by Christian Duque
The bodybuilding world is coming undone with the “fight” involving Wes Watson and a special needs man at Elev8tion Fitness in Miami, FL. There have been a number of inconsistencies in what gym owner Angel Bajeda told me and my followers at StrengthAddicts Instagram. He made several references to the highly-edited video that Wes Watson released on his social media feeds.
Watson, a former self-described white prison gang shot caller, claimed that his actions were the product of self-defense. He also boasted about beating the man senselessly, but kept out a number of key details. Bajeda, who claims to have seen the full video, was adamant about “getting the story out.” He laid a foundation from Watson’s video and went on to back-up Watson’s self defense nonsense and spoke about the alleged victim’s provocative language and his taunting of Wes.
Why did the gym owner take it upon himself to try to convince countless individuals about what amounted to a false narrative? We still don’t know, but as one could imagine when the news broke out, it spread like wildfire. Even with the highly-edited video that made the rounds which any first year law student could tell you wasn’t either self defense or mutual combat, fans took to their battle posts. And from there the conversation devolved from one of logic and laws to another based on a cult of personality. Many of Watson’s fans were the loudest of all, but within just a few days, Jon Bravo Films released more details and video evidence. Wes’s supporters have dwindled in size and now everyone is anticipating criminal charges against Wes Watson and his co-defendants.
So there’s a lot here to unpack. For starters, this whole situation was presented to the world during a time when the trolls were driving Wes Watson crazy. People have been upset with this guy for quite some time because of his motivational programs sold at a tremendous dollar amount. People don’t like to see weak individuals get swindled. Imagine people that are vulnerable, maybe they’re going through something in life, and all of a sudden they drop thousands of dollars on a motivational program that is nothing but hot air.
And that is exactly what a lot of people said that went to West’s programs. They said they spent a truckload of money only to get berated by a guy who didn’t actually teach them anything new. It was basically nothing but an hour or two or three of just absolute harassment and physical torment. The situation took a tragic turn for the fitness icon when some of the biggest channels on YouTube started sounding off. Now it wasn’t just disgruntled former customers and trolls looking to antagonize a social media celebrity, rather, it became a crusade for so many channels to make sure that good, honest people were not scammed. Because at the end of the day, many of these channels look out for people that don’t know any better in the bodybuilding world.
The fitness industry has always been home to a little bit of hustling. Whether that is weird studies or genetic freaks that swear to live by a certain supplement or training protocol. It’s a little bit of that used car salesman that unfortunately has not only permeated our industry but has become a fixture in it. But people usually look the other way if it’s subtle. You expect some puffery when it comes to supplements, you expect some puffery when it comes to gym equipment, you expect some puffering when it comes to accessories. Everything within reason is okay. But you can’t compare that to what the scammers are doing. Because what the scammers are doing is they are totally taking advantage of people and leaving them in the poor house. Imagine saving up many months to go to Miami to listen to Wes Watson yell at you, take his shirt off, and flex on stage for 3 hours. You will have left a lot poorer without any type of knowledge to your name. It’s that sort of thing that a lot of channels were starting to shine the spotlight on. As a result, however, Wes was in quite a mood. He was openly calling people to come face him at Elev8tion Fitness in Miami, Florida. And that is where this incident took place. That is the atmosphere in which it all went down. The problem is that the Wes didn’t fight one on one. He’s a dirty fighter that uses his friends, and then the gym and others tried to cover it up.
The man in question has special needs. Gym workers told Jon Bravo of John Bravo Gilms they thought he might be on the spectrum. It does seem to be true that he bought a day pass and got to the gym very early. From there he may or may not have been waiting for Wes. At some point Wes, who was supposedly training legs that day, had been sitting on the bench talking to his butt buddies for several minutes when the man in question asked for the bench. Apparently when he asked for the bench it may not have been in the nicest way, especially if the man had been waiting for a long time. Again Wes was not lifting nor were his friends. He was basically using the bench press as a meeting place like one would use a coffee shop. The man in question may have been simply wanting to film his bench workout. I know that I’ve done that a number of times.
From that encounter is where this all started but Wes’s video only shows us about 30 seconds worth of it. It shows the man barely pushing him while he is seated on the bench. Then it goes to another section of the video where the man is on his knees covering his eyes. It does not show Wes gouging his eyes, it only shows the man on his knees covering his eyes and yelling. Then it shows Wes punch him on top of the head nine times and give him a soccer kick to the head. This is all while the man is on his knees crying, covering his eyes, and trying to get away. But even the video that We showed enraged many, like yours truly. It was clear to me that it was not self-defense. But that’s the video that the owner of the gym also used to try to get the real story out. His “real story” was a complete lie. This is also the real story that supposedly the police saw.
In reality this is only a fraction of the video. When it was all said and done Wes punched the man over 50 times in the head, kicked him five times in the head, pulled him by the hair, gouged his eyes, and all the while his buddies were hitting the man as well. None of that was discussed by the gym owner on any social media posts. None of that was seen in the video Wes Watson put out either. And now the question is what did the police actually see? The owner of the gym says everything. Even if the police only saw the 8 punch clip That would have been enough to get Wes arrested and his confederates as well. But the full video would have seen them get very serious charges. Interestingly, the police made no arrests. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered.
Miami is a very corrupt city. Well I don’t want to say the police look the other way, but if they saw any version of this video it did not arrest Wes and his co-defendants. Those are red flags that I would like answers to. The gym owner has demonstrated an inability to tell the whole truth. It’s possible he’s lying about the police having seen any video. Again there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered, but as more evidence comes to light, and more people become infuriated by what is essentially a gang beatdown of a special needs man at a well-known Miami gym, then I suspect law enforcement and the government will get their acts together. I suspect criminal charges will be filed, arrests will be made, not to mention the fact that the victim will sue both Wes Watson and the gym for his injuries. And if he has any kind of a good attorney they will seek punitive damages as well.
Only time will tell what will happen with this case but I can tell you that all of social media is glued to it. As always I hope you enjoyed reading my article, here, at Iron Magazine. I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. As always, consider copying and pasting a link to this article on all of your social media platforms.
