WWE is not expected to discipline Ludwig Kaiser following his arrest last week, according to False Finish.
Kaiser, whose real name is Marcel Barthel, was arrested after footage captured him in an altercation with a neighbor. Police identified him from the footage and issued a warrant for his arrest. Dave Meltzer addressed the incident on Wrestling Observer Radio, laying out what is known.
“There is footage of what happened, so the idea that nothing happened — that is not the case. The guy didn’t know who the guy was who attacked him. Police saw the footage and they identified him as Barthel. And then they put out a warrant for his arrest after identifying him. So, that much had happened.”
Meltzer also addressed the ICE angle that has circulated around the story, which contributed to Kaiser being viewed sympathetically by many online.
“If the guy said the ICE thing and if his girlfriend was there — it’s a dumb thing to say. If he didn’t say it — if he said, ‘have some manners,’ you know, he shouldn’t have said it. Could have just let it go. But he didn’t. And then the other guy escalated it physically. That was the situation. It is interesting how the usage of that ‘ICE’ thing, they managed to turn him babyface to many, many people. It also created the story that he actually didn’t punch the guy.”
Raj Giri, who originally reported that ICE could have been involved in the incident, pushed back on Meltzer’s framing on Twitter.
“I heard a clip of Dave talking about my Ludwig Kaiser story. And this is a perfect example of him stating stuff as fact when it’s not true at all. He made it sound like it was a WWE planted story. I usually never discuss sources, but I will say this. I was never once contacted by WWE PR regarding this, and I never reached out to them.”