5 Reasons Why WWE Can't Stop Being Racist

4. Wrestling Is A Morality Play, And There's Arguably Nothing More Immoral Than Racism

Dion Beary's piece in The Atlantic makes reference to the buildup to Wrestlemania XIX's match between "wannabe Ric Flair" era Triple H and Hall of Fame black wrestler Booker T, which, in recalling Ric Flair's 1990 feud with the Junkyard Dog over the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, invoked racism.

€œSomebody like you doesn€™t get to be a world champion,€ Triple H told Booker T during a promo, a segment meant to build excitement for a match. Triple H made mention of Booker€™s €œnappy hair,€ and claimed Booker was in the WWE to make people laugh, to be an entertainer rather than a competitor, to €œdo a little dance€ for him.

The crowd ate it up, and loud €œASSHOLE€ chants rained down on Triple H. The next week, Booker T gave an impassioned talk about his past, about how he€™s overcome every obstacle that has been put in his way in his life, and how he was going to beat the odds again at Wrestlemania 19 to become the world champion. It was, in one sense, brilliant storytelling. Hollywood is chock-full of plots that involve scrappy minorities overcoming racism to accomplish their dreams. With Triple H as the franchise, and the franchise€™s job being to eventually lose to the underdog, fans were thoroughly in the corner of Booker T. The storybook ending just made so much sense.

And then Triple H won. 1-2-3. There was no cheating, no controversial finish, no ambiguity about it.

For as much as this is a sad finish to a main event wrestling match, it also mirrors Ric Flair's similar 1990 feud with the Junkyard Dog, especially when considering the verbiage from this Flair promo from May 26, 1990:

"At the Clash of the Champions, Ric Flair will be wrestling everybody's black hero, the Junkyard Dog. Now Dog, there's a lot of people in this sport that I don't like, for professional reasons. For personal reasons, I don't like you. A minute ago, you made the mistake of jumping on a six-million dollar athlete." Continuing, Flair says, "You will never high five Michael Jackson, you will never high five Mike Tyson, you will never sit on Arsenio Hall's show and say that you're the first black heavyweight champion of the world, over my dead body! You will not go into the record books at my expense!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZlaB34odxg

Racism is terrible. Also, similarly terrible acts include lying, cheating, stealing, setting people on fire, attempted homicide and attempted vehicular manslaughter, too. Insofar as the bottom line in professional wrestling being foremost a financial one, racism is just as in play (and possibly potentially more of an income driver) as any other storytelling device used to create controversy and intrigue. Ultimately one must remember that pro wrestling is not ideally concerned at first with good taste. When it comes to putting butts in seats and drawing pay-per-view buys, compelling personal issues are ideal.