Grimmas Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Since the WWE is the largest wrestling company in the world who tries to appeal everywhere and have TV deals and tours everywhere you would expect them to have some diversity. It turns out, it's pretty lacking. First there are 53 wrestlers on the active main roster and 43 of them are male which is 81.1%. 38 of those 43 males are American at 88.4%. What about this, 12 of the males are either black, Spanish or Samoan. So, yes, 72.1% of the male roster is white males. Those numbers seem way too high. I think if you are trying to appeal to a mass audience around the world, maybe the WWE should mix it up a bit. Obviously they should focus on the ones that will make them the most money, but we all know that is not what they do either. I doubt this is really on purpose. I'm not saying the WWE is a racist sexist company or anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Those demographics seem to match up with the general American public. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Isn't the problem more how they portray minorities than the exact percentages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 They are boxed into this dated mindset that they can draw with minorities by just putting someone in a token role. Remember, they have been looking for *a* Latin star to replace Rey for years now. Only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Those demographics seem to match up with the general American public. True, if anything Samoans have a hugely disproportional representation in the WWE both now and historically. I also wonder how those numbers stake up against say main characters in network prime time television. They are boxed into this dated mindset that they can draw with minorities by just putting someone in a token role. Remember, they have been looking for *a* Latin star to replace Rey for years now. Only one. On a related note, they only seem to want one masked wrestler, as if multiple masked people would confuse us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkdoc Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Those demographics seem to match up with the general American public. ehrmmmmmm, no. way short on asians & latinos - the cultures associated with those ethnicities are huge in significant portions of the US. put it to you this way: i live in southern california now. whenever people want to go out for a decent-priced meal with friends here, it hardly ever seems to be burgers & fries or what have you. feels like it's almost always carne asada or ramen or pho or korean BBQ or bubble tea. that's a cross-section of america that isn't really represented in these shows. also seconding comments about portrayal of people of color as the bigger issue. i actually like the usos' whole act a lot for some reason, i guess just because you never see samoan wrestlers presented as basically normal dudes like that. even the war dance feels like the exact kind of pregame ritual you could see in a NFL locker room. that's what i'd like to see more of, personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 the "new day" gimmick is laughably bad and downright insulting really. Take the few black dudes on the roster and give them this.....whatever the fuck this gimmick is.....smh I actually thought they had a germ of a good idea when it looked like they were put together as a new NOD style group....then I thought this New Day shit was so over the top and terrible to set them up for a heel turn.......but no, it's just WWE being shitty again I really feel bad for Big E Langston because he's a stud and in different hand could be so much more valuable to a promotion than where he's at now as far as the way WWE had treated and portrayed asians and latinos.....well.....the less said the better the talking point for years is they want another Mysterio.....how about just putting a latino out there and let them be themselves? also, not racially related (or maybe it is) but they just suck at the masked wrestler thing. It wasn't that long ago that white men in masks were a staple and drew tons of money.....but maybe that's one of "THAT'S OLD SCHOOL BULLSHIT" Vince pet peeves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Those demographics seem to match up with the general American public. ehrmmmmmm, no. way short on asians & latinos - the cultures associated with those ethnicities are huge in significant portions of the US. put it to you this way: i live in southern california now. whenever people want to go out for a decent-priced meal with friends here, it hardly ever seems to be burgers & fries or what have you. feels like it's almost always carne asada or ramen or pho or korean BBQ or bubble tea. that's a cross-section of america that isn't really represented in these shows. also seconding comments about portrayal of people of color as the bigger issue. i actually like the usos' whole act a lot for some reason, i guess just because you never see samoan wrestlers presented as basically normal dudes like that. even the war dance feels like the exact kind of pregame ritual you could see in a NFL locker room. that's what i'd like to see more of, personally. Whites are 77% percent of the US, 88% in the WWE isn't far off. Samoans, a fraction of a percentage in the actual US demographics, take up "too much" of a share if you care bout that. You're also having a sort of localized bias and not realizing what a huge percentage of the US is, namely rural and suburban whites. Living in Chicago for 8 years before this January, it would be easy to think the US is pretty evenly split between Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics with a nice chunk of Asians, that everyone was a liberal or democrat and goes out for ethnic food, etc. etc. That's not how much of the country is (most of it, geographically and even demographically). Not to defend WWE for their BS gimmicks like new day, or to pretend like they aren't awful when it comes to any sort of racial sensitivity. But whites being 88% of the roster isn't crazy. Disproportionate, yes, but also what percentage of wrestlers in general are white? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted February 8, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 I think living in Toronto, which is the most multicultural city in the world, makes the WWE look so white washed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 It would, but drive out to Oshawa, let alone someplace even further, and it won't seem out of the ordinary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Sure.....but WWE's money is made in cities and metropolitan areas that are more diverse than bumfuck whiteville USA where they don't even run house shows in Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Because that's where stadiums are and people travel to them, sometimes from hours away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJH Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 To play Devil's Advocate for a second... you can only work with what's out there. I agree wholeheartedly with kjh that the issue is in the portrayal rather than the quota, but if we take this idea of one Hispanic star, which is obviously silly, but Del Rio was a good but far-from-great worker, a decent but not great promo, with some but hardly major-level charisma... and he was the best candidate they found. You can toss some of that on bad scouting, sure, but (late career) Eddie Guerreros hardly grow on trees and even if we take the dodgy booking after the initial push (not to mention the incidents surrounding his departure) out of the equation, I don't see Del Rio becoming more than he did; Rey Misterio is a special fucking talent, and in his own way is as hard to replace as a Hogan. The New Day gimmick is awful, and yes you could definitely do more with Big E, but Kofi and Xavier Woods? Personally, I'd love them to give a greater focus on the women, but, whilst Charlotte and Sasha are decent enough, they're hardly the Zenjo girls from twenty years ago either. You can point to Ronda becoming a big star in UFC but her combination of talent, promo, and (yes) looks, is as common as a Rock. Most importantly of all though is that the product just isn't hot. That a) hurts their recruitment and is the biggest reason most of the talent in the last few years has come via the indies; Kurt Angle, Brock, those guys are going to Vegas rather than Stamford. