The National Wrestling Alliance or NWA held a National TV taping for their show that airs on the CW App. This specific taping was held in Knoxville, Tennessee June 1st at Karns High School. At that taping, a Georgia man named Raymond Luther Rawls was working for the National Wrestling Alliance.
Mr. Rawls is best known in the Pro Wrestling industry as "Rick Michaels". He wrestled for years making appearances in ECW and then later as a booker and promoter for NWA Wildside and other promotions.
Rawls or Michaels trained WWE star AJ Styles along the way. He worked for the WWE as a costume tailor before being fired in 2005. Rawls was fired after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation of a child . He is still on the Georgia Sex Offender Registry.
The GA Registry Legal Code is plain about registered sex offenders being prohibited from working at a school or place where minors would congregate. The Tennessee Registry Legal Code has very similar language in it.
While Rawls is not currently on probation as his guilty plea came in 2005 and wouldn't face any perceived issue there. The Georgia Registry Code was violated by a registered offender in another state, which has seemingly reciprocal registry laws. The NWA Power Tapings were shot at Karns High School in Knoxville which would seem to be the glaring violation and there were minors in attendance.
I know Rawls aka "Michaels" was there June 1st, because I also was there and saw him. Although, I do not know him personally at least two people there confirmed it was him. I also did not know about his background at that moment. He was not only there prior to the show, but was out in the gym while the show was being shot, working as a part of the support staff.
I have reached out to the NWA multiple times requesting comment on this situation and they have not responded, thus far.
The National Wrestling Alliance has not answered my question on whether they knew Michaels (Rawls) was a convicted and registered sex offender when they brought him into work the show? I also inquired about the company's stance on working with sex offenders and if they plan to work with Rawls in the future? All questions still unanswered at the time of this report.