On the latest episode of the Gentlemen’s Wrestling Podcast, host Jesse Collings is joined by Kris Ealy of the Nubian Wrestling Advocates on Post Wrestling ( https://www.postwrestling.com/category/podcasts/postwrestling/the-nubian-wrestling-advocates/ ) , to discuss recently published Nielsen data that shows AEW lagging behind WWE in terms of Black viewers. Kris talks about the portrayal of different characters in AEW, the reputation wrestling companies have for promoting Black wrestlers, how both companies can improve connections with the Black audience, and more.
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The voices of wrestling podcasting Network visit voices OFW wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcasts as well as show reviews columns opinions and updates across the world of wrestling welcome back everyone to the gentleman’s wrestling podcast I am your host as always Jesse Collings and
Joining me today for our first time guests uh he’s the host of the NWA podcast with Nate Milton over on post wrestling um he’s also professor of political science at Cal State University Fullerton he’s Dr Chris elely Chris how you doing today hey I’m a great uh I’m I’m great Jessie sorry you
Get I got a little tongue time great Jesse I love uh the work you do at wrestl nomics I’m a big fan of uh the gentlemen’s wrestling podcast so I will uh try to practice as much gentlemanly etiquette as I can yeah I don’t know if we were really conducting gentlemanly etiquette
Etiquette on the show The the name of the show is only exists because I originally wanted I was really like fascinated I wanted to do like these deep Dives on specific subjects almost like you’re reading like this long New Yorker portfolio on something and so I just
When I was me my former co-host Jason unpress when we were coming up with the concept of the show I was like yeah like gentleman’s wrestling podcast if only because I wanted to separate it from like the hot take culture that many podcasts have right yeah like
Specifically I don’t get that yeah I don’t get that impression from you at all when I listen to your show that’s why I like because some there’s a lot of people in our in our space that that exists just to be Rabel Rouser so to speak and to
Say offensive things just for clicks and listens and all that so yeah and it’s it’s it’s not even like necessarily like the people that are like there’s also like an element like of people that just get worked up and it’s not necessarily like because they’re looking for attention or something like that it’s
Just their that’s their style and I didn’t I don’t want this to be like a uh a thing where people are screaming at each other or someone’s getting really worked up about something um I want to be uh more gentleman one day I’ll I’ll do a live episode with several guests
And we’ll all be sitting in like a uh yeah we’ll all be wearing Tweed coats and be sitting in a um like a like a like a like a gentleman’s club room in smoking uh pipes and we’ll we’ll discuss the the latest wrestling news with with fake British accents
Um but the reason I wanted to have Chris on the show today was um I wanted to talk about something that has really been fascinating to me for a long time and it was kind of um hammered home uh last month when uh Brandon thirston of wrestl nomics of course I’m imagine most
Listeners of the show are hopefully familiar with wrestl nomics um but Brandon published a chart that was um looking at kind of the different de various demographics of pro wrestling fans and kind of basically looking at who was watching each you know major pro wrestling show that’s uh telecast the
United States and he had breakdowns for you know economic background he had breakdowns for educational background and he had breakdowns on racial backgrounds and he had some really one of and that was something that really fascinated me so I’m gonna attempt to uh to screen share here um for so just so
The listeners on or or the viewers on video can see it um let’s see let’s see if I share screen right I could do that yes I think that should be uh quite right um right so as people can see this is the chart that Brandon produced and
It has the racial breakdowns of every single show that’s on American television for the most part um and the big thing that jumps out to me really like kind of like the only thing that jumps out to me because these are very similar is the percentage of of WWE’s
Audience that is black versus the percentage of aew’s audience that is black which is um uh in particular with dynamite um which is for people who are listening listening and not seeing this chart aw’s Dynamite audience is 68% white and 16% black that’s according to neelen data
Which is not infallible but at least gives us something in the ballpark and for instance Monday night raw’s audience is 59% white 25% black they’re about the same in in percentage of Hispanic audience about the same and percentage of Asian audience and about the same in other races it’s really the difference
Between the racial breakdowns between the two companies is the black viewers seem to prefer WWE or not tuning into Dynamite at the same rate that maybe white viewers are and one of the one of the many reasons why I think this is important is that how often do we have
Conversations about how can aw grow how can aw create new fans how can they get more people to become invested in their product that can go to live shows that can buy pay-per-views that can buy merchandise all of that stuff and one of them I’m looking at right here is that
