A new article posted on The Atlantic’s website examines the characters and gimmicks in professional wrestling, and alledges there is still a lot of racism in WWE.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/the-not-so-fictional-bias-in-the-wwe-world-championship/374042/

The article is interesting in timing, since a few days ago WWE Hall of Famer Ron Simmons had recently denied racism exisiting in WWE, saying everyone has an opportunity at succeeding there. Simmons’ comments specifically were in response to a question of black champions in WWE, but the article looks at it on a larger scale.

Below are a few excerpts from the article on the Atlantic site:

On Rusev’s recent matches with black talents:

Rusev has been squashing black wrestlers almost exclusively since his debut back in April. Before Big E, there was R-Truth, who comes down to the ring dancing and rapping; Kofi Kingston, a Jamaican whose accent mysteriously vanished a year or so after his debut; and Xavier Woods, a legitimate Ph.D. candidate when outside the ring, but a funk-loving dancing machine within it.

Fans online remarked in amusement at the coincidence, at first. Kingston, Truth, and Woods are perpetual losers called “jobbers,” meant to get beaten by whoever the WWE brass have decided to push that month. Before Payback, even Big E joked in a tweet that stopping Rusev might involve putting back together the Nation of Domination, a controversial black-power faction formed in WWE in the mid-‘90s. That tweet was quickly deleted, and perhaps in response, the next guy Rusev beat had a lot less melanin in his skin, a Jersey Shore-inspired jobber named Zack Ryder.

On Booker T “Almost” Winning The Big One:

Booker T once came close to winning the big one. In the buildup to Wrestlemania 19 in 2003, Raw’s world championship was safely in the hands of Triple H, a performer named Paul Levesque who was playing a “franchise” character, a cocky bad guy who everyone is supposed to hate because he always wins. Triple H’s first character was named Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a New England blueblood. The franchise character was based on sports teams like the New York Yankees and the New England Patriots, teams that have been so good for so long that people are eager for someone to come along and dethrone them. Nothing more accurately describes Triple H in 2003. People were tired of him winning. They wanted an underdog, and that underdog was Booker T.

As with many things in professional wrestling, the logic doesn’t hold up if you look at it too much. Booker T was, as he would put it, a five time, five time, five time, five time, five time world champion in WCW, a company that surpassed WWE in ratings for a significant chunk of the time he was champion there. But in order for the feud with Triple H to work, Booker T had to be convincingly portrayed as the underdog. But what on Earth would make Booker T the underdog against Triple H?

Well, Booker T is black and Triple H is white. That’s it. That was the story line, almost explicitly.

BP: There are several other “examples” in the article, but it doesn’t prove any wrongdoing on WWE’s part. Almost everything in the article has been talked about by wrestling fans for years; Rusev fighting only black wrestlers is a meme now. I’m of the opinion that Booker T should have won at Wrestlemania XIX, but that decision still doesn’t take away from a very good match, and Booker T had a Hall of Fame career. As for the article overall, it “lifts the curtain” to serve it’s purpose, presents actual facts and addresses most of the complaints fans have had over the years, including how the angles and matches went down, but WWE won’t change anything.

This article is a joke....

Over the past 10 years we've had:
Kofi Kingston: several IC/US/Tag title reigns
Ezekiel Jackson: ECW/IC title reign
Big E.: IC title reign
Mark Henry: ECW/WHC title reign
R-Truth: US/Tag title reigns
Shelton Benjamin: several IC/US title reigns
MVP: US title reigns
Layla: Divas title reign

Just because none of the black men havent won the WWE title doesnt mean they never amounted to anything, ever, in the company.

I wouldn't ever believe that WWE would be a racist company.

I also forgot Booker's WWE run, which had the WHC, one IC, a tag title and several US title runs. I think he was Hardcore Champion at one point too. The only morons who cry racism are racist themselves.

What about Michael Hayes? Mark Henry is obviously a moron for crying racism.

Lol this is stupid as shit.

It's the same idiotic tools that say it's racist cause there haven't been that many MAJOR black superstars because WWE doesn't push black talents... uhhh, by that logic, I guess WWE is racist to Ziggler, Trent Barretta, Tyson Kidd, etc. etc. cause they didn't push them right? Fact is, for every black superstar that joins, there are like 10 white/others. For every 10 white/other superstars, MAYBE one will make it. So of course, by that ratio, there are bound to be more big white/other superstars.

Let's not forget one of the greatest talents of all time was black (The Rock), and one was Mexican (Eddy Guerrero, also Rey to an extent.)

Yeah, let's push Kofi Kingston, Big E Langston, Darren Young, Xavier Woods, Titus O'Neill and R-Truth to the main event. Just ignore that they're clearly not good enough, because it'd be racist not to make them all champ.

