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JULY WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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Wrestling is not politically correct and that makes me really happy. It's one of the few corners of entertainment that doesn't take itself too seriously. 

 

If you go through wrestling history, you can make arguments forever about who was overpushed/underpushed, point the finger at dopey angles, etc but I can't remember an African American wrestler who had company ace/ very top of the card main eventer written all over him and didn't get there because of any reason, let alone race. 

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The worst part was the article originally didn't mention The Rock at all.  Then the author said something on twitter about how "I can't make The Rock a black man just because people want him to be." And then he added the wishy-washy "Samoan, not black" part in the article.

 

It has a lot of valid points that he undercuts himself on by being a moron.

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Oh, and I am stealing this from a comment on With Leather's article about this article, and paraphrasing, but:

 

The Rock's Samoan history is definitely why he was champion, following in the footsteps of former great Samoan WWF champions like Yokozuna and....   Yokuzona.

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It has a lot of valid points that he undercuts himself on by being a moron.

 

Agreed. I hate it when someone has some great points to make and they just trip the hell all over themselves. 

 

Refusing to see an issue with how WWE portrays people of color is some pretty strong white privilege. I blame the writer for leaving enough noose for the 'not all whites' crowd to hang the guy, even though he is very, VERY correct. 

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You could really make similar arguments about anything wrestling related with a big enough sample size. 

 

For example, over the past decade there have been three wrestlers with the WWE from Long Island (Ryder, Hawkins and Barreta)  Each were young, with pretty good looks and decent enough in the ring.

 

First, Ryder and Hawkins were portrayed as brothers because everyone from Long Island looks the same. 

 

Then when they split, Ryder was given the gimmick of a walking, talking stereotype of a Long Islander. Then when he actually got over without help from the office, he was buried. 

 

Hawkins spent a few years jobbing before being placed in a tag team where he portrayed a male stripper. Further embarrassment was sure to follow if his tag partner had not had enough and asked for his release.

 

Barreta has the distinction of being a John Cena project. You would assume that this would mean Barreta would've gotten tv time. Instead, he got released at a time when no one was getting released.

 

WWE has a Long Island problem.  

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The Rusev talking point is one that really needs to go away. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with how the face side of the roster is constructed. Fandango worked almost exclusively with all the guys Rusev did, the only difference being that Rusev is a monster heel who won and moved on and Fandango is a comedy heel who traded wins back and fourth with them forever.

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Inside the brand new issue of the magazine. Finlay Martin says that this is the final edition of the magazine:

BsgSRE-CMAAulmL.jpg

:(

Have had a love/hate or combative relationship with the magazine the last ten years. But it was a real outlet for UK/Irish fanaticism and for those who went further - wrestlers extending to WWE/TNA stars to managers, promoters, writers, podcasters, other publishers etc. At launch it's approach and design was really revolution. Helped spread the word about ECW, Puro and Lucha in particular. Also gave me something to read in class during secondary school. :P

The loss of any long standing publication and a small business sucks.

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Yes, let's completely divorce race/ethnicity from the Slavic heel gimmick, there's no connection there.

The author gets shit wrong, but the basic premise, that wrestling is stuck in a bygone era when it comes to its portrayal of race, is entirely correct. People deriding this as "PC" and lauding wrestling for not bothering to evolve are just entirely too comfortable with their privilege.

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I haven't read the article yet. Wrestling has moved passed the "black wrestlers are impervious to head butts" trope. But we still see Naomi who uses an ass-based finisher (and twerks) because, you know, African-American ladies have big asses and love to show that off.

Cryme Time was so woeful and repugnant. I get that it was supposed to be a "Homeboy Shopping Network" thing but it was so dumb.

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I have to say that, at least in terms of how black wrestlers are portrayed, I don't mind some of the trashy stereotypical stuff. For example, I see why Slick is problematic, but Slick is just a very black-specific caricature that I have met before in real life, and that part of it is really funny and spot-on to me. It's like Crush being an Aryan biker, which is problematic in some ways, but also at least a caricature based on a real, specific type of person (as I have met those types before, too). 

 

I tend to be more bothered by portrayals of people that I perceive to have less social capital than I do. For example, Ultimate Warrior cutting a homophobic promo on Goldust in 1996 bothers me WAY more than Lex Luger cutting a racist promo on Ron Simmons or HHH cutting a racist promo on Booker T because I perceive that gay folks have it worse than I do in that regard. I would find the stereotypical way that WWE would treat a trans-gendered character to be just totally unacceptable from the get-go because trans-gendered folks have it far worse than I do in this country. 

 

Just one man's observation. 

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I have to say that, at least in terms of how black wrestlers are portrayed, I don't mind some of the trashy stereotypical stuff. For example, I see why Slick is problematic, but Slick is just a very black-specific caricature that I have met before in real life, and that part of it is really funny and spot-on to me. It's like Crush being an Aryan biker, which is problematic in some ways, but also at least a caricature based on a real, specific type of person (as I have met those types before, too).

So, just to be clear, you're absolutely fine with negative racial stereotypes as wrestling gimmicks as long as there's people in real life who resemble those gimmicks?

