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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2020 10:07:22 GMT -5
Is he saying people should get a main event push because of their skin color? I don't believe in dividing people like that. Where did you even get that? He just wants black and brown wrestlers signed and relevant. It's not even that big of an ask; the WWE with all its history does it fine these days. Same with Impact despite wack some of them (*cough*moose*cough) are. They should be signing wrestlers because they would bring something to the company. That's the only thing that should play a factor.
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Post by Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite on Jul 18, 2020 10:11:50 GMT -5
Scorpio Sky, Private Party, Sonny Kiss, is Pineapple Pete Actually signed?
THey seem to be grooming Scorpio for something big (He was Jericho's first challenger for the title, they've been doing those vignettes with him)
I wasn't aware Ricky Starks was black, but then again I've only seen him once.
You have a few Black enhancement talents but they're a bunch o nobodies for now (hope they eventually get signed)
WWE has more Black male wrestlers but their overall roster size is HUGE. AEW is still a new company with a slowly growing roster
I hope Willie Mack/ Rich Swann get a run in this company at some point.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jul 18, 2020 10:12:41 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, what black AEW talent do you think should be main eventing right now? Scorpio Sky isn't doing it for me. Sonny Kiss is a good talent but never a main eventer. In WWE, you have guys like Ricochet, Keith Lee, Lashley, etc. All of these have big star power and I could see them in the main event. What he is essentially saying is "There's no black main eventers!"... Well, maybe that's cause they are not good enough. You can't be putting everything down to race. Racism only dies when you stop dividing people into categories. Scorpio Sky is a man, just like Cody Rhodes is a man. Why people insist on separating them while coming out with comments like this is only keeping this prejudice and division alive. I'm not saying ignore history. I'm not saying racism is dead. I'm just saying, this idea has to change in order to move forward and get the equality they should have. That doesn't mean "Give this guy an opportunity because of his skin color, everyone else is white!"... It means "Give this guy an opportunity because he has earned it." No black talent on that roster is "star worthy" yet so you can't push them because you want diversity. That's token BS and just as big a slap in the face What he said was they aren't bringing in enough black people and putting them in positions to succeed. Their is a big difference in that Not everything is down to race but it damn sure is an important piece when representation matters. No one is saying push them cause their black. What is being said is bring in more black wrestlers and have them in prominent positions to succeed if talent warrants it You can't push black talent if you don't even have the numbers to push said talent. It is really that simple. I'm guessing you're not black or correct me if i'm wrong because you're trying to say their is a divide like this is cut and dry. The sad fact is when you are Black in any industry, you have to work much harder then everyone else because your leash isn't as long and your opportunities isn't as plentiful. It is pretty simple. Sign more black male talent and eventually you will get a star at some point but right now the talent they have is just there and they should have more signed then they do.
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Post by Fake Jesus on Jul 18, 2020 10:14:25 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, what black AEW talent do you think should be main eventing right now? Scorpio Sky isn't doing it for me. Sonny Kiss is a good talent but never a main eventer. In WWE, you have guys like Ricochet, Keith Lee, Lashley, etc. All of these have big star power and I could see them in the main event. What he is essentially saying is "There's no black main eventers!"... Well, maybe that's cause they are not good enough. You can't be putting everything down to race. Racism only dies when you stop dividing people into categories. Scorpio Sky is a man, just like Cody Rhodes is a man. Why people insist on separating them while coming out with comments like this is only keeping this prejudice and division alive. I'm not saying ignore history. I'm not saying racism is dead. I'm just saying, this idea has to change in order to move forward and get the equality they should have. That doesn't mean "Give this guy an opportunity because of his skin color, everyone else is white!"... It means "Give this guy an opportunity because he has earned it." No one is calling for (what some idiots might refer to as) "forced diversity" in the main event. There isn't an angle here where people are demanding that Scorpio Sky win the big belt as a reparation for slavery or something. No one is asking for tokenism, pushing people purely based on their melanin count, or the kind of affirmative action that people are asking for on a political level. What people are saying is this: AEW is less diverse than the country as a whole. If there are no black talents good enough to be main eventers, go hire one. The wrestling business as a whole cannot work on racial equality of outcome, but what people want is equality of opportunity. SCU was once very over, they should be given a chance to go heel and get over again. Sonny Kiss is being given an opportunity, so is Private Party - but people would like AEW to give opportunities to the plethora of top-level black stars on the indies or signed to smaller companies. Representation isn't something you can solve by instantly and awkwardly pushing people to the main event, but you need to give black stars the same opportunties to catch fire as Darby Allin or Orange Cassidy.
