Black History in WWE




Black History in WWE
 By Dallas Barnes 


  Professional wrestling especially the WWE has been mainly dominated by Caucasian's. In the 67 years WWE has been operating, only ONCE has an African American won the WWE championship. That wasn't until recently when Kofi Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan to finally win the championship at Wrestlemania 35. Before then when the WWE was originally split into brands there was also the World Heavyweight championship which was quickly named " The B-show" after many fans including myself, realized WWE didn't give a fuck about the championship. The championship was used to throw unhappy wrestlers a bone or to push people that weren't deemed good enough for the championship held on RAW.


  In 2003 two years after WWE bought out WCW, WWE was using the Big Gold belt on Smackdown with its champion as HHH. On an episode on Smackdown HHH cut a promo on his opponent for that upcoming Wrestlemania, Booker T.  The main story was HHH telling Booker T, "Somebody like you doesn't get to be world champion", made mention of Booker's nappy hair and even going as far as to claiming "Booker was in WWE to make people laugh as an entertainer rather than a competitor." And ending it was " do a little dance for me" . Booker T would come back with a passionate promo the week after explaining the obstacles he's had to overcome and claiming he was going to beat HHH's ass at Wrestlemania to win the championship. Sounds like a great story-line were the African American face finally overcomes all the odds to take down the heel right? Nope, Booker T would go on to loss the HHH clean as a whistle, no cheating, no underhanded tactics, nothing.

   These kind of instances have been happening since the beginning of WWE, the injustice they did to Ron Simmons is telling enough. Ron Simmons was the first African American World Heavyweight champion ever in 1992. He achieved this accomplishment in Wcw before it was acquired by WWE, bu this is the first acknowledgement of an African American Champion by WWE. He signed with WWE in 1996 after a brief stunt in ECW and was given the name Faarooq and the gimmick of a gladiator. A Gladiator in ancient Rome was often a slave or captive, who were forced to fight to the death. They made the first African American World heavyweight championship a fucking Gladiator, He dropped this gimmick only to become to the stereotypical persona of being an angry black man, The Nation of Domination. A group of African Americans who were angry about their position in the company, this group consisted of Kama Mustafa( The Godfather), The Rock, Faarooq and D'Lo Brown, Savio Vega and Mark Henry.

There are three character situations to be found in almost all black African American wrestlers. First, the performer plays or has played a gimmick based on racial stereotype, The performer doesn't even have a notable character Or the performer is M.i.a from television and/or has never been used to play a significant role. Their given gimmick's such as  angry grouped together black men such as Cryme Tyme, Nation of Domination or the early portrayal of The New day.Their saddled with music or dancing gimmicks such as R-truth, Junkyard Dog and Koko B.Ware. Unfortunately as I stated before many African american wrestlers lack direction and end up as enhancement talent. All these talent are more of capable of being main event players but are stuck backstage eating catering or on their D- show Main Event.

Cryme Tyme is one of the most stereotypical gimmick's I've ever seen in WWE, their Cryme Tyme hype videos for the team's debut featured the phrase" Yo-yo-yo, pop a 40 and check your rollies". It also featured JTG & Shad assaulting police officers, robbing people and participating in other activities that are deemed illegal. They were used up until they were fired in 2007 because of a rib from Trevor Murdoch & Lance Cade gone wrong. During a live event, Cryme Tyme was suppose to go over but Murdoch & Cade had JTG counted out instead. Shad & JTG acted on instincts & hit their finisher ( The G9) on the referee of their match that night, ,they also took the belt off the referee which isn't something that was out of the ordinary for their gimmick considering they've done it multiple times. When Cryme Tyme got to gorilla position, Shad was taken aside alone by Barry Windham( their agent at the the time) and teared him a new one. Cryme Tyme was also later chewed out by John Cena and John Laurinaitis before Shad was let go the next night on RAW.

Micheal Hayes (former creative member but he's still in the company), was disciplined at one time for telling Mark Henry he was " more of a nigga then he( Henry) was". This is coming from a man who used to come out with a confederate flag during his wrestling days. Vince McMahon once said " Whats up my nigga " on a live episode of Monday Night Raw. Hulk Fucking Hogan was allowed back in the company even after getting caught going on a racist rant during a sex-tape with Heather Clem. He was caught on the video saying" I mean I don't have double standards. I mean,  am racist to a point.". He even went as far as to say, " I mean, If she (Brooke Hogan) was going to fuck some nigger, I'd rather have her marry an 8-foot tall nigger worth a hundred million dollars like a basketball player". Hulk fucking Hogan has been allowed back in the WWE as if nothing happened and have been welcomed by the fans who choose to believe their hero growing up isn't a piece of shit.

Titus O'Neil was suspended was 60 fucking days after TOUCHING Vince. Vince almost fired him for the incident but had to be talked down. Although WWE claimed it had nothing to do with race but with WWE's history I wouldn't put it by him to just have to insert his big dick energy anytime a black person in the company does anything that's not being a stereotypical black man on TV like be a gentlemen and try to let ladies go first to exit the stage.

This brings us to Kofi Kingston, in 2019 WWE made history by FINALLY crowning a African American WWE champion at Wrestlemania 35 against Daniel Bryan. As an African American just the possibility of Kofi Kingston becoming WWE champion was enough for me to make the trip to MetLife stadium , sit through an absolutely long and cold 8 hours to witness this moment. It personally meant the world to me, I had goosebumps and started to tear up with joy when Kofi Finally got the pinfall. Kofi Kingston had a great championship reign which ended unfortunately when Fox decided to make Smackdown the "A- Show" and had Brock Lesner defeat Kofi in the Smackdown live debut on Fox Network in FUCKING 6 SECONDS.  This was so disappointing to watch and such a slap in the face to the hard work and 11 years it took Kofi to get to that point.

In recent months, ACH has recently called out an WWE shirt made for him in which looks like a blackface. For those unfamiliar blackface is the term used for when white people would play a black person in a play using Greasepaint or shoe polish to cover their face and also exaggerate their lips. They would wear dirty and torn up clothes, gloves, wearing wooly wigs and wear tailcoats. This was because they didn't want to black people to be actors or entertainers.


This is why ACH was upset, this is why he is frustrated. Yes his mental health may not be the best right now, but imagine being black dealing with racism in your work place. Its going to take its toll on you. African American's have never been represented well in WWE and it's seriously time that changes. The fact WWE consistently gets caught doing racist things but continuously has the same people who said or did something racist in positions with powers or hold them treat them like immortal gods is so sickening and discouraging for the African american fan base that loves wrestling just as much as the white folks they're treating like the top priority.

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