Clearly there is a percentage of black fans who are you know loyal WWE viewers that for whatever reason are not tuning into a particularly aw dynamite and I wanted to kind of explore some of the reasons maybe for that and kind of also maybe what are some things that they can
Do and and Chris you were on an episode of wrestl nomics with John Pollock and Brandon thirston and you talked about this very issue um in December um and I thought you did a great job on that um so I wanted to invite you on the show um
And I guess for starters when you first saw this chart did what was kind of your reaction to to that in terms of did it did it check out did it make sense did it confirm some things you already thought um what did it kind of say to
You a a little bit of everything yeah it confirms some things that I already thought um it also told me that aew this is something that we’ve talked about on um the NWA podcast and I’ve written about for wrestl nomics um and it’s just they do um not
Have they do not have their finger on the pulse of Black America probably WWE I don’t think they really do either I just think that it’s more of what people know and more of what people are used to you know and anytime you’re the number
Two um I think just as a general rule of thumb the masses are going to gravitate towards the number one so um and if you’re like a casual fan um aew might just seem second rate um I do think with um the um Ascension of uh SW
Swerve Strickland um and if they can do have more people like him on the rise I think the the company will rise as a whole but there’s really not been a whole lot of black wrestlers in aew to really get invested in to to sink your
Teeth in so into so to speak right it’s like you’ve got um talented guys like Scorpio sky but it always seems like they hit a ceiling or hit a wall they get a push and then for some reason it’s it not there anymore uh Ricky Starks um
I thought he was gonna be the guy for a long time and then all of a sudden he’s derailed and now he’s not in a horrible position it’s just by this time this year like last year I thought this guy would be at least in the conversation for the world title and
Now he’s you know in a tag team um a makeshift tag team at at that which you know it’s fine but it it’s it’s just if you do a lot of that stuff what you’re doing is you’re telling your audience that um this guy is not a priority or is just not as
Important as other people we care about so that’s why the way they handle swerve in this moment right here is going to be so important to the way um black fans receive them at least in my opinion yeah and this is a problem I think there’s Pro there’s elements of it
Too in WWE but it’s a problem across the board in aw in terms of aw seems to allow wrestlers to show a lot of potential and then there’s a struggle to follow up and push those people all the way and so when you talk about wrestlers like Ricky Starks or
Swerve um who are guys who have shown a lot of potential um and then they they they whether they feel like they hit a ceiling or they feel like that they’ve kind of they feel like they were in the driver’s seat and then they’re kind of pushing into the
Back seat I think that’s a kind of a universal problem I think one of the major things going back to aw’s Foundation is that if you look at aw’s original roster when they first debuted on on TNT it was a very white roster and all all of the most prominent names for the
Most part were white and there really wasn’t outside of Scorpio Sky there really wasn’t like like any black talent to be seen I’m trying to even think of anyone else that was on that original roster it was Private already they gave them a match with um the Young Bucks
Right I was actually at that I was actually at that match now I think about you’re right but they were complet completely unproven like I mean I had I don’t even I think i’ had seen one match of them prior yeah and you could almost tell when you watch that match what
Pivate private party and the Bucks and private party Woods the match you could almost hell it was like kind of a charity win like we’re going to let these guys win and then they just do absolutely nothing after that like you said they were just unproven you know
Yeah and and I think I don’t know I don’t know if that’s necessarily like aw’s fault like there just wasn’t they had a they signed the talent that was available to them it was it was the same way with the women’s division where the women’s division was
Certainly pretty weak in terms of names and it was because well there there you know if there was and this is a longer standing issue I think in the wrestling industry across the board but if there was you know the Black version of Chris Jericho or the Black version of Cody
Rhods that was out there um to be signed I think aw would have signed them the problem was there was a limited amount of people to be signed and I think that when aw starts that sets kind of a sigma where people who were you know I forget
What the how many people actually tuned into the first episode of dynamite I think it was was like 1.1 million or 1.3 million something like that um when people are sampling the show for the first time and they’re making that judgment whether or not I’m gonna watch
That watch the show and the show is very white there’s basically only one black wrestler of note at all a lot of those people might tune out um now since then I think aw has done a good job at least in being active in signing black Tal
