Discrimination Within Wrestling: Does It Really Exist?

Before I start this article, I wish to say that this piece is in no way meant to offend anyone who takes time out to read it. I myself am not advocating racism or religious discrimination, as I am writing this from a balanced and open viewpoint.

Within the world today, there are many problems that affect people all over the Earth. This could be an environmental concern, a safety concern or even a political concern.

However, a major problem that still exists this far into the 21st century is that of racial and religious discrimination. This begs the question, what exactly constitutes discrimination?

In the Oxford English Dictionary, discrimination is defined as:

"A belief or ideology that all members of each racial/religious/sexual group possesses characteristics or abilities specific to that race/religion/sex, especially to distinguish it as being superior or inferior to other people or groups"

Discrimination is also found in many other forms, such as people being criticized or victimized for how they look, how they sound, or what their lifestyle is.

For many people, racism, sexism, and religious discrimination can cause many problems for certain aspects of their lives, such as jobs, relationships and social activities.

This leads to a controversial issue on whether or not discrimination plays a part in professional wrestling.

In the past few years, there have been many well-documented cases of alleged racism within the boundaries of professional wrestling promotions.

In the late 1990s, WCW came under fire for their supposed views on African-American wrestlers.

According to records, many officials were approached by members of racial discrimination groups after it was noted by them that:

"Almost all of the WCW main event wrestlers are predominately caucasians with an American background, where as many African-American wrestlers aren't featured in any prominent role."

This led to many people threatening to boycott WCW unless it acknowledged African-American superstars as much as they did White-Americans.

Many wrestling historians indirectly contributed this issue to the start of the main event push for Booker T, ending with his five Heavyweight title reigns at the height of his success.

Another well known event involved the current WWE SmackDown head writer Michael Seitz, more commonly known as Michael 'P.S' Hayes of the Fabulous Freebirds.

On Apr. 23, 2008, it was reported that Hayes had been suspended for 60 days due to 'innapropriate behaviour, stemming from illicit comments directed towards the wrestler Mark Henry'.

According to backstage staff at the time, Hayes verbally attacked Henry, before making a 'racial slur' at his expense.

Despite this, Michael Hayes was allowed back into the WWE, even though many groups called for his immediate dismissal.

Both of these events are examples of racial discrimination that tarnished the image of the people or companies involved.

Within the current wrestling community, there is still problems with many individuals claiming that there is a race problem towards international superstars which have impacted negatively on their careers.

For example, many groups bring in the history of the WWE's championships and a distinct lack of African-American champions.

Looking back over the championship histories, it is hard to disagree with the argument that is presented.

In the past decade, there has only been one African-American WWE Champion. This was The Rock, and his last title reign was from July 21 to Aug. 25, 2003.

Since then, the championship has only been held by a small percentage of wrestlers who aren't American.

Another example is that of the WWE Heavyweight championship. The last African-American wrestler to hold the title was Booker T (July 23 to Nov. 26, 2006).

Since 2006, the Heavyweight championship has switched hands between the same set of wrestlers, including John Cena and Triple H.

Despite this, there has been an immense cultural diversity in the wrestlers that have held both the Intercontinental and United States championships.

Within the last nine years, there have been 11 International and African-American wrestlers that have held the Intercontinental title, including the likes of Shelton Benjamin, Chris Jericho, Kofi Kingston, and William Regal.

The same can be said for the United States championship, which has been held by foreign wrestlers over 10 times in the same timespan.

TNA is also criticised over the fact that only one African-American wrestler has held the Heavyweight championship since the inaugural episode, this being R-Truth (also known as Ron Killings).

However, in evidence against this, Booker T has held both the Legends championship and the Tag Team championship within the past six months. As well as this, Jay Lethal has also held the X Division title three times.  

In my opinion, this shows that there isn't a huge problem relating to awarding championship belts to people without an American background, but some people beg to differ, saying that the main title history shows otherwise.

Another main form of discrimination that people bring up is that of religious beliefs.

They say that wrestling promotions deliberately portray certain religions in stereotypes.

An example of this would be Sheik Abdul Bashir (also known as Daivari within WWE).

At the moment, Bashir, wrestling for TNA, is currently portraying an anti-american arab, who frequently makes references to terrorism (an example being his finishing manoeuvre, called the WMD, or Weapon of Mass Destruction).

The same character was also used by him in WWE, in which he played a man called Shawn Daivari. In this, he feuded with 'American Heroes' like the Undertaker.

This led to one of the most controversial moments of the past five years.

On July 4, 2005, Daivari was wrestling against the Undertaker when five 'masked terrorists' came down to the ring and helped to beat down the Undertaker during the match.

After they had finished, they proceeded to carry out Daivari on their backs as a symbol of supposed martyrdom.

On the day that it was due to air, July 7, 2005, a major terrorism attack was perpetrated on London, leading to 52 deaths.

WWE decided to edit the footage to omit this match, as they saw it to be offensive to the memory of those who died.

Less than a week after the event, UPN, the SmackDown broadcaster at the time, requested that Daivari not be used on television any more, leading to the character being 'killed' at the 2005 Great American Bash.  

Many religious groups claimed that this was discrimination against Arabs, as they didn't know that there would be a terrorist attack on the day of broadcast, and thus, they felt as if they were stereotyped as being terrorists themselves.

The most famous example of religious discrimination is that of the infamous ECW 'Crucifixion'.

In a feud between Sandman and Raven, Sandman was tied to a cross before being hung above the ECW arena. This was seen as incredibly controversial as Raven is Jewish, so the event was seen as being Anti-Christian.

This disgusted many people, including Kurt Angle, who was in the arena at the time. Upon seeing the angle, he left and threatened to sue the company if his name was mentioned on the episode.

When asked about the whole angle, Raven said that

'The angle was in no way an insult to Jesus Christ, but to the Sandman by using religious iconography to portray an artistic standpoint'.

Many people still see both events mentioned as a major form of religious discrimination as it was portraying negative stereotypes for profit and media attention.

However, many say that discrimination on religious basis is not present in wrestling, due to the acceptance of wrestlers like Shawn Michaels, a born-again Christian, who mouths a prayer during his ring entrance.

For many, professional wrestling is an industry in which people, regardless of race or religion, are given the opportunity to showcase their skills in front of a worldwide audience.

It's also seen as a sport in which fans around the world are given the chance to enjoy the actions of and interactions with the wrestlers.

However, for some people and groups, wrestling is seen as a sport which heavily favours competitors from a Caucasian-American background, as they are seeing as having the better chance to succeed.

They also see wrestling as being stereotypical in their portrayal of different races and religions, claiming the characters and events to be offensive.

In my honest opinion, there is no major negative discrimination within professional wrestling, just the chance to improve upon an image that has been associated with the sport for a long time.

If there was racism and religious discrimination, would we have been denied talented wrestlers such as Booker T, The Rock, MVP, Ernie Ladd, Junk Yard Dog, Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Ron Simmons or Tazz?

If there is discrimination, did this necessary lead to the departure of wrestlers like Elijah Burke, Elix Skipper or Monty Brown?

These are questions that we will never know the answers to in their entirety, but that will always be of speculation to many who watch professional wrestling.

Does racial and religious discrimination really exist within wrestling?

That can only be answered by those who watch it, but for the masses, it will probably never be known.

Many can wonder, but only those involved will ever know for sure.

'Racism seeks to divide and destroy. Never allow it the opportunity to do so'

Sources: Google.com, Onlineworldofwrestling.com, Oxfordonline.co.uk, PWMania.com

Massive thanks to Leroy Watson for helping me out with this article.