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The WWE’s complex “Black” history

F.D Signifier | June 6, 2026



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00:00 Why do black people love wrestling?
05:00 The earliest days of black wresters
17:00 Troubling patterns in black wrestling gimmicks
20:20 Some thoughts on Vince MacMahon
31:25 Some scattered victories for black wrestlers
37:26 What exactly was the Rock cooking?
51:56 Black wrestling’s lowest point
55:56 Kofimania
01:13:09 What goes up…
01:15:45 Final thoughts

edited by @NeedlessNick

Written by F.D Signifier

Comments

This post currently has 46 comments.

  1. @reggmac6975

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    I've been watching wrestling for 50 years. I realized everything you talked about in this video at a very young age.
    When you control the narrative you have the power to do whatever you want.
    The fact that Ron Simmons was the first Black world champion in the 90's is pathetic and what's more pathetic is him going to the WWF and turned into a joke.

  4. @nep4912

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Thanks for putting this out here, I'm just getting into wrestling so learning more of the history in how wwe has treated their Black wrestlers in the past better puts in perspective the current state

  9. @lyokhamishukov3513

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Coming back to this video after the news of Kofi and Xavier leaving the WWE is hard. After all those two have given to the businesscthey deservee better than TKO trying to renegotiate their contracts. I hopecthey go to AEW and have matches with some of the great tag teams there, but no matter wherecthey go they're gonna be beloved.

  11. @JimmyJarrett-u2l

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    It's not just a complex history with black wrestler, look how they've portrayed white people from the south (like Hillbilly Jim for instance). They were often dumb backwards hillbillie "rasler", English people were always tea drinking posh people, like Regal (who was anything but that)

  15. @karlalden2076

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Ron Simmons winning the title is one of my favorite wrestling moments and I really encourage people to look up the clip, theres a kid on the left side of the screen that runs down the isle and holding onto the gaurd rail and is jumping up and down with excitment losing his mind. Biggest and most deserved pop ever.

  16. @gogob2008

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    I loved/was terrified of Papa Shango as a kid, I had such a hard time convincing myself it wasn't real. THe one where Ultimate Warrior is doing a prior and the black stuff started dripping down his forehead left such an impact on me.

  20. @11555Rambler

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Hi I know I need to follow your advice to watch more black YouTubers but it is hard because you have so many videos and they’re so consistently good! I will follow your advice though, just a couple more from you…

  21. @sumoppu

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Funny how I’m watching this a week from the great match between Oba Femi, a Nigerian powerhouse built like a tank that has eliminated like, 6 dudes in 10secs, and Brock Lesnar. God, make it good please.

  25. @joeybaseball7352

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    There is a difference. The Avengers never tried to fool anybody into thinking it was real. WWE did for 100 years. WWE style performance wrestling has been fake since the 1800s. They were still independent traveling companies back then before Vince McMahon Sr bought them all up, and monopolized the industry of fake wrestling. But there was an investigation to uncover how fake WWE was. It was on 60 Minutes. Back when 60 Minutes was actually credible. There was never investigative journalism about the Avengers being fake. WWE fooled people for over a century.

  26. @DeronHargrove

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Watched this on Nebula but this was excellent. Ended up crying near the end just with everything. People don't realize how powerful storytelling is sometimes

  27. @westsidewlove14

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    3:59 To be fair some fans do believe a lot of stuff in wrestling is real… I grew up watching wrestling so I don’t have a biased but for ex … people think that Ishowspeed was really hurt when he got speared. The line is so blurred because we have seen botches and know people can be hurt. This leads fans to believe everything. They’re convinced he is hurt because he wore a neck brace to the airport, like wrestlers don’t keep kayfabe going.

  30. @Brenny4002

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    Had to watch this to get ready for the upcoming disappointment. This year Brock Lesnar is about to face a Nigerian rookie Oba Femi at Wrestlemania. Brock is rumored to be going over and (given that Brock doesn’t like wrestling for more than 5 minutes) potentially squashing Oba. There might be some more discourse to be had if they squash Oba at Mania.