That has come available to them they signed Ricky Starks when he was available they signed swerve when he was released from WWE they got out they went out and they got Keith Lee um they are I don’t I I definitely think that they’re active in that sense but I think what
You have is you have now that Talent being caught in kind of what you were talking about earlier Chris which is taking someone who has promise and really elevating them to the top level uh of the company which really if you look at the last the four years of aw the
Only two wrestlers I would say that have cracked the top Echelon of the company that didn’t start there were mjf and hangman page and hangman You could argue was was kind of already there he you know he M evented their their their full gear pay-per-view and was Jericho’s
First the first what challenge for the um original Challenger for the uh the the first title and things like that but really over four years there’s only been one guy who I think has has climbed up to the highest level in the company and that’s mjf and at this point there’s
Probably room for more and that means there’s probably room for more diversity as well yeah it’s it’s it’s weird with aew because it always does seem like they’re waiting for like free agents to get released um and I think that is fine it’s just while you’re doing that you
Need to be pushing um the next Generations of generation of stars mjf is um you know his uh rise has been kind of meteoric um and I I think with aw sometimes when I watch it um and this is probably the difference between aew and WWE and I don’t have any like data
Driven uh this is just an assumption this is anecdotal um so please take it as such but sometimes when I watch aew as a general rule of thumb I like aew better than I like WWE but there is a lot of like clown crap on aew sometimes that I
Just cannot relate to and I think and I look at it is um I like a lot of black things Urbane things and um when Um um mjf and Adam Cole when they were like doing the angle where they’re they’re um like at a um miniature golf course or whatever maybe it was frisbee golf I don’t even remember and the vignettes with mjf and Cole which were very goofy yeah that was so clownish and
Goofy um and and I talked to some of the uh black podcasters and I think some of us were split because some some liked it and there were others that didn’t like it um it wasn’t universally liked by uh the the black people in this space that
I was talking to and um I do think that’s G to be an issue as well because say what you want about WWE um there are things like that that don’t necessarily appeal to me or appeal to um and I I there I don’t think there’s been anything like blatantly that
Clownish um on their television we’ll talk about our truth in a minute probably but um that that that kind of thing with the main event Talent right that’s a and I think right that’s a big point which is we’re talking about Adam Cole and mjf which is like the most
Pushed angle in the entire company like NXT is full of goofy vignettes like that um yeah but you’re right that’s it’s not something that like Cody rhods is doing or Roman Reigns or the true top talent and it’s funny you know it’s interesting you mention that because I think those were
Um uh like those like you talked about those those mjf and K vetts and those are definitely kind of I think a lot of people at least in my space had really negative feelings towards them and you bring them up kind of like this clownish thing and in hindsight like now I’m
Looking at them like those are extremely white vignettes like they’re just like this Goofy like we’re gonna go out we’re going to try Chinese food and it’s going to be too spicy or too hot for us or something like that and it’s like and that isn’t because you’re right this is
The major angle that the company is promoting it’s not like this little like you know two-minute thing that is just you know not going to spoil anything this is the the relationship the company is hoping you invest in the most because it’s as that like and I was look looking at a
Chart um I want to say um a month ago or so and they were talking about top 10 shows um they surveyed black people white people top 10 shows amongst black people white people and stuff uh one in in in the black shows it was very interesting it
Was one of the shows that was in the top 10 was Three’s Company for um this is um I wish I had the chart on me but it was like this is one of the top 10 shows that black people like is is Three’s Company and I think like when you’re um
Doing these things it’s it’s it’s about attracting the black audience it’s more than just having Black Talent it’s having talent that even black people can relate to to in some significant way um and different shows get penalized for for different things like the um like uh if you take friends for example friends
Is always getting CR criticized for being extra white no diversity um barely having black people even as background characters but they did have like a few prominent ones towards the latter seasons and I just think the reason why um black audiences shut off with f shut
Off of friends and I’m getting to a point with wrestling I just have to tell this anecdote real quick um is that I think um I think friends represents like an idealized version of white society that um I don’t think um a significant amount of black people
Can relate to on that level you know with friends it was kind of like they live in this New York City white Topia only interact with other white people um tell a lot of like very white jokes um and it’s a funny show but I don’t think
