7 Incredibly Messed Up Allegations From WCW's Racial Discrimination Lawsuits

1. Lots Of People Said And Did Lots Of Really Racist Things

This is really what the suit came down to. Cary Ichter, who was the plaintiffs' lead attorney in both the Onoo and Stevie Ray cases, has dealt with his fair share of discrimination lawsuits in his practice (on the defendants' side, as well), to the point he estimated it made up about 10-20% of the cases he's handled. In terms of the racism and discrimination being pervasive, WCW was among the very worst companies he's seen. One of the strangest recurring themes in the comments cited is that WCW bookers and executives wouldn't push black wrestlers to cater to black fans because they thought black fans didn't watch WCW, and if they did, they didn't/wouldn't buy tickets. One look at WCW crowds compared to WWF crowds at the time shows this is completely ludicrous. WCW always had a higher percentage of black fans at TV tapings. Their strongest cities, both during the boom period and in down times, all had large black populations like their Atlanta home base, Baltimore (held the WCW live gate record from 1989 to 1996), Philadelphia, Houston, New Orleans, and St. Louis. Still, according to Ernest Miller (and supported by testimony from Jimmy Hart), at one point a certain member of the booking committee (who's still working in pro wrestling) told him that "we only have white fans and they're to look at you as a n****r ." Similarly, WCW production staffer Moses Williams added that he heard the same booker talking to another member of the committee about how "Blacks don't buy wrestling tickets" and "Black folks don't buy wrestling tickets anyway, wrestling fans are white." There's close to 50 pages of this stuff, but some of the "highlights" include Onoo alleging that a WWE Hall of Famer who worked as a road agent once stated that "n*****s" were responsible for "unemployment and rapes" as well as referee Randy Anderson recalling an executive describing Hardbody Harrison's hair and outfit as "too n****rish for my television" and a current WWE road agent regularly using the word "n****r," including to describe Teddy Long. And that just barely scratches the surface. Every single wrestler who was still a party to the Onoo lawsuit (some dropped out) when it was resolved in 2003 received a settlement. While Ichter is bound by the terms of the settlement and can't disclose the amount WCW paid out, the general belief in the wrestling business is that all of the plaintiffs got rich, with one eventually buying a large property with multiple houses on it.