WWE: 5 negative stereotypes in WWE

The world of professional wrestling is pretty cut and dry; you have plot holes, story lines, angles and most importantly, performers settling their scores inside the squared circle. The ‘entertainment’ part of it includes everything else, about how these storylines are carried out best to captivate the imagination of the causal wrestling fan, and how best to integrate drama into the story.

In WWE, for good or bad, the ‘entertainment’ aspect is always given the preference. WWE considers itself to be a soap opera with physicality. When you think about it, it is possibly the greatest idea anyone can ever come up with. Professional wrestling is a cross between day time soap operas and contact sports.

Imagine boxing or mixed martial arts, but with back ground stories and personal touches. In recent times, WWE has portrayed some characters which were racial stereotypes. Starting with the character of Mohammad Hassan to Iron Sheikh or Sergeant Slaughter, WWE has always managed to irk the fans and get a reaction out of them. But there were times when they crossed the line, and in this article, I take a look at five such instances/characters that probably weren’t the best of ideas.

5. Mexicools

How many of the fans remember Super Crazy and Psicosis being a part of Mexicools in the WWE? The answer might not be flattering for the group, but WWE basically took a bunch of Mexicans and put them together. What was so wrong about it? Well, they used to come on lawn mowers to the ring, and basically ripped on the other Mexicans in the United States for “cleaning toilets”.

They were later dissolved and were individually used as jobbers before being released from the company, but Vince demonstrated what he thought about the Mexican fraternity with this gimmick.

4. Rico

Vince McMahon is notorious for his various fixations. In the crazy world of WWE, there have been many characters which were positive stereotypes (like Ricky Steamboat), but Rico was not one of them. With the flashy outfits and make up, Rico was given the character of a gay personality who would touch his opponents inappropriately, and thereby win his match by scaring his opponents.

If that didn’t reek of negative stereotyping, he was involved with Billy and Chuck, who were also portrayed to be male partners, until they came out saying they were just pretending, which infuriated the LGBT group in the United States.

3. Los Guerreros

Los Guerreros were probably the most entertaining tag team in the history of professional wrestling. Eddie Guerrero is arguably the most entertaining superstar in history, and when he teamed up with his real life cousin Chavo, they formed a duo and were part of some hilarious skits and vignettes. What was wrong about it you ask? Their motto was “Lie, cheat, steal”. Vince had the breakthrough idea of putting two Mexicans together and gave them the monicker of two people who’d rob others, cheat them and lie to them.

If the red lights didn’t go off there, Chavo was later given the character of Kerwin White, who used the phrase “If it isn’t white, then it’s not right”!

2. Ted Dibiase Sr./Virgil

The “Million Dollar Man” character of Ted Sr. was that of a rich, powerful white man who used to pay the lower class people to get out of trouble. What could be worse? He had a human slave, Virgil, who was an African American. There is nothing that could scream ‘racial stereotyping’ like a white man having a coloured slave.

Ted Dibiase once said he’d pay an African American kid to bounce a ball, but kicked the ball away, laughing in the kid’s face saying, “You don’t get paid for not finishing the job”. To Vince’s credit, Ted Dibiase had one of the most interesting characters in the WWE at that time, which made him a legend in the business.

1. Cryme Tyme

At number 1 is the team of JTG and Shad Gaspard, who were known as ‘Cryme Tyme’. What made the name of the tag team even worse was that both the performers were African Americans. So you had Cryme Tyme stealing things from other performers, and selling them off to others.

In professional wrestling, perhaps there is no other team which is more stereotypical than Cryme Tyme. Although, they were successful in getting over with the fans, but Vince basically threw the rule book out with this gimmick.