Pro Wrestling is racist?

[Jacob Fox]

I've only been watching since 2008 (did see some AE back when I was like nine years old, so can't claim to know shit lol), so can't claim to know anything about the history of the company like you do. Maybe you could argue Triple H should have dropped the strap to Booker at WM19, but...

As a casual getting into wrestling, I saw the two top titles as being "the top wrestler of that brand". When Mark Henry won the World Heavyweight Championship, congrats, he was at the top of the mountain. Awesome. Didn't think "Oh, this title didn't main event PPVs over the Raw one so it doesn't mean as much." Never understood that argument. Oh, so being the top guy on Smackdown doesn't mean anything because the belt opened Wrestlemania 27. Cool, lol

In recent history, I've heard "Mark Henry should have won the WHC after doing the fake retirement promo!!!!"... and messed up Daniel Bryan vs John Cena at Summerslam? No!
"Oh, but the Hall of Pain gimmick was great! He could have carried the company!" Yeah, bring over Mark Henry to Raw instead of doing the Summer of Punk just to avoid this random stat. Great idea.
I'm all for guys like Shelton and Kofi getting title shots, because being a "midcarder for life" is a MASSIVE problem in WWE. But their skin pigmentation isn't why they haven't been champion.
Hell, I've even heard about people throwing out Titus O'Neil for this, despite usually not being in the top 20 guys you think of to push in WWE lol

And the other story that comes to mind is December to Dismember 2006, the show that drove Paul Heyman away as he and VKM were feuding over who should win the main event. Heyman wanted CM Punk to look strong coming out of the show (and even talked about Big Show agreeing to tap out to him early in the match), while Vince wanted Bobby Lashley to be a big star, and obviously Vince got his way. And he gave Lashley the rocket ship and really wanted to make something out of that guy, but that always gets conveniently left out of the argument.

Couldn't agree more.

Well I did miss a few years and when I came back, WCW was gone and we had 2 world titles in WWE. I never for one moment thought the WHC was a lower belt and can't really understand that thinking anymore than if someone claimed the WCW Championship was a lesser belt than the WWF belt in the early 90s... they are both the top belt.

 

[Pop Tatari]

To use Mark Henry to try and prove a point is lol worthy. Great gimmick but he is a total bore to watch in the ring, plus whc was still credible at a time.

They are racist to Brits:eww2:

 

[The GOAT]

Racism is just a convenient excuse to slam the company for not pushing the people you want them to. So-and-so who's black didn't win the world title or didn't get the push they deserved (or that you thought they deserved), so it must be because the company doesn't like black people. The problem with this line of thinking is that for every black wrestler that didn't get a main event push, there's probably at least anywhere between five to ten non-black wrestlers that you could argue were deserving and got nothing either.

Also, people need to smarten up and realize that racism isn't limited to only hating on blacks. It means a person of any one race thinking they're superior to any other race. You can love black folks and still be racist if you hate any other ethnicity. Reason I'm pointing this out is because WWE has given championships to Mexicans, Samoans, Filipinos, Asians, etc. and yet all of that conveniently gets ignored. Blacks have won multiple championships too, just because they didn't win the top prize shouldn't mean anything.

As for Booker T. losing to HHH at WM19 goes, that had everything to do with Goldberg having just signed with the company (he actually made his first-ever WWE appearance the very next night) and nothing to do with Booker's skin color. The idea was to keep the title on Hunter for as long as possible so that Goldberg finally being the one to dethrone him would be a bigger deal. Booker winning it and then losing it back to HHH a month or two later just so Hunter could then immediately lose it again himself to Goldberg does nothing for no one. Such a short and insignificant title reign does nothing to 'make' Booker or give him any kind of serious rub, and it arguably takes some of the sting out of Goldberg beating Hunter for the belt if HHH had only been champion again for a very short time again, too. Don't get me wrong - even if Goldberg had shown no interest in signing around that time, Hunter would have likely just found some other reason not to drop the title to Booker, but there WAS a valid justification for why HHH went over that night. Race certainly played no part in it. Hell, Booker was only a back-up opponent for Hunter that year anyway - it was supposed to be a returning Austin losing to HHH but due to other circumstances, they were forced to rearrange the card a bit.

Plus, Booker ended up later winning the WHC back when the WHC still meant as much (or nearly as much) as the WWE Title. He headlined three PPV's as champion (four when you count the one where he won the title), and one of those included pinning John Cena. He did just fine for himself.

 

[edge4ever]

There's no race issue, that's absurd. The fact is that there's also far fewer black pro wrestlers in the world. People forget that. And the only who came close, and decided to leave, was bobbly lashley. I have no doubt in my mind that he would've won and been on top for a bit. But he left and didn't. Booker t and mark Henry have both been on top too. This is all propaganda. Read this list of all black pro wrestlers:

Category:African-American professional wrestlers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's like it

 

[Aids Johnson]

I've only been watching since 2008 (did see some AE back when I was like nine years old, so can't claim to know shit lol), so can't claim to know anything about the history of the company like you do. Maybe you could argue Triple H should have dropped the strap to Booker at WM19, but...

