Black History Month Roundtable: Celebrating Black excellence in wrestling

How do you think Black people are represented overall in wrestling media? Positive? Negative? Could it be better?

Anthony: I think there’s always room for improved representation of black people in wrestling media. It’s important for our voices and perspectives to be heard.

Chris: This is a tricky one to answer. Based on what I’ve seen, Black wrestlers today garner plenty of praise for their work (it helps that a lot of them are great at their jobs), but the criticisms they receive tend to expose a double standard that exists for black people in any industry in regard to exceptionalism and behavior.

Remember that clip from “Bryan and Vinny” that made the rounds on where Bryan Alvarez and Vinny Verhei nitpicked Naomi’s spot in the Royal Rumble, despite there being worse spots in the match that had more of a bearing on its quality?

Or when Twitter herbs criticized Sasha Banks for appearing to “bite the hand that feeds her” for simply teasing her departure shortly after losing the women’s tag titles at WrestleMania (likely from the same sorts of fans that proudly called her “ratchet” when she was in NXT), even when a lot of those people offered support for The Revival doing the same thing (and probably would have if, say, Nikki Cross did)?

Things have undoubtedly gotten better, but far too many fans still expect excellence out of black wrestlers while praising baseline competence for others while also viewing them more as commodities than actual people.

David: I feel like in general black people can be represented in the media more. I feel we’re generally treated like we’re “just there.” I think a big reason for that is because the more “known” voices are white. Don’t sleep though because we’re coming up. We all know so many talented writers and content creators that are black.

Kyla: The way that black people are represented in wrestling media could be better. As previously stated, black wrestlers are being given better opportunities, however it is clearly evident that these individuals are often overlooked for other races (although this may not necessarily be due to race).

The feud that Rhea Ripley struck up a few weeks ago against Charlotte Flair shows just how black wrestlers are overlooked in the wrestling industry and in wrestling media. While Ripley went straight for Flair in an attempt to gain a match at WrestleMania (which she successfully earned), Bianca Belair was left in the dust as if her title shot opportunity against Ripley at NXT TakeOver: Portland meant nothing.

Even when the verbal warfare between Flair and Ripley took place on NXT, the two women barely acknowledged Bianca Belair and treated her as if she wasn’t even in the ring!The whole Kofi losing the WWE Universal title he worked 10 years to earn in less than 10 seconds, was a completely negative representation of black wrestlers and was also a poor judgement call.

After working so hard to earn the gold, losing it so fast makes it seem like all his efforts were for nothing. It was as if the WWE were trying to state that a guy like Kofi couldn’t even begin to compete with a guy like Brock Lesnar.

So yes, black people can be represented better in wrestling media. From the example above, WWE could have held off on the promotion of Flair vs. Ripley at WrestleMania for a few short weeks to place a little more emphasis on Rhea’s title defense against Bianca and how Ripley has her work cut out for her, even if there was a slim chance for Bianca to come out with the victory. When it comes to Kofi, his match deserved at least a hard fought battle.

Phil: I don’t think black people are represented particularly well in wrestling media because I don’t think there are enough black voices in the field. As a result, there aren’t enough people who know how to speak to our unique experiences or properly express our frustrations with something that is legitimately offensive.

I also don’t think enough outlets call out racism in the industry and take a stance on it. There also many nuanced subjects that either aren’t addressed at all or given the proper commentary.

Raphael: It could be better. Outside of FanSided, not many outlets hire enough people of color to do podcasts or write content with a POC-view on topics/discussions. The industry is SLOWLY coming around when it comes to women’s wrestling but I think Black people in the space are even further behind.