AJ Gray goes in on Wrestling Twitter following blowback for pointing out lack of Diversity

[TrueEpic08]

Since his name's come up...

Fred Yehi is a weird one. If I were running AEW, I'd have signed him immediately, simply because creative technical wrestlers like him just don't come around every day. But if you're going to be on TV week in and week out, you need to have a real character along with the in-ring skills, and dude seems to be seriously lacking in that area. It's not like he has non-existent charisma or anything (he has plenty of physical charisma, and I've seen him give interesting promos in AAW, but he's a guy that would have really benefited, for instance, from a Dusty Rhodes working with him to develop a character and promo style he could append to that great in-ring work of his. I think it's going to be hard for him to get anywhere beyond the level he's currently at without that.

(By the way, if anyone has some good Yehi promos hiding anywhere, please post them. I've been looking.)

With that said, I still think there has to be more to Yehi's story if Timothy Thatcher got put on, but he's toiling in mid-level indies. Who knows?

(OT, but can I go on my Thatcher rant here? He's another one of these pretty good indie mat wrestler with a dull and uninteresting character. Not to mention that I think his work, along with that whole grapplefukk scene, is overrated. Dude spent years wrestling the same boring fake catch wrestling match over and over again. Why watch you when the Chicago Film Archives has years of Lou Thesz tape for me to watch, or I can just watch old Inoki footage?)

 

[Bryan Danielson]

Exactly, AEW is getting rightfully called out, but I will not excuse another company that had a 30+ year jump on them and other companies and is really only showcasing multiple blacks and other minorities solely due to COVID. Did we forget how Kofi lost the title, with no rematch in sight? Did we forget how R-Truth has been presented basically his entire WWE run outside of like 6 months? Naomi won her first Women’s title in 2016, 6 years after being on tv and probably 4 years after being ready, and came out of the Royal Rumble with scorching hot buzz, and extinguished not too long afterwards. Ricochet and Bianca spent multiple consecutive weeks on Main Event, one of which was pummeled by a guy named Riddikk Moss, who looks fresh out the WCW Power Plant. Sasha and Asuka’s resumes look great currently, but they were also used as stepladders for Charlotte and Alexa. There’s multiple other examples, but you get the gist of it. I’m not gonna pat the WWE on the back for basically being forced to do something they’ve had plenty of time to do. There’s only so many times they can use The Rock and Booker T as a crutch.

The biggest indictment man on them to me is LASHLEY.

You can all you want shyt on the Anna Jay/MJ Jenkins thing

But that’s nothing in comparison to what the fukk happened with Lashley coming back.

And people tried to me “Bu Bu Bu Bu Bu But THIS time when Lashley returns it’s finna be different!” “The best decision he made was to come HOME!”

I KNEW it was going to turn out like this

 

[Jello Biafra]

Here are the black wrestlers in AEW who are not 100% Jobber Status:

Brandi
Sonny Kiss
Scorpio Sky
Private Party
Ricky Starks
Big Swoll
Nyla Rose

Out of all of them the only one that is solidly in the upper level in their division within the company is Nyla Rose.

The rest of them are just there.

Maybe Brandi and Allie will become Women's tag champs somewhere down the line but as it stands they are in a women's tag team with no women's tag team division.

Sonny Kiss is in that team with Janela but they aren't a top tag team and Sonny has never been pushed as a top singles wrestler.

Private Party took that L to Kenny/Hangman and now they are in tag team limbo.

Ricky Starks had his debut TNT title match with Cody and has been on Youtube ever since.

Big Swoll is entertaining but she's not in the title picture of the women's division and is currently in a feud with an injured wrestler.

Scorpio aint doing jack.

 

[Bryan Danielson]

The whole system is just so fukked up and broken.....

with the NUMBER ONE WRESTLING COMPANY portraying us as comedy goofs, non intellectuals clowns, and losers.

I’m sorry & my bad if I don’t get mad at another company utilizing black talent and showcasing them more favorable and stronger as they lose vs being straight up clowns

 

[Peter Popoff]

MJF and Jungle Boy had very little experience when signed. I refuse to believe that there are no black versions

Scorpio Skky (part timer)beat Jericho and PP beat YB. That's all I have but there is no other good black talent on there.

If Keith Lee or Willie Mack came in and bombed then I'd be on the fukk AEW wave. There kinda is no top tier talent on that roster besides Omega, Mox (Sorry to say it) and Jericho. Those guys take bumps to 150 lb guys waiting for the next star.

The only other talent that needs that big push is Brodie Lee and Death Triangle.

 

[Prince Akeem]

I will say this though. QT is training a bunch of black wrestlers at his school in Atlanta and Cody bought a large stake in it. Those black wrestlers are getting checks,exposure , and ring experience on Dark in a time where indy wrestling is more or less shut down.

I expect that to bear fruit in the long run....Especially with Shawn Dean and Lee Johnson.