As a casual getting into wrestling, I saw the two top titles as being "the top wrestler of that brand". When Mark Henry won the World Heavyweight Championship, congrats, he was at the top of the mountain. Awesome. Didn't think "Oh, this title didn't main event PPVs over the Raw one so it doesn't mean as much." Never understood that argument. Oh, so being the top guy on Smackdown doesn't mean anything because the belt opened Wrestlemania 27. Cool, lol

In recent history, I've heard "Mark Henry should have won the WHC after doing the fake retirement promo!!!!"... and messed up Daniel Bryan vs John Cena at Summerslam? No!
"Oh, but the Hall of Pain gimmick was great! He could have carried the company!" Yeah, bring over Mark Henry to Raw instead of doing the Summer of Punk just to avoid this random stat. Great idea.
I'm all for guys like Shelton and Kofi getting title shots, because being a "midcarder for life" is a MASSIVE problem in WWE. But their skin pigmentation isn't why they haven't been champion.
Hell, I've even heard about people throwing out Titus O'Neil for this, despite usually not being in the top 20 guys you think of to push in WWE lol

And the other story that comes to mind is December to Dismember 2006, the show that drove Paul Heyman away as he and VKM were feuding over who should win the main event. Heyman wanted CM Punk to look strong coming out of the show (and even talked about Big Show agreeing to tap out to him early in the match), while Vince wanted Bobby Lashley to be a big star, and obviously Vince got his way. And he gave Lashley the rocket ship and really wanted to make something out of that guy, but that always gets conveniently left out of the argument.

Started watching Wrestling in 2008 - brings up 2006.

Is "blacks" a PC term Lock? lmao.

 

[The GOAT]

Is "blacks" a PC term Lock? lmao.

Pretty sure it's the non-PC one, along with "dark-skinned gentleman", ''colored fella", and "nagger", all which I'm fond of using as well. African-American is what the PC crowd prefers.

 

[TMBS]

white powder

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

 

[Aids Johnson]

Pretty sure it's the non-PC one, along with "dark-skinned gentleman", ''colored fella", and "nagger", all which I'm fond of using as well. African-American is what the PC crowd prefers.

Ninja is my non-pc term overused. All are terrible.

You used to call me on my cell phone.

 

[Jacob Fox]

Pretty sure it's the non-PC one, along with "dark-skinned gentleman", ''colored fella", and "nagger", all which I'm fond of using as well. African-American is what the PC crowd prefers.

It's amusing because the first time that I ever used the term "African American" to refer to someone, it was a Jamaican who then proceeded to get angry as hell at me for just assuming because she was black that she was African American.

But I've never had anyone upset at me for calling them black.

 

[Aids Johnson]

It's amusing because the first time that I ever used the term "African American" to refer to someone, it was a Jamaican who then proceeded to get angry as hell at me for just assuming because she was black that she was African American.

But I've never had anyone upset at me for calling them black.

You can call me black anytime.

 

[TMBS]

You can call me black anytime.

hi Black Anytime

 

[Aids Johnson]

hi Black Anytime

You racist.

 

[Neptune]

Before reading this, it's probably important to know that I am 25% American Indian and I am directly descended from a black slave... a fact of which I am immensely proud. My response to this article has NOTHING to do with race and EVERYTHING to do with bad arguing. Anyone who knows me well knows that I couldn't care less about someone's opinion but what I do hate is bad arguing, committing fallacies and skewing facts to support one's premise.

I like Mark Henry but to claim he has one of the greatest resumes in WWE is hyperbole in its truest form. Mark Henry has been around a while and is pretty strong and has been a part of some entertaining angles, but to rank him with WWE's elite shows a real lack of knowledge of history. More often than not, Henry lingered in the midcard while occasionally being given a title run. He's strong, but not that outstanding of a wrestler, relying on power moves and very limited flexibility in an age when fans wanted fast action with tons of arial moves and such. Don't get me wrong, I like Mark Henry, but he never would have been successful as face of the company.

In regards to Booker T's championships in WCW, he was also 5 times champion of WCW when WCW was in its nosedive NOT when WCW was beating WWE in the ratings. Unlike what this writer claims, Booker did not win his first championship until WWE was destroying WCW in the ratings. They more than likely called Booker an underdog because he was WCW champion and the WWE was portraying holding that belt as a lesser accomplishment than holding the WWE belt. I personally don't think that matters at all, but it was the article writer who brought it up as if if it did, not me.

Arguably the most popular wrestler in the history of pro wrestling is half Nova Scotian black and half Samoan. He's a ten time world champion and basically has his way with ANYONE on the roster when he comes back. So because the Rock is half Samoan, he doesn't count as a black man who was the face of the company? And the claim that the Rock only identifies as Samoan is not only WRONG but irrelevant. Did we forget the Nation of Domination? Even if he did, that doesn't negate the fact that he IS black and he WAS WWE World Heavyweight Champion a total of 8 times.I think the author's poor treatment of these facts is pretty lousy if you ask me.

This guy actually tries to make the case that because the Rock identifies as Samoan, that he doesn't count as being a black WWE World Heavyweight Champion. How stupid is that thinking? You can't change your ethnicity because of how you think... and the Rock doesn't even think the way this guy claims he does. The irony here is that by claiming that the Rock was NOT the first black WWE Champion, the writer of this article is making a racist statement against the Rock. He is negating the Rock's heritage because he's not 100% black.

While there may be a race problem in the WWE, I won't say that there isn't, this is a poorly written article that twists facts to support it's premise. The real sad thing about it is that people who read it will recognize the flaws and assume that there isn't a race problem because the author had to lie and distort facts to support that premise. He could have supported his premise with actual research and there are more than enough facts to support it.. but he chose not to do this and caused more damage to his own cause than help.

FIVE TIME! FIVE TIME! FIVE TIME! FIVE TIME! FIVE TIME!

And yes, it does twist a lot and make certain people look like victims when it comes down to who has/had the most talent, who drew the biggest crowds, and who was willing to join the kiss my ass club.
:happy2:

 

[Neptune]

And I am reporting you all for racism.