  31. @WilliamFromGretnaVA

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    I'm curious if you draw parallels with the blackness demiurge that helped put Obama on a pedestal that's harmful in hindsight and the same.. liberal? Urge to put a black face in the presidency of wrestling zietgiest. There's a cutting jab in this word salad comment I promise

  32. @FredericChristie

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    To emphasize how fractal of a ghoul Vince McMahon of the WWF/E is, as you do: The "African Dream" thing wasn't just minstreldom. It was also making fun of Dusty Rhodes. Because Vince is petty and cruel as well as bigoted. So he was also shitty against the Southern working class.

  34. @jgbcreations9368

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    I don't believe that WWE is a racist company in the sense that they aren't a good work environment for black wrestlers but I do admit that their iffy, inconsistent, focus on the success of black wrestlers deserves some note.

  37. @2headed

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    58:46 this was when I locked in again. I think this was shortly after one of the best wrestling matches of all time with Bailey and then known as Sasha Banks on NXT and then they were both snatched by WWE to try to capture that magic again and again. And I remember this New Day era! With the Trombone! Whomp whomp! They did obnoxious perfectly! And were just fun. I loved watching them. The WWE was so entertaining again without all that racist/sexist nonsense that I became more uncomfortable and aware of going into my adolescences and made me resent and stop watching. As a kid my fave babyface was Bret the Hitman Heart and Heel was The Undertaker. Foundational Establishment WWF fan as a kid.

  40. @THEpopelonergan

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    So glad you put a spotlight on Tazz’s WWF debut in the intro!

    Hands down the best (and underrated) debuts in wrestling history.

    It still gives me goosebumps like it did when I was 7 years old.

    It’s such a shame they wasted that opportunity.

  41. @kata1261

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    I watched so much wrestling growing up… How badly did that mess up my perceptions and expectations of black people? Shit. Thanks, FD, I learned something again ❤

  43. @Lth0912

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    “With ur happy hair and ur suckaaas. Ur job is to make me laugh.” lol some of the most racist shit I’ve ever heard in WWE. And that’s exactly how they feel about us. Maybe Oba Femi will change this unfortunate history.. Buuuut I doubt it. There’s a certain way this company views a “black champion “.

  45. @lokofra9354

    June 6, 2026 at 7:56 pm

    dropping this damn essay here because i was thinking about shelton benjamin's career and i hate the IWC

    The massive misconception around Shelton Benjamin not being a Main Event caliber wrestler is the fact that he "couldn't talk", that is definitely true but this also ignores the fact that the WWE had pushed wrestlers who were of Shelton's caliber of wrestler to the main event status who also couldn't talk. Mainly RVD and Jeff Hardy, but also the major flaw with this argument is that even tho Shelton couldn't cut some CM Punk ass promo on somebody. Shelton was and still is one of the greatest wrestlers ever, and inside the ring he could get a storyline over and he could easily get himself over inside the ring.

    Go back and watch his match vs Shawn Michaels (who recently buried Shelton Benjamin in an interview for no reason), his MITB performances that are largely responsible for getting over that match, his matches with legends like Eddie Guerrero or Triple H. Shelton is one of the greatest wrestlers ever and nobody will ever dispute that, but most people have fallen back on this narrative that he "couldn't talk" to explain why he couldn't be a Main Eventer when the reality is that the WWE refused to present him as a main eventer even when he made it clear that he could be very early on. If you listen to Jim Cornette talk about that OVW class of 2002 he says that Shelton was the best worker and wrestler of the most legendary class in Wrestling ever. Anybody who knows wrestling will likely corroborate this.

    I think RVD and Jeff Hardy are two of the greatest wrestlers ever and I cannot name you a single promo from either of them that has ever meant anything to anybody. I find it blasphemous that Shelton Benjamin was not on the caliber of both of them, and his entire situation is made even more frustrating considering the absolute rut the WWE dug itself into during the PG era while pushing much lesser wrestlers to the moon like Jack Swagger and Alberto Del Rio.

    WWE has had serious problem through its entire modern history with pushing a lot of mid carders in general, and I think that is a separate issue that hasnt been very well examined when it comes to unions and its overall capitalistic tendencies. But the fact that performers like Shelton Benjamin, Booker T and Kofi Kingston all have gotten far less due then they deserve is just further proof of the company's obvious racism. Even look to Latino performers like Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio and their histories and the tendency remains clear, the WWE is always going to remain with the status quo and they are especially going to step over its colored wrestlers out of its own indignancy and biases. Triple H and VInce Mcmahon have done untold damage to the wrestling community.

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