12 BRUTAL Wrestling Ribs That Made It To Live TV

7. Akeem Gathers Dust

Some wrestling fans don’t believe that WWE takes the “war” against All Elite Wrestling seriously, since there’s no point. After all, WWE is handily beating AEW in every possible metric and the battle of public perception.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of WWE’s psyche, irrespective of who owns, runs and books the promotion. To this day, WWE still counter-programmes a company it perceives as a threat, and moreover, this philosophy has been ingrained in the promotion since Vince McMahon Jr. first took it over. It is the very origin story of the promotion.

At no point did Jim Crockett Promotions, despite being more critically acclaimed and boasting legitimate star power, ever stand a chance of thwarting the WWF expansion. That still didn’t stop Vince from throttling Starrcade, by positioning Survivor Series ‘87 directly against it under the proviso that any PPV carrier that opted to air the Crockett event would not be allowed to carry WrestleMania IV.

Nor did it stop Vince from creating an entire character, whose run lasted from October 1988 to October 1990 - Akeem - built around ribbing Dusty Rhodes. Akeem was a white guy promoted as the ‘African Dream’ who danced in the style of Dusty, who himself was no stranger to a spot of cultural appropriation.

This rib ran so long that the character was still a mainstay when Dusty himself arrived in the WWF. Dusty was actually ribbed twice concurrently; as Akeem was still on TV, Dusty was made to wear polka dots and repackaged as a total cartoon.

Getting ribbed twice, bloody hell. Daniel Bryan didn’t even get it that bad.