Former WWE Ring Boy Accuses Mel Phillips Of Inappropriate Conduct

New allegations have been made against Mel Phillips by a former WWE ring boy.

Mel Phillips and Terry Garvin were accused of having inappropriate sexual relations with underage boys in 1992 by Tom Cole. Pat Patterson was also accused by Cole of making sexual gestures while he was a ring boy. Cole reached an out-of-court settlement with WWE. He died by suicide in 2021. 

Mel Phillips was fired by WWE following the allegations but was later rehired by Vince McMahon with a mandate to stay away from children. David Bixenspan provided a detailed account of the ring boy scandal for Business Insider. 

A former ring boy who worked for WWE in 1986 and 1987 has now come forward and been interviewed by Lee Cole, Tom Cole's brother, detailing further allegations of inappropriate conduct against Mel Phillips. 

Shawn, the ring boy in the interview, has claimed that Mel had a foot fetish where "he would wrestle you, grab your toes, bend them. Then you'd be like 'Ah.' That's probably where it started. I didn't think about it. That guy is trying to make me submit to this wrestling hold. That's where it started." 

Shawn claimed that Philips would also put Shawn's feet between his crotch. 

After being asked if Mel's conduct creeped him out, Shawn added: "There are like two Mels. There is the Mel Phillips that is the ring announcer that took you to the shows, fed you, gave you money. Then there is the behind the scenes Mel that, once the hotel door room shuts, it's a little different."

Shawn also stated what happened to Tom Cole happened to him when he was a ring boy. 

After being asked if he believed Tom Cole, Shawn said: "When that came out, I was already in the Army, but yes. 'Wait, that happened to me. That's similar what I had happened to me, sort of.' I don't know everything that happened to your brother. I started 86-87, but August 87, I left for the Army. That was the one thing, I can't say what happened to Tom. I don't even know if I ran into him or we went to the same place. 

"I was kind of warned by a wrestler, later towards the time I was getting ready to leave. I can't remember exactly who told me. It was, 'Be careful. Be careful who you're with.' Then, come to find out, later in life, everybody knew Mel had this fetish. To me, if all the wrestlers knew, who else knew that he had this fetish? I do remember when I was with somebody else, we were at the show, and someone had talked to Mel about having all these boys around. I didn't really think, 'What's going on?' Someone talked to Mel about it, though. You could see, obviously he starts to groom to trust in him."

Speaking with NewsNation, former WWE talent Paul Roma said about the ring boy scandal on Monday night: "It was pretty regular, you heard it on a regular basis for the most part. Then you wouldn't hear it for a while. Then it would come full circle. But it wasn't so much Vince as it was the people that he had surrounding him. You talk about an industry where you have young, good-looking, well-built men in the ring. Half naked, three-quarters naked actually. It left the door open. He had a lot of people around him, Vice Presidents and bookers that were very much into that. They put you in a really bad situation especially once you start making some money and you kind of get comfortable with that and then you find out that your job's on the line. Either do it or get fired. I witnessed quite a few that walked away... They were asked to do things. Sexual things with other men that they did not want to do. My former partner being one of them."

H/T Fightful & WrestlingNews.co