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Post by Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite on Jul 18, 2020 10:20:00 GMT -5
AEW have 71 signed male wrestlers, of those 15 (21%) are non-white This is probably the most shocking part of this post to me. I would be hard pressed to name 71 Wrestlers in General on AEW, let alone them having that many people among just their Men! I don't follow DARK that closely but are they actually using all of those people?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2020 10:25:12 GMT -5
Here’s a Forbes article I read last month that noted this problem as well: www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2020/06/10/wwe-is-kicking-aews-butt-in-diversity-right-now/It’s been a real issue for me, to be honest. The most recent time I saw it being discussed on Twitter before AJ Gray called them out again, a fan defended AEW’s lack of black representation by noting that Scorpio Sky had a big match against Jericho, that Private Party beat the Young Bucks, and that they have a black executive, that being Brandi Rhodes. Private Party beat the Bucks on the second episode of Dynamite, and the Scorpio Sky match was in November.... we’re about to hit August. I’m not saying they’re intentionally not pushing or signing black stars (sign Suge D), but in the year of our lord 2020, one of these Elite executives should have seen this being an issue and done something about it. The optics are baaaaad. These dude are putting themselves all over the show, but if a black kid tunes in, they’re more than likely not going to see themselves represented in a meaningful way. I get that WWE and/or Impact has had the ability to sign so many great black stars before AEW existed, but they still have all the opportunity to better utilize the ones they have.
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markymark
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by markymark on Jul 18, 2020 10:36:14 GMT -5
Here’s a Forbes article I read last month that noted this problem as well: www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2020/06/10/wwe-is-kicking-aews-butt-in-diversity-right-now/It’s been a real issue for me, to be honest. The most recent time I saw it being discussed on Twitter before AJ Gray called them out again, a fan defended AEW’s lack of black representation by noting that Scorpio Sky had a big match against Jericho, that Private Party beat the Young Bucks, and that they have a black executive, that being Brandi Rhodes. Private Party beat the Bucks on the second episode of Dynamite, and the Scorpio Sky match was in November.... we’re about to hit August. I’m not saying they’re intentionally not pushing or signing black stars (sign Suge D), but in the year of our lord 2020, one of these Elite executives should have seen this being an issue and done something about it. The optics are baaaaad. These dude are putting themselves all over the show, but if a black kid tunes in, they’re more than likely not going to see themselves represented in a meaningful way. I get that WWE and/or Impact has had the ability to sign so many great black stars before AEW existed, but they still have all the opportunity to better utilize the ones they have. You mean push a certain guy down the fans throats? Like that worked so well with pre drunk Adam Page or early Dark Order.
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Post by cabbageboy on Jul 18, 2020 10:38:28 GMT -5
I took a look at the Summerslam 1992 card as a reference point since that will be on FS1 soon. There were a few minority wrestlers on the card, but not that many. Papa Shango wrestled a dark match vs. Tito Santana. Tatanka was in another dark match. But on the actual PPV card you had Virgil (who got squashed by Nailz) and Kamala. That's like 18/20 wrestlers being white (90%). That isn't counting managers.
Let me look at Summerslam 1999 for another comparison. I counted all of 3 minorities on the PPV card (D'Lo, Faarooq, Rock) out of 23 total wrestlers. That's about 87% white guys. Curiously enough a show like WM 3 actually had quite a bit more diversity to it: Muraco (native Hawaiian), Haiti Kid, Little Beaver, and Little Tokyo in the wacky midget match, JYD, Tito Santana, Butch Reed and Koko Ware, Steamboat (part Japanese), Iron Sheik.
My point is that wrestling has largely been this white guy thing for a long time. That era is what guys like Cody (or even Tony Khan) grew up with. Omega not so much, so you see more diversity with his signings. There are a few black guys on AEW Dark that are green as grass but have potential.