It’s it I think that show kind of tells the black audience without telling the black audience that this show is isn’t for you and I think aew was suffering from a little bit of that to be fair to aew they weren’t it was what what was
Going on with them in some cases was not fair um people in the wrestling media um I’m I’m friends with um Alfred uh Kwa I know him from out here in La he he he just write the most and I’ve told this to him to his face he he just just write
The most trash articles on aew where I thought thought he was kind of like not being fair to them as a company accusing them of things that WWE itself has been doing for decades so they had that going against them as well um and just the
Perception and and at the time when a lot of goofy stuff was going on in aew um WWE was they were kind of pushing black wrestlers whether you want to say if they were Salient pushers or not but they were at least there um now I think
They’re back in a low but um at least during that time period you had Bobby Lashley as the champion you had um biggie challenge him uh the kofy Kingston stuff happened at the tail end of uh 2019 so there were things that like told that that signal
To black people this is a show for you um and I think that now they’re WWE right now with the main roster at least they’re they’re just clearly not in that season at the moment and um it abs and flows I guess I should say yeah I think you just made I think
You made a really interesting point there in terms of uh not like obviously like if looking for like a solution it’ be like well just push push more black people right right um but I think you touched on something really interesting that I’ve never thought about and like I
Think it’s a great reason why I wanted to have you on the show is like certain characters that they don’t necessarily they don’t have to be black they don’t have to be white but if their stories or their characters um are presented in a certain way they can as you said like tell
People black people that this is not for them without you know expressing ly saying it and I do think that um like if you compare like mjf’s character or Adam Cole’s character to say Roman Reigns’s character or Cody Rhodes’s character those guys are probably seemingly more relatable to Black viewers than like
Mjf’s character and they 100% are that’s kind of an issue as well um and I mean you know I think this like Samoans and and black people are kind of tied at the hip out here um especially in California I’ve got plenty of Samo and Friends P plenty of uh Pacific Islander
Friends um and our cultures are very very similar so automatically you know when you see like uh Roman Reigns and Main J and all that stuff even if it’s not the greatest at the moment it’s still something that um the the black every man or every woman can kind of
Relate to um even even if it was interested looking at the um the top 10 and top 20 merch seller sellers that thirst and posted a while ago and no black people were on on those lists and this is for strictly WWE um and this and this and this kind
Of speaks to you have to make these PE if the I think people will buy the merch of people if they feel important and I don’t think anybody um on the WWE roster at the moment feels important of any black folks on the WWE roster feels that important at the moment and I
Think that kind of attribute to um low merchandise sales um with aew it’s just I think Tony Khan is used to the wrestling that he’s used to um and it’s and when you’re the only person booking the show I don’t know um if he’s um who he’s getting advice from I know
He hired a will Washington a right a while back um I casually know will Washington we’re not besties or anything but you hopefully he’s getting advice from uh Minds like uh will Washington when he’s booking these shows because it really sometimes just doesn’t seem like um though any black wrestlers are
Prioritized and the thing with with when you’re dealing with demographics and people they want their groups rep represented you know they want to feel like they’re a part of something and then if you’re and then the overall show as a whole like you like you were saying
Um Jesse it people are not just gonna watch your show just because you’re pushing a random Black Talent they gota it’s got to be a black talent that relates to people like if like again with the swerve stuff right now um it really does feel like he’s on the
Precipice the cusp of something and that’s really what we want to feel when we watch these shows yeah I think I think you raised a good point for starters just historically in wrestling the the key Bookers the key writers have almost always been white like and even now today outside of will
Washington I don’t know if I can name another um black man or woman who’s in a key creative in a creative position in either aw or WWE I’m sure WWE has some you know they have the whole writers room uh of people so I sure there’s somebody there but in terms of like
Major people that we know whether it’s you know Paul LC or or Shawn Michaels or Bruce Pritchard like it it does it does it’s it’s you know it’s it’s and historically it’s it’s pretty much always been the case that this has been an industry that’s been dominated by the
Creative Visions of white men typically older white men right yeah if if I’m interject for a second no go for it um WWE like I’m if they’ve got a black person in the writers room right now that is writing that um that [ __ ] excuse the language I don’t know what no it’s okay
Go for it okay that’s writing that [ __ ] with our truth um and they’re telling them that is the way to go I think they’re they they really do not have a handle on the black audience or don’t even care to have one I critically think about everything that’s just my what I
