Hey, its another month, which means that WWE is going to find something new to brag about! Now Black History Month is a great idea, and its important for people to celebrate and learn more about African American history. What isnt so great is that WWE makes this one of their causes every year when they should instead be feeling shame. On Monday, they aired an Ernie Ladd video package. On Thursday, they aired it again. Is that an oversight, or it was because theyve pushed so few African Americans in meaningful roles over the years that there's only so many videos they can make? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vji5hJl7ovQ For starters, the company has still yet to make a black man their WWE Champion (Ron Simmons was a WCW World Heavyweight Champion in 1992 and TNA has both Ron Killings and Bobby Lashley as champs). Sure, Booker T and Mark Henry won the World Heavyweight Title, but not when it was their top belt. And look at the male roster right now: David Otunga, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Big E, R-Truth and Titus ONeil for black wrestlers. Four of them are booked in stereotypical roles, and two are about as low on the card as you can get. And while it will be nice to eventually see some more videos, you can imagine that theyll conveniently ignore their mostly offensive history of pushing black wrestlers like Slick, Cryme Tyme, Saba Simba, Akeem the African Dream (a man they pushed as being black), Kamala, "Silverback" Mark Henry, The Godfather, and Farooq Assad. At this point, they'd better start working on a Percy Watson video, since he's one of top, least offensive black characters they've ever created.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