Honestly, the only black guy that I could have seen winning the WWEWHC would have been Mark Henry, but unfortunately it all clicked for him (the Hall of Pain stuff) just a little bit too late. Maybe if he was younger?

Batman wrote:

Lol this is stupid as shit.

It's the same idiotic tools that say it's racist cause there haven't been that many MAJOR black superstars because WWE doesn't push black talents... uhhh, by that logic, I guess WWE is racist to Ziggler, Trent Barretta, Tyson Kidd, etc. etc. cause they didn't push them right? Fact is, for every black superstar that joins, there are like 10 white/others. For every 10 white/other superstars, MAYBE one will make it. So of course, by that ratio, there are bound to be more big white/other superstars.

Let's not forget one of the greatest talents of all time was black (The Rock), and one was Mexican (Eddy Guerrero, also Rey to an extent.)

Rocks' half black/half samoan

Well WWE is guilty for using stereotypes from time to time. But I think that's due to lazy/stupid creative rather than racism.

I think the WWE is racist, but whether there's been a black champion isn't the reason. I'd point more to Cryme Tyme, Kamala, Saba Simba etc.

^ Or almost any Asian character. Even Jimmy Wang Yang was completely defined by his race.

Like Moose said, I believe that had more to do with lazy booking/writing.

I doubt they said "Even though we have a black (or half black) top star (The Rock), we absolutely hate black people so we're going to make these black people use stereotypical black gimmicks because we're racist!"

The only true racist one is Michael Hayes.

well Vince is a republican, so no real shocker if he is also a racist.

Being racist doesn't have to be outright "I hate black people". Running a company where 90% of your non-white non-American employees will be given characters supposed to portray them as evil or worth laughing at because they're non-white or non-American sure as fuck doesn't fit BA*, that's for sure.

There are plenty of white wrestlers that have been given goofy gimmicks too. They had a mentally challenged gimmick in Eugene just a few years ago. Goofy characters applies to everyone.

But Eugene isn't racially motivated. Giving 5 of your 12 black roster members the same "I like funk dancing" gimmick is.

I was using it as an example that it's not just black dudes that get handed shitty gimmicks.

The argument isn't whether black people get all the bad gimmicks. That's obviously not true. The argument is that, when deciding a gimmick for a non-white competitor, a major factor that goes into the decision making process seems to be their non-whiteness. Asians get Asian gimmicks (kung-fu, yakuza, etc.), blacks get black gimmciks (rapper, funk dancer, money-obsessed playa, criminal), Samoans get Samoan Islander gimmicks (basically the same one every time, with only a few exceptions). This has become less prevalent recently, but there's definitely racist tendencies in these gimmicks.

Eddie Guerreo's gimmick was a racially motivated gimmick, but at least it was over/had success.

Oh, & at least Chavo got the Kerwin White gimmick. A Mexican got the reverse racism gimmick.

Nearphotison wrote:

The argument isn't whether black people get all the bad gimmicks. That's obviously not true. The argument is that, when deciding a gimmick for a non-white competitor, a major factor that goes into the decision making process seems to be their non-whiteness. Asians get Asian gimmicks (kung-fu, yakuza, etc.), blacks get black gimmciks (rapper, funk dancer, money-obsessed playa, criminal), Samoans get Samoan Islander gimmicks (basically the same one every time, with only a few exceptions). This has become less prevalent recently, but there's definitely racist tendencies in these gimmicks.

Racially-factored and racism aren't the same thing, though. I don't think you know what racism means.


The first post of this topic has it right, racism would be if WWE were holding members of a certain race down and not allowing them to get an equal opportunity, just like everyone else. That is obviously not the case, THAT would be racist. Giving someone a racially-factored gimmick isn't racist. It's dumb and pointless, but not racist.

^ Actually, it sounds like you don't know what racist means. Racism doesn't have to be intentionally holding someone down. There's a reason so many old cartoons are racist for their depictions of blacks, even if the black people in it are the stars of the cartoons. Stereotyping is a form of racism, I don't know what kind of backwards part of the world you'd have to live in to not know that.

If there is racism in WWE, it to the black people. They treat Latino's actually pretty well. I mean look at ADR, dude is still not over and yet he had been a 4 time world champion. And Samoans are ever treated better. IDK if there is racism in WWE, but there is a lot of evidence of it.

Hipster Bull wrote:

They treat Latino's actually pretty well.

"Vince, we got arguably three of the best luchas of all time. They've already been in WCW and ECW so people will know them, what do we do?"
"PUT THEM ON LAWNMOWERS DAMNIT!"

yeah...you got a point...plus what they did to Epico and Primo....but hey at least some full Latinos have held the major one.