Honestly, one of the saddest things to come to light from this whole Hulk Hogan debacle, is the sheer number of inarticulate red-pill chugging closeted racists that have scuttled into view.

I'm aware that a portion of pro-wrestling's demographic has always been exactly this type of person, but I honestly felt that we'd moved on and genuinely believed that /r/squaredcircle was a beacon of that progression.

During my - admittedly brief - time here I have been delighted to find intellgent, well thought out discussion, passionate debate, empathy, insight and actually funny humour. Proper, real people discussing wrestling, like it wasn't a dirty little secret or a monster truck rally. It's been wonderful, engaging and an honour to be part of.

I don't know if it's people from /r/all or whatever, but throughout today, for every genuinely funny or insightful comment on this breaking news there has been some form of mind-scrunching "well if they can say it, why can't we?" idiocy.

People have done a brilliant job downvoting the comments out of view, or at least attempting to reason with them, I just, I dunno, it seems like a sad indictment. Hulk Hogan was the figurehead of something that we all love, something that at it's very best is a silent art-form capable of transcending all borders, something that brings unfettered joy to millions. Like it or not, in saying the things he did - literally declaring himself a racist, using horrific racial epithets and generally acting like a prize cock - he has cast a shadow over all of wrestling and has placed the eyes of the world firmly upon us.

We can either choose to reject this thinking or we can simply help canonise outsiders' views of wrestling fans forever.

It's entirely up to us.