Do as an educator right I don’t just watch things and just accept them for what they are this stuff with our truth in my op opinion and you can add me send all your hate tweets to me is so um Antiquated and dumb that it really kind
Of turns my stomach when I watch it you’ve got this black character on the show in an angle where he’s trying to be care friends with the cool kids a couple of them are white a couple of them are uh Hispanic Latino um and it’s just every week this guy is like delusional
To think he’s in with the cool kids and he’s not and they and people are laughing at him for just being a dumb guy and I am waiting for it to go somewhere um and then the arguments that I see online from people is well Our Truth doesn’t have a problem
So you shouldn’t have a problem with it as well that would be cool if it only affected Our Truth when I see crap like this it affects the race you know so if I I honestly don’t care how much Our Truth loves this if he if he loves it
Good for him keep on keep it keeping on but you really got to think of the way that you’re represented at the the moment you got to think of the kids that are watching this that are like um trying to to Aspire to be WWE Superstars and it’s horrible horrible horrible
Stuff in my opinion um and I haven’t I’m I’m open to arguments that says it’s not but I haven’t heard a good one um so I had to get that off of my chest with with the R Truth stuff um and this is WWE has a history of
Doing this crap it’s not just that they do offensive crap they do offensive and insulting crap aew for all their faults they’re and they have a lot of faults um mainly being that they don’t they they they treat the women like they’re just there they treat the blacks sometimes
Like they’re just there but they’re not representing them in a embarrassing light the way WWE sometimes does and I thought we were over that once Vince McMahon got out of power and it seems like we’re still doing that [ __ ] um sorry for the rant but there’s a really
Think that I just I don’t know and there’s plenty of reasons uh you know uh there’s plenty of reasons why this is like that why this um you know exists like this the way it does but there is the the lawsuit from last year
Um by a former one or the or the the Abraham yeah so this is Britney Abrahams who was a former WWE staff writer I think she was the only black woman on the WWE staff or on the the raw writing team whatever she team she was on right
Um and she had a lawsuit that had some pretty bad add stuff in it in terms of her interactions with the head writing team and I think one of the key things was they the the writing team was really they really wanted Bianca Bair to say
This line which was like don’t make me take my earrings off and beat your ass or something like that yeah yeah it was some real stereotypical uh black woman line that yeah I remember and I think Bianca was like I don’t I don’t talk like that so like I don’t think that
Really fits my character yeah um and and Britney Abrahams was very you know sympathetic being like yeah we should come up with something different and one of the the headwriter said something again this is according to the lawsuit which has since been dropped but um he said something like you know like
He rolled his eyes was like you guys make it very we don’t know how to write for black characters like he just said that right um and I was like whoa that’s that’s pretty big that our WWE writers said that and then unfor fortunately if you look at like what major creative
Direction Bianca Belair has had over the last year or so I would say that it seems very truthful to say that they don’t know how to write for black women characters because she really hasn’t had anything interesting to do I think um yeah no she yeah she she’s go ahead
Sorry yeah and and I was just gonna throw in I was like we know that you know Mercedes Monae and in Trinity quit the company I guess Trinity’s contract expired but Mercedes walked out of the company um because of creative differences maybe that had to do with
Vin sik manah or whatever but those are your your two most prominent you know black female performers Mercedes was probably your most one of your most prominent performers period uh when she walked out and then even this you know Jade they had Jade around but they haven’t anything with
Her right and then Triple H in that press conference says that you know they it was pretty much saying she didn’t learn anything in aew that’s what I heard I know that’s not what he said but is it’s like what is she gonna learn in NXT that’s
Gonna better prepare her for um main roster I think Jade cgill at the moment she’s the wrestler that she is I don’t I don’t think she’s GNA get any better or worse um I don’t think she’s like horrible but I don’t if they’re trying to make her become another uh Mercedes
Monae um that they they do not understand what what she is as a wrestler she is who she is either you know um [ __ ] or get off the proverbial pot because this is you know this is who you have and I don’t I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that I don’t
Think every wrestler needs to be uh Daniel Bryan or Brian Danielson I think if if if you’ve got her push her um do something with her um so um because that again that’s kind of like you were saying about uh Bianca she’s just been sitting in this weird limbo at the