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I have to say that, at least in terms of how black wrestlers are portrayed, I don't mind some of the trashy stereotypical stuff. For example, I see why Slick is problematic, but Slick is just a very black-specific caricature that I have met before in real life, and that part of it is really funny and spot-on to me. It's like Crush being an Aryan biker, which is problematic in some ways, but also at least a caricature based on a real, specific type of person (as I have met those types before, too).

So, just to be clear, you're absolutely fine with negative racial stereotypes as wrestling gimmicks as long as there's people in real life who resemble those gimmicks?

 

 

I think, in the end, I am. I know that sounds awful, but there's just a major difference to me between something like Slick and something like Kamala. One is a caricature that at least has some semblance of reality, and recognizing that semblance is what makes the character enjoyable or at least partially authentic. The other is a caricature that was just made up in order to keep the "Dark Continent" myth going. 

 

Stereotypes and stock characters will never fall out of use in entertainment because broad strokes are typically easier to present and write for/about. The problem really is the audience being too uncritical (or too stupid) to understand the difference between a stereotype and reality. For example, Dave Chappelle presented stereotypes on his sketch show (though much of the time, his goal was to mock those stereotypes), but there were people in the audience that didn't get it. 

 

But I do want to stress that for me, it 1.) depends on the context of each gimmick and 2.) whether or not the person presenting the stereotype actually believes the stereotype to be true. If Michael Hayes has someone do a "black preacher" gimmick, that's way more of an issue to me. 

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Haven't read the article yet, but was there any mention of Ahmed Johnson?  He was on the fast track at first(bodyslamming Yokozuna right out of the gate), but injuries derailed him...he could have been pushed to that level at the rate he was going.

 

I absolutely loved Ahmed Johnson. He was always so pumped-up and intense, and his Pearl River Plunge had something fantastic to me. Watching him feud with Vader and the rest of Jim Cornette's ilk was great.

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Anything can be construed as objectionable if you want it to be. I didn’t know Naomis moveset was borderline racist til today. Now I’ll fast forward through her matches twice as fast.

 

Remember, this is a company who in the last decade:

 

A.) Featured a very short wrestler they dressed up as a bull who isn't treated like a human.

B)  Featured A very short wrestler who is treated as a leprechaun who was given the gift of speech by Mick Foley dressed as Santa Claus.

C) An owner who mocked on national television the facial impairment of his play by play guy.

D) A diva who was repeatedly fat shamed on national television.

E) Foreigners who routinely come out to foreign stock music right out of a 1940s looney tunes cartoon.

F) A vegan who spent his first two years in the company being mercilessly mocked for it.

G) An Irishman who likes to drink and have a good time.

H) Tag team champs who were introduced as wild savage samoans

 

I don’t think that any group is singled out worse than any others but race is always a hot button issue which for some reason brings more discussion.

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I have to say that, at least in terms of how black wrestlers are portrayed, I don't mind some of the trashy stereotypical stuff. For example, I see why Slick is problematic, but Slick is just a very black-specific caricature that I have met before in real life, and that part of it is really funny and spot-on to me. It's like Crush being an Aryan biker, which is problematic in some ways, but also at least a caricature based on a real, specific type of person (as I have met those types before, too).

So, just to be clear, you're absolutely fine with negative racial stereotypes as wrestling gimmicks as long as there's people in real life who resemble those gimmicks?

 

I think, in the end, I am. I know that sounds awful, but there's just a major difference to me between something like Slick and something like Kamala. One is a caricature that at least has some semblance of reality, and recognizing that semblance is what makes the character enjoyable or at least partially authentic. The other is a caricature that was just made up in order to keep the "Dark Continent" myth going. 

 

Stereotypes and stock characters will never fall out of use in entertainment because broad strokes are typically easier to present and write for/about. The problem really is the audience being too uncritical (or too stupid) to understand the difference between a stereotype and reality. For example, Dave Chappelle presented stereotypes on his sketch show (though much of the time, his goal was to mock those stereotypes), but there were people in the audience that didn't get it. 

 

But I do want to stress that for me, it 1.) depends on the context of each gimmick and 2.) whether or not the person presenting the stereotype actually believes the stereotype to be true. If Michael Hayes has someone do a "black preacher" gimmick, that's way more of an issue to me.

But doesn't this mean you're just deliberately making the choice to be uncritical because you're amused by the gimmick and/or can relate to it from personal experience? Do we need the involvement of an overt racist like Michael Hayes to decide that something is (or at least should be) a relic of a bygone era?

I don't think any of the people (or at the very worst, most of the people) behind Cryme Tyme sat down and thought "Let's see, how can we package these two black wrestlers in the most insulting way possible?" but given the end product, I don't see how we could say there wasn't a pretty hefty streak of racism that went into that.

Stereotypes DO fall out of use. They fall out of use when society stands up and says "No, that's not okay." When's the last time you saw anyone in blackface without it being apparent that it was presenting the person or character that chose to put on blackface as a moron? Hell, for me, it was Piper.

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Ahmed Johnson was a guilty pleasure at the time.

 

Oddly, so was Cryme Tyme and so was Kerwin White.

 

I remember a backstage bit where Kerwin warned Vince against traveling through certain neighborhoods because there were "a lot of Mexicans" there.  So wrong.

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