day and let go of all that anger for good. I told Booker at that show and he atleast acted understanding, I think knowing the politics that were being played and said he would talk to the ROW roster about me coming back, after that I watched the show and went to stud to have a meal by myself when Kellee confronted me and told me to leave with another Wrestler getting in my face, I said not until I was finished eating and tried to explain how I felt nothing for her and that I just wanted to focus on my career. After that she came back with the same Wrestler+2 other’s and Kevin and they all very threateningly told me to leave, I wasn’t about to be threatened again so I said no, they huddled around me like they were about to attack me so I threw my drink in the first wrestler’s face and punched him and only him while everyone jumped me, at no point did I lay hands on anyone else and after a night in jail I was let go free and the judge was pretty understanding of how stupid the situation was.

“The cold truth is she was likely told to play this up by other wrestler’s to get me kicked out because I was being looked at as a possible big talent which threatened them. I won’t be going back to ROW to save Booker the headache but I’m not quitting Wrestling because some Diva wants to play gang politics to help her friend’s. Your Article has atleast a few lies in it and it’s a shame that it’s even still a story year’s later when everyone has should have grown up so much more since. Last thing I’ll say is if you get into the wrestling buisness, stay away from kliqs and don’t let drama interfere with the buisness itself, check emotions at the door and just do a good job.”