Joe Cullen suffered a first round defeat at the 2024
Hungarian Darts Trophy on Friday night, slipping to a 6-5 loss to Peter Wright in Budapast. Afterwards, perhaps still feeling the disappointment of his defeat, 'The Rockstar' became embroiled in a nasty X (Twitter) spat for German darter David John Schlichting.
It all started, when Schlichting replied to a post by
Red Bit 180. "Joe Cullen just became the 4th player to attend 100
European Tour tournaments. Even more impressing, it was his 85th consecutive Euro Tour," read the initial post, noting a landmark moment in Cullen's Euro Tour career. In response, Schlichting commented: "Pretty impressive for a guy who loathes having to leave Lancashire," paying reference to Cullen's past comments about too much of the current PDC calendar being held away from the United Kingdom.
As mentioned though, with Cullen still reeling from the disappointment of a last leg decider defeat in Hungary, the former Premier League Darts runner up didn't take too kindly to 'The Turtle's cheeky comment.
"David, what is your problem with me? If you actually played top level darts you’d know exactly what I was referring to? But you don’t! You sit at home ‘praying’ I lose wishing u was in my shoes. Maybe aim higher than the modus tour and someday I’ll see you on tour! Doubt it tho!" Cullen replied furiously. "And I’m from Yorkshire not Lancashire you absolute whopper! You won’t be playing modus series again that’s for sure!"
Even when Schlichting attempted to clarify his comment, Cullen couldn't be appeased. "Joe I’m just making fun, I‘ve never prayed you lose in my life. In fact I’ve cheered you on in multiple matches you’ve lost before. You don’t need to take my shitposting this seriously," the German reacted with surprise to Cullen's outburst, only for the Englishman to double down with his criticism. "Bullshit David. I’ve seen many tweets bad mouthing me , constant in fact! You don’t actually know me nor are you relevant at all. You’re just some guy trying to attract attention within darts when you’re actually massively irrelevant! Ive bit my tongue long enough reading your shit."
Whilst Cullen's tweeting stopped there, the fallout has continued. The morning after, Schlichting revealed he'd been bombarded with hate messages overnight. "If I don’t reply to you it’s probably because whereas over the last year my inbox has been bots, now it’s real people threatening and insulting me because I made a non-malicious joke in a sentence praising their favourite player, and I can’t really be arsed filtering through."
In Budapest meanwhile, the Hungarian Darts Trophy continues to roll on this Saturday, when Wright taking on Damon Heta later this evening.