Here is some food for thought though: Is signing more women or minorities going to lead to AEW having far more success? WWE is pushing women on a big level and has a lot of diversity among its current titleholders....and is getting record low ratings. I think smarks on message boards tend to forget that the biggest audience for wrestling historically is a bunch of rednecks, which isn't an audience that is terribly interested in any of this, so they quit watching. So who replaces that audience? No one really.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jul 18, 2020 10:42:38 GMT -5
I took a look at the Summerslam 1992 card as a reference point since that will be on FS1 soon. There were a few minority wrestlers on the card, but not that many. Papa Shango wrestled a dark match vs. Tito Santana. Tatanka was in another dark match. But on the actual PPV card you had Virgil (who got squashed by Nailz) and Kamala. That's like 18/20 wrestlers being white (90%). That isn't counting managers. Let me look at Summerslam 1999 for another comparison. I counted all of 3 minorities on the PPV card (D'Lo, Faarooq, Rock) out of 23 total wrestlers. That's about 87% white guys. Curiously enough a show like WM 3 actually had quite a bit more diversity to it: Muraco (native Hawaiian), Haiti Kid, Little Beaver, and Little Tokyo in the wacky midget match, JYD, Tito Santana, Butch Reed and Koko Ware, Steamboat (part Japanese), Iron Sheik. My point is that wrestling has largely been this white guy thing for a long time. That era is what guys like Cody (or even Tony Khan) grew up with. Omega not so much, so you see more diversity with his signings. There are a few black guys on AEW Dark that are green as grass but have potential. Here is some food for thought though: Is signing more women or minorities going to lead to AEW having far more success? WWE is pushing women on a big level and has a lot of diversity among its current titleholders....and is getting record low ratings. I think smarks on message boards tend to forget that the biggest audience for wrestling historically is a bunch of rednecks, which isn't an audience that is terribly interested in any of this, so they quit watching. So who replaces that audience? No one really. So don't sign and push black wrestlers/minorities because rednecks would be offended? You don't cater to one audience. There is a reason WWE is always looking for that latin star to get that market. Once again, representation matters We are minorities for a reason, we won't be a majority in the company. However, show me a few people who look like me and I can connect to and if they grasp me you have a fun. You aren't reinventing the wheel, just trying to make sure the wheels on that bus can support everyone
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Post by autisticgeordie on Jul 18, 2020 10:52:23 GMT -5
I took a look at the Summerslam 1992 card as a reference point since that will be on FS1 soon. There were a few minority wrestlers on the card, but not that many. Papa Shango wrestled a dark match vs. Tito Santana. Tatanka was in another dark match. But on the actual PPV card you had Virgil (who got squashed by Nailz) and Kamala. That's like 18/20 wrestlers being white (90%). That isn't counting managers. Let me look at Summerslam 1999 for another comparison. I counted all of 3 minorities on the PPV card (D'Lo, Faarooq, Rock) out of 23 total wrestlers. That's about 87% white guys. Curiously enough a show like WM 3 actually had quite a bit more diversity to it: Muraco (native Hawaiian), Haiti Kid, Little Beaver, and Little Tokyo in the wacky midget match, JYD, Tito Santana, Butch Reed and Koko Ware, Steamboat (part Japanese), Iron Sheik. My point is that wrestling has largely been this white guy thing for a long time. That era is what guys like Cody (or even Tony Khan) grew up with. Omega not so much, so you see more diversity with his signings. There are a few black guys on AEW Dark that are green as grass but have potential. Here is some food for thought though: Is signing more women or minorities going to lead to AEW having far more success? WWE is pushing women on a big level and has a lot of diversity among its current titleholders....and is getting record low ratings. I think smarks on message boards tend to forget that the biggest audience for wrestling historically is a bunch of rednecks, which isn't an audience that is terribly interested in any of this, so they quit watching. So who replaces that audience? No one really. Why do you have such an issue with women and minorities, man?? So, what you're saying is that, if you want to get high ratings, every dude has to be white and the women have to just wrestle in objectifying matches that harken back to the ruthless aggression era?? I really, really hope that you never end up running any wrestling company. Like, who gives a f*** if some redneck, backwoods hillbilly f*** don't like the idea that people of colour or women or minorities in general are getting pushed, that bullshit mindset just would mean that wrestling never improves or gets any better.
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Post by Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite on Jul 18, 2020 10:54:02 GMT -5
Also, since we're talking about bringing in more diverse talent:
This is a total long shot/could possibly end in Tragedy, but I believe at this point New Jack would made a great heel manager for someone
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Post by Mister Pigwell on Jul 18, 2020 10:54:24 GMT -5
I took a look at the Summerslam 1992 card as a reference point since that will be on FS1 soon. There were a few minority wrestlers on the card, but not that many. Papa Shango wrestled a dark match vs. Tito Santana. Tatanka was in another dark match. But on the actual PPV card you had Virgil (who got squashed by Nailz) and Kamala. That's like 18/20 wrestlers being white (90%). That isn't counting managers. Let me look at Summerslam 1999 for another comparison. I counted all of 3 minorities on the PPV card (D'Lo, Faarooq, Rock) out of 23 total wrestlers. That's about 87% white guys. Curiously enough a show like WM 3 actually had quite a bit more diversity to it: Muraco (native Hawaiian), Haiti Kid, Little Beaver, and Little Tokyo in the wacky midget match, JYD, Tito Santana, Butch Reed and Koko Ware, Steamboat (part Japanese), Iron Sheik. My point is that wrestling has largely been this white guy thing for a long time. That era is what guys like Cody (or even Tony Khan) grew up with. Omega not so much, so you see more diversity with his signings. There are a few black guys on AEW Dark that are green as grass but have potential. Here is some food for thought though: Is signing more women or minorities going to lead to AEW having far more success? WWE is pushing women on a big level and has a lot of diversity among its current titleholders....and is getting record low ratings. I think smarks on message boards tend to forget that the biggest audience for wrestling historically is a bunch of rednecks, which isn't an audience that is terribly interested in any of this, so they quit watching. So who replaces that audience? No one really. Even in a discussion about the lack of representation in wrestling, you still find a way to shoehorn in your usual complaints about the existence of women in wrestling.