Moment and yes she hasn’t been like killed or anything it’s not like she’s been buried and forced to lose a bunch of matches but she even when she was Champion she just didn’t seem to have a real creative Direction she you know she had matches and she won most of them and
She retained her title for a long time but there’s like what’s her storyline what’s what she doing just she’s kind of just like this you know popular talented over wrestler but doesn’t seem to have a lot of creative Direction and I and you know coming off of the lawsuit and just looking
At what are the black women in this company doing and as you mentioned you can throw in the black men for a lot of cases like Bobby Lashley what’s he up to um yeah and I think that’s that’s a problem and with Jade I mean to me the
Whole like oh Jade isn’t like a good enough wrestler for us to have on TV is total nonsense WWE puts absolutely awful especially on NXT there are some people that have had like under five matches that are on TV I I think Jade has maybe turned out to be maybe like a little
Disappoint winning in terms of in ring ability but you can’t tell me that she’s not better than many of the people that are on TV we just saw we just saw Nia Jax have a 12-minute match on Raw okay like Jade can’t work squash matches on
On TV and I think it was a l i mean we’ll see what ends up happening with her but I I think she had a lot more momentum when she just made the jump from aw to ww yeah yeah that this this this P has definitely been a momentum
Killer um and I’ve gotten into arguments U on my own podcast with with uh like my my my friend Andrew Thompson one of the co-hosts it’s you can’t do this to people if you’re not gonna debut her just I would have per I would have perfect been I
Would have been perfectly content with her debuting at the Royal Rumble putting her on ice for a few months but when you show her on TV and you announce this signing and then you just do nothing with her all she’s doing is walking around back stage um and we’re waiting
For her to do something it it is it’s a moment momentum killer it doesn’t give me hope for her in the future um it reminds me of um when uh that uh Joey Legend guy I don’t know if if this is probably before your time uh but this
Guy uh Joe E Legend he was uh they called him just Joe and WWE he’s this big Indie guy that was supposed to debut and everybody was like oh yeah Joey Legend he’s coming to WWE and all they did were backstage vignettes with the
Guy and then he never shows up uh I see this kind of being a repeat of what’s going on with with Jade at the moment um and like you said there people on NX yeah yeah she was getting she was she was getting out of limos and I think
They were trying to do this thing where like oh is she on Raw is she on Smackdown is she could be on NXT like where’s she going and then I mean she’s she’s fallen off the face of the Earth the last month I don’t think anyone’s
Seen her anywhere so um yeah yeah I I I did see her on a video where she was I think she gave uh Nelly uh the rapper like like a title belt or something yeah she was at uh she was at one of like I think she was like the big 12
Championship game with like the it was like the Undertaker Jade and like two other people which I was like I wonder what all these people talked about like backstage before they yeah I know right like some a mly crew right there yeah but um and you’re right it was kind of a
Weird thing to like you either have her debut at the rumble and it’s like this big deal and she makes a surprise you know entrance um but now you kind of set the stage where she like oh you teased her doing something and then she’s gone
And it just kind of a and and to me this this has nothing to do with her wrestling it has to do with not having a plan for for her yeah like that’s the key and and that’s the problem with wrestling as well and I think it affects
The Black Talent worse than it affects their talent TK was going through that as well it’s like you sign swerve you signed Athena you signed um uh Keith Lee you signed all of these talents and now they’re just kind of there and really not doing anything
It it becomes like are you just are we just hoarding Talent at the moment or are you signing these people with a plan in place for them um and I mean it’s it doesn’t just affect um black talent but the but the problem with this is there’s
Way more white Talent than Black Talent so even though it doesn’t it affects some white Talent too when it only affects when it affects Black Talent they get hurt more than white talent because white Talent is always going to get pushed right um and I think that
Point is missed on a lot of uh people who watch wrestling and like like I was telling you earlier I I critically think about all of this stuff it doesn’t matter what it is whether it’s CM Punk getting fired or how wrestlers are pushed I always think of the Optics of
Situation when Bianca air when she lost to uh Becky Lynch in what was it 30 seconds or something at that SummerSlam I think of the Optics of that you know you could say oh this is just the storyline and this and that but the bottom line is this is a black woman
Wrestler on your show when there’s not a lot of black women wrestlers on your show at the moment and she is played to be a sucker and and lose like that and just and just I don’t I don’t know what questions these people ask themselves when they’re pushing Talent like that I
Think this is where like Consultants kind of play is asking them is this offensive if is this not offensive or if it if it’s if it is offensive at least how do we bring it to a place where it won’t be offensive anymore you know um