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkdoc Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 steenalized: i feel like we were kinda talking past each other there, as i wasn't all that clear. suspect you get what i mean though - you're looking at it with the overall statistics, i'm looking at it from the perspective of the highest-population areas as those often tend to be seen as "representing america" or whatever you want to call it. good points though! it would also be interesting to compare WWE with various sports in this regard. i always felt that the lack of black champions was one of the most business-exposing things about the older days, given the popular perception of black people as athletes in america. since the samoan point was brought up earlier, i'm just going to say that i wouldn't be surprised if the NFL was comparable to WWE there by this point (though obviously other major sports wouldn't be close at all). and WWE sure as heck looks lily-white if you watch baseball or basketball at all. that said, i do think wrestling comes off much better if you compare it to hollywood and its whitewashing adaptations. my personal favorite example is the movie about the MIT blackjack team that had white people in the main roles, when its source material specifically went into detail on why the team *did not* want white people actually playing at the tables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 That's true compared to other sports, though on the other hand, I've been watching a lot of B1G wrestling this year and that makes the WWE look like Toronto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 The NHL is the primary sport I follow these days. Total white guy sport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Almost every one of my WWE casual friends are black and they could care less about any diversity in the promotion just is it entertaining or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 the "new day" gimmick is laughably bad and downright insulting really. Take the few black dudes on the roster and give them this.....whatever the fuck this gimmick is.....smh Any gimmick you think of with 3 _____ black guys is going to come across as racist to race baiters. 3 happy black guys? Racist. 3 tough black guys? Racist. 3 angry black guys? Racist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 the "new day" gimmick is laughably bad and downright insulting really. Take the few black dudes on the roster and give them this.....whatever the fuck this gimmick is.....smh Any gimmick you think of with 3 _____ black guys is going to come across as racist to race baiters. 3 happy black guys? Racist. 3 tough black guys? Racist. 3 angry black guys? Racist. I'm not even calling it racist....it's just stupid How many black guys do they even have on the roster? those 3, Titus, Darren Young and Mark Henry. I'm probably forgetting someone else. Oh R-Truth Mark Henry is the only guy worth giving a shit about, and he hasn't even been around lately Titus has been booked like a joke and they were handed a golden opportunity with Darren Young and squandered it.......and there's no reason not to stick them back together as a tag team when they had no real plans for either of them when they split them up It's just.....you've got 3 talented guys in their own rights....and Big E who they've completely dropped the ball with and might need to go away ala Umaga or Rikishi or Glenn Jacobs who had the stink of awful booking on them but came back to have good runs after enough time for people to forget "The Sultan" "3MW" and "Fake Diesel" etc. It's just really noticeable when the roster is so not diverse as is.....and they take some of the few black guys they have and stick them with this terrible shucking and jiving gimmick that crowds are rightfully shitting on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 The crowd at the house show I was at last week loved New Day. All the kids were clapping and chanting along with the guys. The little kids especially . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 I don't watch much WWE and based on what I've seen I was actually under the assumption New Day were supposed to be insincere heels until reading this thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye12 Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 I don't watch much WWE and based on what I've seen I was actually under the assumption New Day were supposed to be insincere heels until reading this thread I think they are merely a set up for an eventual heel turn, but at this point they are just babyfaces. They were over pretty well when Smackdown was here before Christmas. They are corny on promos, but once they are in ring, Kofi and Big E are the same guys they've always been, and I'd expect would be cheered just the same as they always have been. I'm a little surprised that they weren't pushed harder when they debuted, but pretty much just repackaged in the same spot they always were, only with matching gear and a catchphrase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anarchistxx Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 Both US and UK television is completely lacking in Asian representation. There are significant Chinese, Japanese and Korean populations in England but they probably make up less than 0.1% of people you see on television - that scarily isn't even an exaggeration. In WWE this is particularly glaring considering how many fantastic workers there are from that demographic. Otherwise, I don't think they have huge problems with diversity. As mentioned the issue can be how they are presented with the casual, implied racism such as putting The New Day together for no other reason except the fact that all the members were black, or having R-Truth replace D-Von in the Royal Rumble, again seemingly because black people are just interchangeable. There are also the endlessly dated stereotypes of 'evil foreign heel' and other slightly racist stock characters they peddle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted February 8, 2015 Report Share Posted February 8, 2015 What about this, 12 of the males are either black, Spanish or Samoan. So, yes, 72.1% of the male roster is white males. Are there any wrestlers from Spain actually in the company? Seriously though, some would probably get upset or confused about being listed as being "Spanish". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye12 Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 What about this, 12 of the males are either black, Spanish or Samoan. So, yes, 72.1% of the male roster is white males. Are there any wrestlers from Spain actually in the company? Seriously though, some would probably get upset or confused about being listed as being "Spanish". Oddly enough Kane was born in Spain, but wouldn't count as Spanish lol. I'm also curious if you counted Seth Rollins as Hispanic and Damian Sandow as Arabic, or if they both got put in the "white" category? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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