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Why Wrestling Shows Like “Black Wrestlers Matter” and “For The Culture” Are Needed In Modern Day Wrestling

2020 has been a very bad year especially in wrestling where we saw more than 30 people get released on “Black Wednesday," Shad Gaspard making an heroic sacrifice to save his only son while they were vacationing on Memorial Day Weekend, a The #SpeakingOut Movement.

2020 has also been a very rough and tumultuous year for black people in America when we were shocked to find out Lakers legend Kobe Bryant had died in a horrible helicopter crash with his 13 year old daughter. Chadwick Boseman who’s famous for playing T’Challa/Black Panther in The 2018 Movie “Black Panther” (which I personally wasn’t too crazy about primarily because of my legitimate issues with the character he portrayed in the movie), The Cold Blooded Police Murder Of George Floyd, The Acquittal Of Breonna Taylor’s killers, and The Current Pandemic.

I have had a lot of good years in my life and I have had a lot of bad ones. And without a shadow of a doubt, 2020 will always go down for me personally as the 5th worst year of my entire life primarily because of The Pandemic.

But 2020 also brought special wrestling events that are definitely needed in the modern era of wrestling called “Black Wrestlers Matter” and “For The Culture” which definitely bring a true smile on my face as a black man who’s been watching professional wrestling since it’s peak in the late 1990s.

I remember growing up during my teenage years, I was a real big Nitro guy and whenever I watched every Monday Night especially that atrocious year of 2000 Nitro, I didn’t even see very much representation of people that didn’t look like me on TV especially on Raw and Smackdown when I used to watch WWE religiously every week from 2001-2008. Along with the severe degradation of women in WWE at that time and the direction of the product going PG, the heavy lack of representation on TV were amongst the main reasons why I took a 10 year personal sabbatical (break) from wrestling.

Now that I have been watching some wrestling for the past two years since , I have definitely seen more representation of people that absolutely look like me in the wrestling industry especially on the indie scene which makes me feel alive and happy to be a wrestling fan once again.

For far too long, the predominantly cis white male wrestling industry has looked down on, shitted on, buried, and disrespected black wrestlers time and time again. And trust me, I have seen this so many times during my 22 years as a black wrestling fan.

I am also happy to see some black people within the wrestling industry that have decided to create their own opportunities and no longer waiting for let alone begging someone else to give them opportunities. Recent examples of this is Jon West’s brainchild “Black Wrestlers Matter” and AJ Gray’s brainchild “For The Culture”

“Black Wrestlers Matter” and “For The Culture” are events created by us to showcase the phenomenal talented black wrestlers that are often passed over for opportunities including those because of their body size, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

Note: There are other black owned indie wrestling promotions like F1ght Club Pro Wrestling, Urban Championship Wrestling, and C3W.

It’s always refreshing to see wrestling match cards that mostly consists of people that look like me regardless of their body size, gender identity, and sexual orientation. I would take that type of  wrestling match card over the predominant cis white male wrestling match cards that’s so common in many indie promotions nowadays especially the modern day mainstream ones like AEW any day of the week.

The Conclusion - The last reason why wrestling shows like “Black Wrestlers Matter” and “For The Culture” are needed because it will give black wrestlers the ability to not only create and tell their own stories through matches and promos, but also it will give black people more opportunities behind the scenes as road agents, bookers, writers, producers, cameramen, and commentators.

By Kwame Shakir

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