Exclusive: Major Heat on Michael Cole For Homophobic Slur

WrestleZone has learned exclusively there is enormous heat on WWE heel play-by-play announcer Michael Cole over his homophobic tweet directed at Josh Matthews. Even though WWE has given the impression the situation has been addressed, we have confirmed through multiple sources that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon felt Cole embarrassed the entire company, and many in World Wrestling Entertainment feel Cole has overstepped his bounds because he's letting his push go to his head.

WWE and GLAAD announced a partnership on March 17 to try and put an end to bullying based on sexual orientation after a series of homophobic taunts was made by John Cena.

An official statement released by WWE after GLAAD came out again Cena's remarks said, "WWE takes this issue very seriously, and has already spoken with our talent about these incidents. We are taking steps and working with GLAAD to ensure that our fans know that WWE is against bullying or discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

After WWE avoided a major controversy regarding Cena's scripted comments, Michael Cole tweeted a one word message to Monday Night Raw announcer Josh Matthews, and the comment was picked up by TMZ.

Cole immediately removed the post, but it was posted on TMZ and picked up by media sources everywhere. You can't hide what you've already posted, and Cole immediately went into spin mode and apologized on Twitter.

However, WWE still decided to comment on the matter, which was already spiraling out of control.

A rep for WWE told TMZ, "WWE has alerted GLAAD to the situation and spoken to Michael Cole about his post. He has removed it and apologized for using hateful language. Michael will be included in the training session being done by GLAAD. WWE takes this very seriously and is against discrimination of any kind based on sexual orientation, gender, race, religion or other."

At least two key insiders in WWE have told WrestleZone that if Cole wasn't so prominently featured in the push for this year's Wrestlemania against Jerry "The King" Lawler, he would have been fired by Executive Producer Kevin Dunn or Vince McMahon himself. No word on if Cole has seen Dunn or McMahon in person since the incident, or if he will see them for the first time in Chicago for the go-home edition of Monday Night Raw.

Michael Cole posted a homophobic slur this afternoon on his recently launched Twitter account as he called fellow WWE announcer Josh Mathews a 'faggot'. The tweet was in response to Mathews writing "Chicago!", the host city of this Monday's Raw taping.

The one word message was deleted approximately half an hour later and an apology was issued.

"I apologize to any and all who were offended by my tweet toward young Josh Mathews," Cole wrote. "It was obviously not meant the way it was taken."

In an update to this story, WrestleZone has learned tonight that one of the reasons why Michael Cole has developed what's been described as a "big head" backstage, is because he is close friends with John Cena, and is considered to be "one of Cena's boys." The relationship between Cole and Cena is something that Cole refers to often, and a number of backstage sources have told us that Cole is never hesitant to "name drop" John Cena in conversations and mention their friendship. Cole firmly believes that if he were ever to be in hot water with WWE management that John Cena would definitely go to bat for him, whether or not that's actually true. We were told, however, that his relationship with Cena is not necessarily the reason why he wasn't punished more severely after the Twitter incident.

Additionally, we've been told that as of late Michael Cole has been likening his on-air relationship with John Cena to that of Jim Ross' relationship with Stone Cold Steve Austin. "Cole likes to think he's the modern day Jim Ross, and that he's the on-air voice of John Cena's career much like Jim Ross was for Stone Cold Steve Austin during that era," an insider told us this evening, "when you hear Cole say that he's the 'voice of the WWE' on TV, I can tell you for a fact that he 100% believes it to be true off the air as well."