Wrestling With Racism
I make no bones about it: I love pro wrestling. I've loved it since I was a little kid, cheering for Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka and Hulk Hogan and Bruno Samartino. I remember when Hulk Hogan body-slammed the 7-foot, 500-pound Andre The Giant and it was all classmates talked about in my 5th grade class for days. Ot's been everything from a sit-down-and-
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In fact, I'll go as far as to say that the racial overtones have been a part of WWF/WWE for as long as its been around.
Back in the early 90's Tony Atlas desperately needed work, and turned to Vince. Now, Tony Atlas was famous enough in his own right. He still had a great body, and plus, he was 1/2 of the first African American tag team champions (along with The Rock's father, Rocky Johnson). He could have been marketed as himself coming back for "one last run". Instead, Vince dressed him up as a wild native from the jungles of Africa. His costume consisted of a loin cloth and (I swear to God that I'm not making this up)a headdress that was almost as large as his whole body. Thus begot "Saba Simba". Needless to say, the gimmick never caught on with the fans. After a few appearances on "Wrestling Challenge", Saba Simba headed back to the jungle, and poor Tony Atlas was out of a job again.
There have been countless other racist gimmicks in pro wrestling, and it wasn't all confined to WWE. And, boy, did WCW had its share..
To start off with, lets talk about the time period when the NWO was starting to fizzle out, WCW tried to freshen things up by bring in basically anybody who had had any sort of notoriety in the WWF.
One of those folks turned out to be Mike Jones, the man formerly known as "Virgil", The Million Dollar Man's body guard. Now, WCW wasn't allowed to call him "Virgil", mind you (when you sign a WWE contract, you basically turn your entire life over to Vince. For ever.) Instead, they decided to call him "Vincent". This was done as a not-so-inside joke intended to be at Vince McMahon's expense. They figured that nothing would piss him off more than having them name a black wrestler after him.
That could be considered "light" racism compared to what they originally wanted to do with Booker T. As you know, he eventually went on to considerable fame along with his brother Stevie Ray as the tag team Harlem Heat. Well, the original idea for them was to have them come out to the ring chained together along with their manager (or rather, owner) Colonel Rob Parker. That's right folks... The minds at WCW thought it would be ok to introduce a slave gimmick!!
So, Shawn, on this topic, I absolutely agree that you are right on the mark.
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Holy crap.
I just... that is...
...words.
Okay, back. Thanks for filling in the gaps; I'm not as familiar with my WCW history, and you're right, other companies do have thier share. The one I can think off the top of my head would be Raeesha Saaed character in TNA who wrestles and makes appearances in a niqab, speaks in broken English and with a fake accent (she's really Melissa Marie Anderson).
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But, anyway, two of the defining factors of old-school wrestling promoters is having the maturity of a 10-year-old and the social sensitivity of a cardboard box, so that's why you'll see this stuff everywhere.
On the flip side, I don't know how familiar you are with the current WWE product, but they've cleaned up their act considerably. I think that its partly due to the new "PG" rating and also partly due to his kids and other young, more socially conscious people having the creative role rather than just Vince and his good ol' boys.
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