In a touchy edition of “Hart Murmurs,” Bruce Hart talks about the racial and ethnic disconnect of world champions in the world of professional wrestling and sports entertainment.
Greetings, I trust this finds you well. I recently had as a guest on Hart Beat Radio, my old friend, Bobby Horne, better known to most of you as Sir Mo. Bobby, who along with his late, great partner Nelson Frazier (Mabel), formed the popular black tag team, Men on a Mission tells me that his mission these days is to be an advocate for racial equality in professional wrestling, specifically the WWE.
He acknowledges that, on a personal level, Vince McMahon always treated him well, but nonetheless, finds it hard to defend the WWE’s less than stellar record as far as pushing black wrestlers goes. Case in point, in its long and glorious history, the WWE/WWF has had only one black world champion ever, that being Dwayne ‘The Rock” Johnson, who, truth be known, was actually only half black. Aside from that, black champions have been few and far between. This pales in comparison to other sports such as boxing, MMA, baseball, football, basketball and even hockey – all of which have come a long way since Jackie Robinson broke the so-called color barrier back in 1947.
Bobby tells me he’s even more dismayed at how the WWE has routinely (and continues to) typecast blacks, such as the Godfather, Slick, Virgil, Kamala, Sapphire, the Boogeyman, Junkyard Dog and, even today, the heel tandem, The New Day, in unflattering, stereotypical roles such as pimps, degenerates, subservient slave types, whores (hoes) and low IQ “jungle bunnies.” He points out that demeaning characters like Stepin Fetchit, Butterfly McQueen, Aunt Jemima and Amos and Andy would be deemed offensive and inappropriate today, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in pro wrestling – which is troubling. I couldn’t agree more and, quite frankly, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more outcry already, especially when you consider that in cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington and Dallas – the site of the upcoming Wrestlemania, the fan base is predominantly black.
My father, who began his wrestling career back in the 1930’s and started his own legendary Stampede Wrestling promotion up here in Western Canada in 1948, told me that, much to his chagrin, racial discrimination tended to be quite prevalent in the wrestling business back in the 40’s and 50’s.
During that stretch, he said that blacks found it hard to get booked, stateside, and those who did were often relegated to the undercard, as jobbers, or cast in demeaning roles.
As a consequence, many of them opted to come up to Canada to work for him, including the likes of: Woody Strode, Bearcat Wright, Luther Lindsay, Shag Thomas, Sweet Daddy Siki, Rocky Johnson (Dwayne’s father), George Wells and Abdullah the Butcher, all of whom were not only great workers guys whom my dad had the utmost respect and regard for.
I know that when I first took over booking/matchmaking for my dad’s Stampede Wrestling promotion in the early 1980’s, I was intrigued and somewhat perplexed that even though the racial climate had seemingly improved in the States, many of the best black wrestlers, including guys like Sylvester Ritter (Junkyard Dog), Jimmy Banks (Kasavubu), Bad News Allen (Allen Coage) and Lethal Larry Cameron, still found it difficult to get booked and chose to work up here, instead.
I should note that the WWE/WWF hasn’t been the only major wrestling organization with a less than stellar record as far as racial equality goes. If my memory serves me correctly, neither the NWA or the AWA, which were the major organizations in pro wrestling prior to the WWF’s rise to power in the 80’s, had a black champion, which doesn’t reflect well on them, either.
Not to be railing on anyone, but I find it equally disturbing that, aside from the Iron Shiek (who was only made the WWF champion to exploit the Iranian hostage crisis, albeit briefly) and Yokozuna (Rodney Anoa’i – who was billed as a Japanese, but was actually Hawaiian), the WWE, to the best of my recollection, hasn’t had any Arab, Japanese, Chinese, East Indian, Pakistani, Native American, or Indo Eurasian world champions, ever.
Since WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment and taking into consideration that those groups comprise close to three quarters of the world’s population, I think the WWE needs to seriously re-examine its approach – correct me, if I’m wrong. I might add that, if Vince McMahon, Triple H or whomever else feels that they’re being unjustly singled out here, or would like to refute any of this, I’d love to hear from them. My intent here isn’t to crucify anyone, but to affect some affirmative change.
Before I leave you, I’d like to point out that the world has made great strides in the past century insofar as racial equality is concerned. Because of the courage and conviction of selfless crusaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Berry Gordy, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama, the world is a considerably better place than it used to be. Sports has also played a significant role in that evolution – with pioneers such as Jack Johnson, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Pele, Michael Jordan and Jackie Joyner Kersee all having made enormous contributions, which have transcended the playing fields and positively impacted the quality of life, all over the world.
I’m proud and pleased that people like my father and others in the wrestling business have also helped contribute to the cause, but we still have a long way to go. Hopefully, we shall continue to overcome and to rise above.
On that note, I’ll call it a wrap for this week, but shall look forward to hooking up with you next week.
In the meantime and in between time, take care.