Chude Uzoka-Anofienem, Staff Writer
No doubt, you are all familiar with the name Hulk Hogan. Even if you’ve never watched professional wrestling in your life, or you think it’s stupid, Hulk Hogan’s name is synonymous with the industry. The face of what was once known as the World Wrestling Federation in the 80s and 90s, Hulk Hogan became a household name. The man who was credited with reviving the New World Order (nWo) storyline after WWE purchased WCW, was fired in 2015 (he was rehired three years later) after a taped conversation in 2007 containing an incredibly racist diatribe that came to light years later.
One could debate whether somebody should lose their job for things they say off-the-cuff in their own personal lives, but that’s not a discussion I’m interested in. I’d prefer to discuss a favorite topic of mine: hypocrisy. The WWE has a long and storied history of racist and bigoted behavior. Does that excuse Hulk Hogan? No, of course it doesn’t. However, for a company that has spent decades profiting from racial stereotypes and degrading portrayals of Black wrestlers, it’s telling that this is the first time they acted like they cared.
Wrestlers always have a gimmick; an in-ring character or persona. Even not having a gimmick is considered a gimmick in and of itself. Hulk Hogan was the real American and savior of the United States. Meanwhile other wrestlers had some kind of job, like a garbage man or a prison guard. Black wrestlers, however, were always saddled with some sort of questionable gimmick.
In the 80s and 90s, you had Bad News Brown, a scary Black man whose finisher is named the “Ghetto Blaster”, named after a portable stereo or a boombox, primarily used in ghettos. Flash Funk had a ridiculous outfit and had “Fly Girls” accompany him to the ring. Moe and Mabel, or the Men on a Mission, rapped during their entrances.
These are pretty tame, but then you had Papa Shongo, a voodoo priest/witch doctor. The man who portrayed him also portrayed “The Godfather,” a pimp who is accompanied to the ring by prostitutes. A pretty egregious example is Kamala, a savage tribesman who was very confused about everything and spoke in grunts. He was managed by his “handlers,” one of whom was named “Kim Chee” (named of course after the Korean food) who beat and abused him if he did something wrong.
Then there was Virgil, billed as the bodyguard of the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, he was practically a modern slave forced under the beck and call of a rich white man. DiBiase has even said that he owns Virgil. Virgil eventually beat DiBiase in the WWE and broke free of “servin’ his’ massa.”
Some of the more racially questionable moments revolved around Ron Simmons, who played professional football before joining WCW. The WWF called him Faarooq, gave him a Black Power angle and led a Black Power group called The Nation of Domination. This group included Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. They all saluted before matches kind of like The Black Panthers and feuded with redneck bikers (The Disciples of the Apocalypse) and a Latino gang (Los Boricuas).
The NOD was the target of several racially insensitive storylines from their opponents including blackface (Generation X-themed group called DX) and having their locker room vandalized with things like “We hate you,” “Stay in your own country,” “Uncle Tom,” and KFC and Malcolm X crossed out (Canadian group The Heart Foundation). This all happened in the late 90s. Not the 30s, the 90s.
The WWF didn’t necessarily need a Black wrestler around in order to be insulting to African Americans. Take Akeem, The African Dream. His gimmick is that he’s a large white man from South Carolina who spoke in an exaggerated “Black Accent” and donned something resembling traditional African garb…I guess. His manager was The Doctor of Style, Slick, a Black man whose original gimmick was that of a pimp in a 70s blaxploitation film, until he renounced that role and became a stereotypically Black Southern preacher.
Let’s not forget about all the other minorities and ethnicities they’ve insulted. The talented Tito Santana was El Matador – a Spanish bullfighter – even though he was Mexican and not from Spain. Similarly, Razor Ramon was a greasy, gold-chain-wearing Cuban thug who adopted a Tony Montana wannabe gimmick, but he wasn’t Cuban at all. He was played by Scott Hall, a white guy from Maryland.
In order to take advantage of the turmoil going on in the Middle East at the time, they had Sgt. Slaughter, an American military man who adopted a traitor gimmick, turning on the USA to join the side of our Middle Eastern enemies. Slaughter was paired with the Iron Sheik (then known as Colonel Mustafa) and General Adnan–both of whom were Iranian-while the U.S. was at war with Iraq, but details don’t matter apparently.
Hulk Hogan would defeat the foreign enemy of the day. Along with Sgt. Slaughter, Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik, Nikolqi Volkokai, (a Russian fighter who was Croatian) and Yokozuna, a Japanese Sumo Wrestler who was played by a large Samoan man who looked “kind of Asian.” The US hasn’t even been enemies with Japan in years but he’s foreign, so that makes him a “bad guy.”
When Samoans were allowed to be Samoans, they were usually depicted as uncivilized tribesmen. For example, The Headshrinkers were a pair of wild savages that chewed on turkey carcasses before matches and their manager would carry around the shrunken heads of their enemies. A quick Google search reveals that tribes in the Amazon are the only documented tribes to practice head shrinking, but Wikipedia didn’t exist in the 90s, so it was easier to fool the audience.
I’d also like to point out that in the history of the heavyweight championship, there have been nine visible minorities that have ever held the title: Pedro Morales, Antonio Inoki, The Iron Sheik, Yokozuna, The Rock, Eddie Guerero, Rey Mysterio, Albert Del Rio and Jinder Mahal. If you count the secondary title that they had for a while, that includes a few more: Seth Rollins, Booker T, Mark Henry, Roman Reigns, The Great Khali, Bobby Lashley, Kofi Kingston and Big E. There have been over 50 championships and this history dates back to the 1960s.
Wrestling is scripted, the outcomes are predetermined. It’s not about who’s better, someone just decides who will win. For the longest time, that someone was, but will no longer be, Vince McMahon. He’s the same man who would’ve likely given the order to remove Hulk Hogan from the company and erase his bio from the website. The same man who likely oversaw, approved or directed every racist gimmick and storyline I’ve mentioned – along with plenty of others that I didn’t mention.
It doesn’t help his case that there’s a very famous video of Vince McMahon being racist in an attempt to look “cool” in front of John Cena—a white guy who, let’s be honest, kind of appropriates hip-hop culture himself. The moment was played for laughs.
So, Vince McMahon, who casually dropped the ugliest word in the English Language on live TV in front of millions and has been part of the decision-making process for decades of racially insensitive, characters, gimmicks and skits, fired a guy for saying the same slur in a private conversation. Again, not saying he shouldn’t have been fired–just saying that Vince McMahon’s moral compass might require a little recalibration. Uttering a racial slur to your friends is an unforgivable sin, but creating a slave or African Tribal character or having people perform in blackface and profiting off racist caricatures for decades? That’s just good business. Glad we’re on the same page.
Ring the bell! This match is over! Here is your winner….HYPOCRISY!!
The La Salle Collegian 