And that and that and that’s my whole thing I don’t necessarily mind like taboo subjects in wrestling but it’s got to be going somewhere it can’t just be taboo and racist and Antiquated and dumb just for be being for the sake of being taboo Antiquated racist and dumb it’s got to be leading
Us to a destination you mentioned something about like especially with aw and Tony Khan kind of the wrestling that Tony Khan is familiar with which and and I’ve been thinking about this in terms of uh again if if you look at these charts I I think 14% of the United States is
African-American um so even Dynamite with its 16% black audience is over indexing with with the black audience and WWE obviously um is doing tremendously well so in general wrestling is is very popular with black people just as a as a general rule but
And I I have no data for this and I’d be interested to hearing your perspective just antidotal like Indie wrestling like whether it’s Ring of Honor or pwg or any of these other Indie promotions that have existed despite the fact that wrestling in general is very popular with black people those atmospheres I’ve
Experienced have been overwhelmingly white far more than if you were to go to a WWE show or even a show and I do wonder if a which is you know in a lot of ways an evolved form of the American Indie scene from the 2000s and 2010s and
Is was kind of you know grew up as this Niche thing that people you know uh talked about on the internet if that plays a role in kind of it’s this nich nerdy white person thing and not this maybe more uh mainstream uh thing that connects with with with across many different racial
Demographics yeah yeah I could I could see that and I I I haven’t watched um Ro or anything like that in a in a while but um yeah I could definitely see that because that that does happen you know that’s a that’s a thing that happens in wrestling especially with like Indie
Shows and in shows that are kind of you know it’s it it’s really like because because the idea is attract you don’t want to necessarily abandon your current audience but you just want to tell other people that this is for you as well you know um and
That’s kind of like because the sport of baseball is going through a little bit of that right now back in the 90s like I remember being a baseball fan in the 90s and we had uh Kenny la often and Dion Sanders and David Justice and just all
Of these awesome B baseball players um and then by the 2000s there’s less and less uh black people um wanting to play baseball in WWE um they’ve got the talent aew has the talent um the Indies the talent is there it’s just wrestling is going to have to evolve to something where you’re
In including more people and you’re not treating like even with like um like women wrestlers you it’s important that you feature these the roles that you feature people in are just as important as featuring them period you know um that like um aew does they used to do this
Thing where if they didn’t have any idea of what what they wanted to do with a wrestler they would just be on dark all the time I actually didn’t mind that like I know other people did I didn’t mind it because at least they’re not on
TV losing all the time WWE has this weird thing um and I don’t know if it’s going to be like this in the nitcon uh Triple H ER but they have this thing where they just put talented people on television and if they don’t have anything to do with them it’s just let’s
Have them lose every week you know um so it’s a it’s a it’s a lot of different things it’s a cultural thing it’s it’s the main event like I think any I think no matter what your races if you’re looking at the Wrestlemania season I think most fans want to see um most
Hardcore fans let me rephrase that want to see probably Seth Rollins um in um CM Punk on night one maybe Cody rhods in uh in um Roman Reigns on night two but if if you’re telling good stories black people are just going to gravitate and then once they gravitate you have to
Make sure you’re pushing the black wrestlers this this goes for um both companies you know yeah it’s interesting you mentioned baseball uh as this thing where baseball it’s still going on but it was this huge issue with baseball used to be if you go back to
Like you know the 70s 80s and 90s tons of star black players every team had several star black players and for a variety of reasons that’s no longer the case and it’s this real concern about is baseball on its way to becoming like kind of like hockey where it can still
Be popular but it can be totally in this own Niche that a lot of people will have no idea you know couldn’t name any players or anything like that um and this is something I think like white people have a hard time understanding because their experience is so much different in the sense
Of like someone being turning on TV and seeing someone that looks like you something that white people don’t think about ever and I remember reading this is like when I was a kid I was probably like 14 reading an article in Sports Illustrated uh about um it was about
Baseball and the decline of baseball and and black players in baseball and I remember as a kid being like I don’t really understand it why does why does you know this guy care that Gary Sheffield was black like couldn’t he just player and that’s something that
Never you know as I got older I began to understood understand why that’s important and um maybe I don’t know like is this the case like if you go back in in wrestling even though a lot of the portrayals of black people in wrestling historically have not aged particularly
