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Most Racist Gimmicks in Wrestling? You decide...


robinbobs

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Papa Shango not black? never knew that.

 

Not sure if it was intentionally racist, but Piper at the Wrestlemania where he fought Bad News Brown was a strange concept, blacking up half his body.

 

Urm yes he was

I was being a little sarcastic to the OP, but thanks for the clarification anyway.

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Pro wrestling is unsurprisingly awash with racism. It's difficult to know where to begin. There are no doubt entire dissertations on it. Some examples:

 

- Non-white foreigners routinely portrayed as inarticulate, thick-skulled savages/cannibals; The Islanders, Umaga, The Wild Samoans, Kamala, The Great Khali, etc.

 

- Slick, the fried chicken-eating pimp.

 

- Junkyard Dog, a black man in a collar who dances and barks like a dog.

 

- Cryme Tyme, two black guys from the ghetto who'll steal anything not nailed down.

 

- Muhammad Hassan, an Arab-American Muslim with grievances over the way brown people are treated. But he's also an Islamic fundamentalist; this

, and getting a bunch of guys in ski masks to attack The Undertaker with piano wire. Obviously, he had the usual jingoistic bullshit shouted at him, too. And when he entered the Royal Rumble, every superstar already in the ring, faces and heels, banded together immediately to eliminate him.

 

- The usual jingoism of the white American beating up the foreign stereotypes according to the tensions of the time. After France opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq, WWE had La Resistance, two French puffters. Austin beat them up, exclaiming, "Parlez vous francais that, you French son of a bitch!"

 

- Virgil, an Uncle Tom who does all the horrible, demeaning things he's told to by his rich, white boss, including carrying his things and shining his shoes.

 

- The Triple H/Booker T storyline from Wrestlemania 19. In one particular promo, Triple H tells Booker T, "people like you shouldn't be champion," points out his "nappy hair" and requests he, "do a little dance for me." In a backstage segment, Triple H tosses some money at Booker and tells him, "get me a towel." In the build-up video for their match, Booker speaks about how he's struggled personally (the death of his mother at an early age and being arrested) and professionally (waiting so long for a title shot). And then Triple H prevails in the match.

 

- Jinder Mahal's Punjabi-speaking being ridiculed, and when he plays air guitar with the rest of 3MB, the commentators say he's playing the, "air sitar."

 

I just want an excuse to post this, but one of the few examples I can think of where pro wrestling has presented racism in a funny way and from the right perspective:

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Who has portrayed the greatest number of racist characters?

 

How about Fatu? He was a Savage cannibal type, then an ethnic street gang guy, then a Sultan with pointy boots before settling on the less racist but no less offensive fat-man-in-a-thong gimmick.

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Ric Flair cuts a pretty racist little promo on the second disc of The Ultimate Collection.

 

There's some black jobber in the ring and he says something to the effect of "where I come from we don't wrestle people like him. We employ them" Then there's some bait and switch and when the interviewer convinces Ric to face "who ever is in the ring" he turns round and it's Jack Brisco.

 

Even the interviewer seems uncomfortable with the angle.

 

Ric Flair cuts a pretty racist little promo on the second disc of The Ultimate Collection.

 

There's some black jobber in the ring and he says something to the effect of "where I come from we don't wrestle people like him. We employ them" Then there's some bait and switch and when the interviewer convinces Ric to face "who ever is in the ring" he turns round and it's Jack Brisco.

 

Even the interviewer seems uncomfortable with the angle.

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Who has portrayed the greatest number of racist characters?

 

How about Fatu? He was a Savage cannibal type, then an ethnic street gang guy, then a Sultan with pointy boots before settling on the less racist but no less offensive fat-man-in-a-thong gimmick.

 

Only other one I can think of is Sheiky baby: flag-waving Persian heel with pointy shoes for the majority of his career, but also found time to pretend to be Iraqi in Sgt Slaughter's crappy stable.

 

Looking up the other guy in that stable, I see that Adnan played a Native American, an Arabian madman and pretended to be Saddam Hussein in the WWF; although I wouldn't like to say those are definitely racist gimmicks, but I suspect the presentation would have been borderline at best.

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