AEW: Why All Elite Wrestling should sign Arik Royal
All Elite Wrestling is currently lacking in top singles talent who are Black or People of Color in general. Whenever AEW finally decide to sign more POC talents, start with Arik Royal.
My colleague, Bruce Lee Hazelwood, recently went in depth on AEW’s lack of diversity among the men’s singles division. Which feels all the more glaring when the company’s president, Tony Khan, specifically and ambitiously promised that he’d hire more men of color to enter the singles division.
In fact, Khan straight up said that by the end of 2019, “you will see by the end of the year that I am committed to diversity and I am doing some exciting things to establish new stars both in the singles and tag division and getting some diversity in those roles.”
Perhaps he’s kept that promise with a tag division stacked with teams like Private Party and Lucha Bros. But as far as the singles division is concerned, save for exactly one POC featured in one of 15 one-on-one main events in Dynamite history (shoutout to Scorpio Sky, who’s a tag team competitor and, so, technically can’t even count as a singles star), Khan hasn’t done much more than show his backside.
For a company that has preached so much about inclusion and diversity, this isn’t a good look. Granted, it’s an easy correction if they go out of their way to look for more POC wrestlers to sign. There’s certainly a surplus of such wrestlers on the independent circuit today, if AEW need a place to start. The first one who comes to mind is one Arik Royal.
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Arik Royal is an indie star who has practically wrestled everywhere that is not a major indie promotion. So don’t expect to find footage of him in a place like Progress, Evolve, or even Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (except the one time he wrestled Tommy Dreamer in PWG, but that was a one time thing for WrestleCon).
Where you’ll find much of his highlights, however, is in a small fed called the Carolina Wrestling Federation Mid-Atlantic (or, simply, CWF Mid-Atlantic). Last month, he just wrapped up his third reign with the CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship, having succeeded Cameron Grimes before the latter jumped over to NXT.
It’s also worth noting that Royal’s first reign with the belt is the second longest reign in the title’s history at 560 days. Only the aforementioned Grimes holds a longer reign than him with 1,085 days, but take a look at anyone of Royal’s matches to see why CWF pushed him as the face of their product for as long as they did.
Check out his matches with future WWE Superstars like Kevin Owens, Cedric Alexander, or, again, Mr. Grimes, for further proof of Royal’s skillset. As a babyface, he knows exactly how to get the crowd hyped and on their feet. As a heel, he knows exactly how agitate fans enough to get a small crowd of 50 sound like a thousand roaring antagonists.
Beyond his charisma in the ring and on the mic, he is surprisingly agile for a big man, with enough of stamina in his tank to run frequent marathon matches. A huge bulk of his matches run at well over a half hour and, more often than not, hit the hour mark.
Even more surprising, as a towering, imposing vision of a man weighing in 264lbs, he can work a technical style. He’s incredibly versatile in that regard in that he can slug it out and pound someone into the ground just as easily as he can ground them with amateur, mat-based offense.
With 14 years worth of experience under his belt thus far, Arik Royal is a jack of all trades who has all the tools in his arsenal to be a superstar. He just has yet to achieve a huge breakout, but AEW could provide just that for him while being capable of filling out any role they ask of him as a singles star.
Put him in front of a big audience as a heel or babyface and he’ll create a strong connection with the fans just as he’s done with smaller crowds.
Next. AEW Dynamite: Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea Results, Highlights and Grades. dark
Obviously, just signing one Black man does not fix AEW’s POC issues, but signing one of the best wrestlers on the indies who just happens to be Black is a safe start. It would show that not only are they actually going out of their way to live up to earlier promises, it would show they actually have their ears to the streets when it comes to actually trying to find great, Black talent.