Former WWE SmackDown Women’s champion Bianca Belair who is the winner of the women’s Royal Rumble match of 2021 recently revealed how it felt to be a black wrestler in WWE. She revealed that it definitely felt special and it also added more pressure on her shoulders.
There has always been a common complain on WWE that they do not treat their black wrestlers equally as their white wrestlers. This is one of the biggest reasons why we did not get to see a black WWE Champion for a very long time.
WWE RAW – Bianca Belair Reveals How It Feels To Be A Black Wrestler In WWE
This is why it took 56 years for WWE to ground their first ever black WWE champion. Kofi Kingston was the first Black WWE champion who won the WWE championship at WrestleMania 35. We are not counting the World Heavyweight Championship, it was won by Booker T of course.
But such a claim cannot be true since most of the top stars in WWE black today. We have seen back to back black WWE champions recently. At first it was won by Bobby Lashley, and then it was Big E who defeated Lashley to win the WWE championship.
There are other top black guys who has the potential to become future WWE Champions as well, such as Omos. And surely, Lashley and Big E have more Championship reigns waiting for them.
The story has not been same for the women in WWE. There have been black Women’s champions in WWE before they could do it with men. There was Jacqueline and Jazz more than two decades ago and both of them won the WWE Women’s Championship.
Bianca Belair is one of the most recent black WWE champions, and she is definitely one of the top women of WWE right now. The world in WWE is changing, there is no room for racism and there should never be.
Bianca Belair who is the winner of the women’s Royal Rumble match of 2021 recently spoke to Ebro Darden’s ‘The Message’ series on Apple Music where she revealed how it felt to be a black wrestler in WWE. She revealed that it definitely felt special and it also added more pressure on her shoulders. She said;
“Yeah, it’s a whole different level of not just being a woman but being a Black woman and being an athlete and being in WWE and being the representation. I always say that being a Black woman, we don’t have the privilege to just go out there and just perform. There’s so much that’s on our shoulders. When I go out there specifically, for me, I can’t speak for everyone else but, I’m not just worried about performing.
“I’m worried about representing and making sure I’m doing it the right way and knowing that my role, the role that I play, I inspire so many different people being a Black woman so, it’s added pressure when it comes to that and you know, with being — me and Sasha Banks being the first two Black women to ever main event WrestleMania, that was such a huge deal and anyone that goes back and watches that match.
“I get so emotional in the beginning of that match because I understood the significance of that moment and how powerful that moment is and how it doesn’t come about very often and I can’t wait until it becomes the new norm and so it’s definitely added pressure there but you know, for me it’s all about knowing my why and knowing — I always say this;
“I always go back to when I was a little girl and I think about the role models that influenced me and how it changed the whole trajectory of my life and how it influenced where I am right now and to think that I’m doing that for other people, that’s my role and that’s my why.
“But that’s that added pressure. We don’t have that privilege to just go out there and perform and compete and that’s all we’re worried about. It’s that added pressure of representing and representing the right way.
H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling