If you notice, Impact's Black viewership also increased during the same time period. 3 of the 4 major champions in Impact are Black.
Perception and history are key.
Impact’s most dominant champion ever was black, and they generally do right by pushing and featuring a hot act when they’re black/POC like Swann, Ron Killings, Chris Bey, Black Machismo, etc. (Monty Brown aside… it’s still forever fukk Jarrett for that). We saw that they’d do right by us, and so we watch.
And for all the shyt we give Cokeboy, he doesn’t half ass it when he pushes someone black to a more prominent role. The best booked Babyface World Champion of the last 5 years? Kofi. The best booked World Champion the last 3 years? Lashley. The biggest stars of the women’s division? Bianca and Sasha. He doesn’t do it OFTEN, but he does it right when he does more often than not.
