Like many sports around the world, professional wrestling is an industry where performers from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds compete as (perceived) equals, vying against each other in a series of contests to capture championships, win matches and gain in-ring glory. While wrestling is escapism from the real world and should never be confused for anything else, often a bit of the real world creeps in. Race and racism often find their way into storylines, sometimes in an innocuous way, sometimes drawing fans focus away from what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the content of their character. Go back 20-plus years and its easy to find examples of racism littered throughout WWE, whether its Jesse Ventura calling Tito Santana Chico and his forearm the flying burrito, or Mr. Fuji and Don Muraco using terms like yard ape, Puerto Rican hubcap thief or honky. Its nowhere near that level today, but some racist elements remained throughout the modern era. Even when used with the best of intentions getting wrestlers over, setting a villain up for comeuppance racist storylines and characterizations dont do anyone any favors in the long run. They can pull fans out of their escapist moment and provide a painful reminder that even though many would like to believe that everyone should be judged on the content of their character, sometimes its the color of wrestlers skin that defines their character. Highlighted here are 10 more recent examples of potentially racist storylines in WWE. Feel free to chime in with others in the comments. Lets be clear here though: In no way does pointing out these examples insinuate that the person is racist.
Honorable Mention: White Boy Challenge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnBmTn7tl1s Today, Teddy Long is the former Smackdown general manager who calls everyone playa and has a penchant for making tag team matches. But in the mid-2000s, he was a bitter manager complaining that the man was holding him and his stable (appropriately named Thuggin and Buggin Enterprises) down. While managing Rodney Mack, Long instituted the White Boy Challenge, where hed ask for any white wrestler to come out and last against Mack for five minutes. For a while, Mack was successful at defeating some jobbers, but when Goldberg answered the call, that was that for Mack. Overall, Long using race did nothing to advance an angle or build a successful career for any of his charges.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
