With Alberto Del Rio released from the WWE, the wrestler whose real name is Jose Alberto Rodriguez is now free to give his side of the story and to explain how WWE social media worker Cody Barbierri allegedly used racist insults in order to rile him up to the point that he slapped the other man.
In a related report by The Inquisitr , when the WWE dropped an all-black faction storyline , rumors of racism began running rampant. It’s also claimed that Alberto Del Rio refused an offer by Triple H to have his job back in six months as long has he “kept his nose clean.” Instead, Mexico’s greatest import is fighting back against the WWE and has hired lawyers to see if he can work around the no-compete stipulation in his WWE contract that would prevent him from working as a wrestler or as a MMA fighter for a year.
According to PWInsider , former WWE superstar Alberto Del Rio gave an interview on Televisa’s Primero Noticias in Mexico recently where he explained the circumstances of the incident that caused the WWE to release him. About seven or eight months prior to the slap, Del Rio says Barbierri was pretending to read something on his laptop and said, “It says on here Alberto is a ‘tal por cual.’” This is Mexican slang for a slut, and the WWE employee tried passing it off as a bad joke. When Barbierri attempted to shake Alberto’s hand, Del Rio refused and told him to get away.
During the more recent incident, Alberto Del Rio claims he was a victim of racism and that the same WWE employee insulted his Mexican heritage in some manner while they were all eating in Laredo, Texas. While Del Rio declined to disclose the full nature of the racist insult, he did say that Jack Swagger and other members of the WWE crew were witnesses to the incident. Alberto says that he did not immediately respond physically but instead demanded an apology from the WWE social media manager. Instead, Barbierri walked right up to Alberto’s face, smirked at him, and said nothing. That’s when Del Rio slapped him, a reaction that Alberto now says he is embarrassed by although he does not regret it.
After the slapping incident occurred, Alberto Del Rio and Vince McMahon discussed the situation and supposedly Vince understood where the Mexican wrestler was coming from and understood his reaction. Alberto believed everything would be fine with the WWE after the talk with Vince, but he was suspended the next day.
The firing of Alberto Del Rio has some sites speculating that there is more to the story than just the actions of Barbierri and Del Rio. Former WWE road producer Andrew Green is currently involved in a lawsuit with the WWE where he claims that Big Show roughed him up physically. The rumor is that the Del Rio incident was similar enough to the Big Show incident that WWE management feared if Barbierri also filed suit it would strengthen the case of Green.
Jose Alberto Rodriguez, for his part, had already been considering letting his WWE contract expire and since the WWE owns the name of Alberto Del Rio he’s going to be wrestling under the new name El Patron now. Originally, Rodriguez did not have any plans to sue the WWE but he contacted lawyers due to the one year no-compete stipulation, which he believes is “unconstitutional” since it prevents him from making a living.