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Heartbreaker
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Post by Heartbreaker on Jul 18, 2020 11:04:50 GMT -5
I am so shocked this thread is a train wreck.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2020 11:06:08 GMT -5
BREAKING - AEW main event scene so white Alberto Del Rio caught trying to snort it.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Jul 18, 2020 11:10:44 GMT -5
What's AR Fox/Dante Fox up to these days? He's a guy I could legit see dropped into the main event scene of any promotion today and look credible.
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Post by Dub H on Jul 18, 2020 11:45:03 GMT -5
Personally I think they have a really good diversity right now.
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Post by Ecks Ecks Ringout Ecks Ecks on Jul 18, 2020 12:01:14 GMT -5
Yeah, this is something they need to work on.
I feel like Scorpio Sky could be a legit main event star if they follow through on the push they keep teasing. I'd love to see them sign Jay Lethal, but that's probably not happening anytime soon.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Jul 18, 2020 12:05:52 GMT -5
Also, since we're talking about bringing in more diverse talent: This is a total long shot/could possibly end in Tragedy, but I believe at this point New Jack would made a great heel manager for someone No. Under absolutely no circumstances should that ever happen.
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Post by eJm on Jul 18, 2020 12:12:41 GMT -5
See, I had more thoughts but I'll summarize it like this; I don't see the harm in calling for more diversity and representation in wrestling. Like, the names of Scorpio, Private Party and Big Swole are mentioned but if you really look at it, that's one black person for each division which, understandably, might come off as token representation rather than representing the diverse nature of the scene as a whole. Also let's consider, right now is the best time to call AEW out on stuff because they're more likely to make the changes needed. WWE, for as much progress as they've made, are still very ingrained and have no fundamental reason to do much except give token gestures and sign people because they're big right now and because they can. Sure, they can take a risk with a Kofi, but fundamentally, they're never going to do much story-wise outside of that because they're moment based. For all the criticisms you might have for them, AEW have at least demonstrated an ability to adapt and change to that and have been making an improvement with such. But it's also not unreasonable to ask for more considering. If I were any of the EVPs, I'd be paying attention to the tweets sent by Grey, Suge and others about talent they should be looking at. Hell, have Janela watch ACH at the next GCW show and see how he is and pick his brain about a cameo, there's no harm in it. So don't sign and push black wrestlers/minorities because rednecks would be offended? You don't cater to one audience. There is a reason WWE is always looking for that latin star to get that market. Once again, representation matters We are minorities for a reason, we won't be a majority in the company. However, show me a few people who look like me and I can connect to and if they grasp me you have a fun. You aren't reinventing the wheel, just trying to make sure the wheels on that bus can support everyone Also, hey, you want to change that perception and audience? Get more representation and don't do them dirty. WWE's search for a hispanic star always goes pear shaped because, outside of Del Rio, they just think having someone diverse is enough without having those people care and feel they're one of their own. Look at the Jinder push and how that bombed as a great example of misunderstanding a potentially big audience. But also from seeing tweets and such, people who aren't white can tell when they're being used as a token and when their ceiling is lower than their white counterparts. It puts people off from watching or even getting invested. So...like, don't?
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lucas_lee
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Post by lucas_lee on Jul 18, 2020 12:12:48 GMT -5
I was gonna post this topic, but I didnt know if it violated the rules. I see his point, a lot of AAA wrestlers look good in defeat in AEW and do nothing after that. I'll bet you Sonny Kiss is going to job again and be forgotten about as an afterthought, post Cody match. I think AEW could do a better job at elevating AA talent to the main event. It's one of the few things WWE has done (albeit unwittingly.)
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