Black History Month Roundtable: Celebrating Black excellence in wrestling

There’s been a significant lack of Black WWE Champions in the past 40 years. What larger issues does that speak to not only with WWE, but Black representation in wrestling overall? Are there ways to fix this?

Anthony: It gives off the message — intentionally or not — that black wrestlers aren’t trustworthy in headlining roles and with WWE being the industry leader, that has a reverberating effect. In WWE especially, it’s disheartening because there’s a lot of black wrestlers that could’ve been given a title run or at least a trial that just never got their opportunity.

With the talent that’s on their roster currently, they need to be given that opportunity.

Chris: The lack of Black WWE Champions speaks to a continuing issue of perception that Black wrestlers can only reach a certain level of success in the industry. Even in the few occasions where a Black wrestler wins the world title, mainly in WWE, it almost signifies that the company’s anointed them as a headline attraction; they’re either playing second fiddle to the other world champion in the company or they’re keeping the belt warm for whoever the real top star is.

Kofi Kingston’s reign was a prime example of this: after he won the title, WWE put him in secondary programs and treated him like a fluke champion who was on a magic carpet ride before they had Brock Lesnar squash him like a bug and send him back to the tag team division.

For WWE to fix this, it wouldn’t take much more than abiding by the meritocracy that I’m sure many defenders of the company say goes into these processes.

But that would also require the people in charge to set aside their biases and flush any notion of pushing someone to “fill a quota” down the toilet since most of us know that the lack of Black representation and career advancement has nothing to do with merit. So the answer for would be for WWE to be as egalitarian as they purport themselves to be.

David: I think one of the key ways to fix this is to hire more black staff and front office staff. I’m talking more black people in marketing, creative, production, etc. Once it becomes normal to have more black people in the inside, it’ll make it easier for their perspectives to be understood.

Kyla: A large part of who becomes champion has to do with how much crowd appeal an individual receives, whether it be satisfactory or unsatisfactory, but in order to gain crowd appeal you have to be able to get a booking. The larger issue at play here has to do with the lack of bookings for black wrestlers. If they can’t get booked, gaining crowd appeal can be pretty difficult.

Another reason for the lack of black WWE Champions can be due to the fandom as a whole. WWE fans are predominantly made up of white males, so it would only make sense for the top competitor (whom the entire WWE Universe theoretically looks up to) to be similar to the majority of the fan base.

Nevertheless all wrestlers, regardless of their race, should have a fair shot at earning the WWE Championship. The easiest way to fix this would be to give a fair, non-predetermined match for the title, but unfortunately the chances of this happening are slim since profit means more to corporate than who does and doesn’t get booked.

Phil: Honestly, I think black fans are continuously underestimated and underappreciated. That’s part of the reason we don’t see that many black world champions. There’s still this assumption that we aren’t a large and passionate part of the fanbase.

More than that, I feel some companies believe non-black won’t connect with a black champion. That needs to change. Companies need to see some of their talent as more than just their race or a targeted audience.

They need to push all of their stars equally and give black wrestlers character development so that fans can get behind them. The reason KofiMania happened is that it was a story anyone could relate too. There needs to be more of that.

Raphael: It speaks to the lack of POC in positions of leadership within major professional wrestling organizations. Is there one black person making or assisting making decisions backstage at WWE?

AEW? ROH? Impact? NJPW? Anywhere? I’m willing to bet the answer to that question is no and it shows in the decisions that are made when booking people of color on television and other situations that occur backstage.