This will probably be my most controversial article as it deals with topics in both wrestling and society that people try to avoid talking about.  Of course I'm talking about TNA terminating the contract of nationally syndicated radio host and mid-card(or lower card) talent/manager Bubba The Love Sponge.  This was a case going back to January that was one huge overreaction with a snowball effect.  As in any story you must start at the beginning.

First lets look at the definition of overreact(ion) from dictionary.com

o·ver·re·act

intr.v.   o·ver·re·act·ed, o·ver·re·act·ing, o·ver·re·acts
To react with unnecessary or inappropriate force, emotional display, or violence.
o'ver·re·ac'tion n., o'ver·re·ac'tive adj.

It started in January after the earthquake in Haiti.  The news of course having not much else to cover all decended on what was truly a natural disaster and tragedy.  Celebrities tweeted, reacted by setting up telethons, and people gave generously to many organizations that were or at least claimed to be helping the people of Haiti.  Bubba however on his radio show questioned this by saying that Haiti knew they built their mud huts on a fault line and that their government was one of the most corrupt in the world that had a history of stealing most of the aid money in the past.  Also he brought up the fact that anytime one of these major tragedy's happen that it takes money away from other worthwhile charities at home.  He was stating that the media and America in general was "overreacting" to the relief efforts, especially by giving money without doing due diligence in to where their money was going.  This has been shown to be a wise statement in hindsight with some charities not being able to account for how the donations were spent, such as Wyclef Jean's charity, http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0115102wyclef1.html

This led to Bubba's first "overreaction" when he posted on Twitter "F Haiti..." before going into a more detailed reason in multipe tweets that echoed what is written in the previous paragraph.  This is the real disadvantage with Twitter's 140 character limit, it enhances Oui's first law of communication, if a message can be misunderstood it will be.  Word got back to Awesome Kong who had been doing fundraising for the relief effort.  This led to her first "overreaction" where she ambushed Bubba and attacked him physically backstage at TNA.  No matter what you think about someones opinion you should never attack them physically, not in this country that is founded on the right for one to speak freely no matter what the subject or opinion.  This of course led to her eventual release from TNA Wrestling as well as other disciplinary action.  Despite some wrestling fan's views, this was not an "overreaction" by TNA.  If you hit a co-worker in your workplace not only will you be fired on the spot, but you will also more than likely be facing criminal charges and a possible civil lawsuit.  In that case Awesome Kong was treated fairly.  

Next was another overreaction by Awesome Kong when she filed a lawsuit and motion for discovery against AT&T.  In the filing she alleged that someone had prank called her at 5am spewing racist epitephts along with other threats.  She stated that she believed that this person was Bubba The Love Sponge, as she said the person identified himself as Bubba and stated she heard a digital static sound before the person came on the line.  (This is highly unlikely as the equipment that allows callers to be put on the air only will send that sound when one calls the station and not when the station calls out.)   Since nothing came out of that suit I'm assuming either the phone records showed that it was not a number associated with Bubba or the call never happened. (Then it could also be that its still pending in court). 

This is what I'm assuming continued the "overreaction snowball" where Bubba setup Awesome Kong for the interview with Tampa radio personality Cowhead this past week.  Bubba honestly should have let things go as Kia was pretty much gone from TNA.  The lawsuit did contain very damaging allegations that were false, though once accused, much like Kobe Bryant or the Duke Lacrosse team, you can truly never be innocent in the minds of some people.  So Bubba and Cowhead setup a radio storyline where he and Cowhead didn't like each other and Cowhead had invited Awesome Kong to be on his afternoon radio show.  The initial plan was for Awesome Kong to be in studio for the interview but she decided to do a phone interview instead.  Bubba had planned for her to confront her in person about what she would have said and did say in the interview.  Its probably best for Bubba that this did not happen as who knew how things could have escalated.  Bubba did start asking her tough questions which caused Kia to overreact to him being there, Bubba got heated as well, calling her a "black bitch" before she told him to "kiss her black ass".  Phone call ended when she hung up.

Then in the overreaction chain the writer on the Baltimore Sun website dropped an overreaction bomb on the situation by writing that Bubba said things that couldn't be printed and continued on with racist comments towards Kia.  This caused the wrestling Internet community, most who hated Mr. Clem even though they have never met him, to completely overreact and begin tweeting Dixie Carter, president of TNA, to fire Bubba for his racist tirade on Awesome Kong.  TNA overreacted not only by terminating Bubba but in the way that they did it.  Releasing a one sentence article on their website and sending out a tweet that he was immediately terminated.  This is not the way they should have handled this.  If they wanted Bubba to no longer work for the company they should have asked him to resign from the company or simply not use him for a few weeks.  The reason?  It goes back to my original article "The Six Sides of Bubba" where I described Bubba's value to TNA even though he is far from a main eventer he brings a loyal group of people to the company through the millions of people that listen to his radio program and the thousands that follow him on Twitter.  A rule of marketing is that for positive news about your company or product you may get 10-30% word of mouth to spread the word, however for a negative you will get 70-90% word of mouth to avoid your product or business.  The "Bubba Army" should have been expected by TNA to react the way they have and tell 7-10 people each to avoid TNA.  This is why Bubba resigning gracefully would have been the best result for TNA.  However, they went the route of fire and release through the internet, which seems to be a pattern with TNA with the releases of Tara & Jim Cornett in the past. 

This is where the overreaction really began to go crazy.  The anti-Bubba marks overreacted and began taunting Bubba on his twitter page calling him everything but a human.  This is a guy that is simply an announcer in the company, its not like TNA released RVD for promoting drug use in his promos.  This led to the next overreaction from the "Bubba Army" who not only began attacking the people who were attacking Bubba but also called Dixie Carter names that were completely inappropriate and unnecessary.  This viscous cycle of overreaction was enhanced by comments of Awesome Kong as well as Bubba's friend and producer Brent Hadley, though he was only reacting to some of the tweets to Bubba's twitter page that were calling him a racist among other things.  In fact by not attacking Bubba I've also been labled a racist which is beyond ridiculous.  Not only that other twitter users threatened to kill Bubba.  My message to you is let it go, its just an announcer and radio host, its not like you are going to be personally affected by any of this.  Kong went on to tweet that Bubba should have let things go, however when she was thinking that Cowhead was on her side she didn't think twice to go ahead and talk down Bubba over the same incident.  So she should have taken her own advice and during the interview said I'll talk about my wrestling career in Ring of Honor but don't want to talk about Bubba as that is part of my past, etc.

This will all be talked about on Bubba's show on Monday.  Hopefully he will end the overreaction snowball and avalanche, however that usually doesn't create good radio.  I do think he will at least try to get people to quit attacking Dixie Carter on a personal and rude level that some were doing on Twitter.  Hopefully this will all blow over soon and I can write about awesome matches or stupid angles, instead of situations like this that could have been avoided if people weren't over sensitive and didn't overreact.