Well um yeah I think yeah but even even though still you know being a place where you could see black people on TV where maybe that was less common um is a factor I remember um I had a friend um who who’s older guy not even a wrestling fan um and he’s he’s
Iranian and it was right after the iron Chic died and he said something like oh yeah like the iron Chic he was like a hero to me when I was a kid because you know he was the you know outside of the Ayatollah he was the only Iranian they
Ever showed on television right and it’s like even though he was portraying like a really stereotypical in a lot of ways you could consider harmful character they this guy still had very fond memories of him because he was like the only you know person that was like
That was you know like him that was speaking farsy uh on television and I don’t know if that’s I mean obviously that’s yeah that’s a thing right there right and that’s because that’s what happens with me when I was a kid I I liked all the stereotypical wrestlers and stuff it’s
Just when you grow older and sensibilities change it’s you got to evolve with the times and I think that WWE hasn’t been the greatest at doing that you know um and then that’s that’s where you get these people that these Comics that get oh I I’m getting
Cancelled and you know I’m just telling jokes and stuff and and they’re they’re just so like lost that they can’t even like um update their material you know it’s it’s it’s one of those kinds of situations and it’s not like we we W it’s we we we that stuff bought us into
Wrestling but now to keep us in wrestling to get the new crop of fans people are not putting up with that nonsense the way they’re doing in the this nonsense that we tolerate in the 80s is just not going to be the same for the 2020s it’s it’s and if you don’t
Understand that then you gotta kind of get out of the business right and I think that comes back to I think I think in aew at least the talent is allowed to be more authentically themselves right they’re not like and I think one of the reasons I think swerves
Character is hitting is because SW not only is swerve happen to be black but swerve character is very Urban he’s you know this hip hop fogal yeah he’s not a caricature he’s kind of being his authentic self and kind of at this moment being the best version of himself
Even with him doing the stuff with hangman page and all of that well he’s a wrestler so he’s still got to be like is but he feels like much more like a real person and he feels like somebody as opposed to WWE historically right a lot of the
Characters that anyone that was really like anyone is being portrayed In This Very cartoonish over-the-top matter and that’s definitely true for talent of color uh but but even now like I always like I always think like Vince’s idea for somebody when he ever feels like they’re not getting over as
Much was for them to just become more foreign exaggerate whatever they are like Bal don’t get me start yeah well you can even look at like Drew like when Drew when there was like some trepidation about drew the champion he’s got to be he’s got to paint himself like
Braveheart and he’s got to have a sword and he’s got to tell a story like he’s he’s like of stories of Scottish folklore is like yeah just become more Scottish you know more ethnic yeah any wrestler that’s ever been from you know the UK Ireland has to pretend they’re a
King at some point usually they win King of the Ring but then they have to become whether it’s you know or Sheamus or way Barrett they’re all they’re all a king at some point because that’s how Vince Vince has always seen these people anyone who’s a little bit different than
A than a you know Anglo-Saxon American has to be this exaggerated version and and hopefully that’s different now that Vince seems to be out of really any significant creative decision-making um but I still feel like that kind of lingers in wrestling this old school belief of like exaggerate these personal
Traits that you have even if it’s completely inauthentic to that individual yeah exactly and and it’s a problem in wrestling um so it’s I I there’s so much I could say about that um I do have to um go I have’t have blood blood drawn at H at my
House in a minute so I have to cut this short but yeah this is um yeah a very interesting conversation and yeah um we could we could literally talk about this this for hours um um I hope you have me back on I hope you you come on my
Podcast and we could talk about this a lot more anytime all right and then do you have anything you want to plug before you run oh there’s the NWA podcast I’m writing a book but that’s not gonna be out for a while so we’ll we’ll get into all of that um and uh
Yeah man just thanks for having me yeah I know thanks a lot Chris I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking about this subject um I think this is a was was a great conversation and I’m sure the response will be very well for for for my listeners and
Hopefully um they check out your podcast and I I’d love to be on your show you’re welcome to come back on mine anytime um but thanks a lot and um for all my listeners I’ll I’ll thanks again for tuning in uh and we’ll I’ll see you again after a while thanks I appreciate
It I do you like wrestling trivia then check out the five-star Match Game the pro wrestling quiz show I’m Joe gagy and every episode I grow three contestants with five rounds of power packed wrestling trivia we have over 30 Evergreen episodes in the archives covering WWE aew Japan Mexico and much
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