 

[The Solid One]

Exactly, AEW is getting rightfully called out, but I will not excuse another company that had a 30+ year jump on them and other companies and is really only showcasing multiple blacks and other minorities solely due to COVID. Did we forget how Kofi lost the title, with no rematch in sight? Did we forget how R-Truth has been presented basically his entire WWE run outside of like 6 months? Naomi won her first Women’s title in 2016, 6 years after being on tv and probably 4 years after being ready, and came out of the Royal Rumble with scorching hot buzz, and extinguished not too long afterwards. Ricochet and Bianca spent multiple consecutive weeks on Main Event, one of which was pummeled by a guy named Riddikk Moss, who looks fresh out the WCW Power Plant. Sasha and Asuka’s resumes look great currently, but they were also used as stepladders for Charlotte and Alexa. There’s multiple other examples, but you get the gist of it. I’m not gonna pat the WWE on the back for basically being forced to do something they’ve had plenty of time to do. There’s only so many times they can use The Rock and Booker T as a crutch.

Wrestling fake.

Calm down

 

[TrueEpic08]

The whole system is just so fukked up and broken.....

with the NUMBER ONE WRESTLING COMPANY portraying us as comedy goofs, non intellectuals clowns, and losers.

I’m sorry & my bad if I don’t get mad at another company utilizing black talent and showcasing them more favorable and stronger as they lose vs being straight up clowns

We can talk all we want about AEW coming up short on this front, but they've been giving Black wrestlers a lot of exposure over the course of the pandemic. We may not like HOW it's happening, but it is happening (and I'd argue that it's not just an issue of racism. Private Party are still super green, Swole's in a feud with the one girl AEW's consistently been dying to get over, and if Kenny Omega is working long matches on Dark, then it can't be discounted in this convo).

Meanwhile, WWE just spent the last few weeks taking all of Paul Heyman's pushes of minority wrestlers and largely throwing them into a dumpster fire. This is despite Heyman telling them that they should give the experiment 18 months before making a decision it. Not to mention their awful record on race in general.

You wanna critique AEW, fine. I said above they should have taken a flyer on Yehi, and they should have made stronger plays for Shane Strickland and Willie Mack as well (Chris Bey was way too green, in my opinion). But WWE has the far, far worse record, in my opinion. You wanna go in on AEW, you better be ready to literally light Titan Towers on fire for how they've treated Black talent.

 

[Bryan Danielson]

We can talk all we want about AEW coming up short on this front, but they've been giving Black wrestlers a lot of exposure over the course of the pandemic. We may not like HOW it's happening, but it is happening (and I'd argue that it's not just an issue of racism. Private Party are still super green, Swole's in a feud with the one girl AEW's consistently been dying to get over, and if Kenny Omega is working long matches on Dark, then it can't be discounted in this convo).

Meanwhile, WWE just spent the last few weeks taking all of Paul Heyman's pushes of minority wrestlers and largely throwing them into a dumpster fire. This is despite Heyman telling them that they should give the experiment 18 months before making a decision it. Not to mention their awful record on race in general.

You wanna critique AEW, fine. I said above they should have taken a flyer on Yehi, and they should have made stronger plays for Shane Strickland and Willie Mack as well (Chris Bey was way too green, in my opinion). But WWE has the far, far worse record, in my opinion. You wanna go in on AEW, you better be ready to literally light Titan Towers on fire for how they've treated Black talent.

They literally rather bring back Slater, Big Show, and Edge or give Orton more time than push some of the other black talent.

And to do the “Bu Bu Bu Bu” to check the box off. When they do use them, they prefer to do the “kill 2 birds with 1 stone” method of putting them all in an angle with each other like have Bobby feud with Truth, Ced and Ricochet

 

[SpacelySprockets]

welp now they're getting him outta here

 

[Playaz Eyez]

The biggest indictment man on them to me is LASHLEY.

You can all you want shyt on the Anna Jay/MJ Jenkins thing

But that’s nothing in comparison to what the fukk happened with Lashley coming back.

And people tried to me “Bu Bu Bu Bu Bu But THIS time when Lashley returns it’s finna be different!” “The best decision he made was to come HOME!”

I KNEW it was going to turn out like this

I knew they’d start some goofy stuff with him when they brought him back with no hype, a different theme, and didn’t even allow him to do any of his signatures initially. They had him using a damn stalling suplex as a finisher just cause Charlotte, Reigns, and SHANE were using the Spear how they’re pushing him right now is how they should have brought him back in the first place. Impact had a ready made blueprint that the WWE could’ve just lifted and of course they had to throw their own stench on it.

 

[Playaz Eyez]

welp now they're getting him outta here

welp now they're getting him outta here

I wonder how she even came across that. Was she offended that AEW was being called out and started searching his name?

 

[The Intergalactic Koala]

Welp that's that.

Dude fitting to get not only thrown under the bus but rode within that bytch.

Yall saw what happened to ACH

 

[SpacelySprockets]

I wonder how she even came across that. Was she offended that AEW was being called out and started searching his name?

you know some AEW dikkrider did a twitter search of "[insert problematic term here] from:richhomiejuice" in hopes of finding something to deflect from the issue he brought up

the girl whos tweet I posted in particular said it wasnt her receipts, but from what I gather she is a victim of sexual harassment herself so she makes it her mission to go hard about it any time something like that comes to light

 

[Paper Boi]

wrestling twitter is filled with nedkbeards and trannies.

of course they mad.