Hulkamania

I've never met a pro wrestling or MMA fan that could convince me they are intelligent. Bet $5 they could easily fool Baron and Batman they are geniuses.

 

The status of the Lumbees as a legitimate tribe is pretty questionable in and of itself.

 

Come on now. Don't blow your mom's money on that bet. She worked hard for those 8 seconds.

 

Are you just saying that, or are you writing that?

 

He's comin' to get ya, Baron!

 

Then why is he appropriating a Plains Indian headdress?

 

Beats me. This is pro wrestling after all.

Chief Jay Strongbow was actually Italian, not a Native American.

 

Hammond addressing his fans...

 

To be kind of fair to WWE, most of the pictures are from 10+ years ago, except for Cryme Tyme, which was 2006 to 2010. To be unfair to the WWE, they haven't had an African-American hold their main title belt except for The Rock, who is Samoan and Black Nova Scotian. (As others brought up in the pro wrestling thread, Booker T and Ron Simmons held their second main title, which is descended from WCW.) Eddie Guerrero and Alberto Del Rio have held it though, as well as the impossibly white Sheamus and tons of Canadians.

 

Mark Henry, too. And if you're mentioning foreigners, don't forget Rey Mysterio.

To carry over another point made on the wrestling thread, there just haven't been a lot of African-American wrestlers over the years, for one (in relation to the number of people in the business), and for two there have only been a small percentage of those who you could objectively say were championship material.
For the uninitiated, to reach the main roster of the WWE -- especially these days, when there's not an unlimited supply of jobber slots -- is a hell of an accomplishment in the industry. It's akin to breaking into the majors. Even if you get there and flame out in a year, you're in the top 1 or 2 percent of everyone performing the craft. To be a consistent star you need even more talent, and to be a champion you need to have an insane amount of talent both physically and from a performance standpoint. There's a reason only .0001 percent of anyone who has ever wrestled can call themselves a former WWE champion. It's the pinnacle of the business. Not many people, black OR white, ever reach that rare air.
Now, you could certainly make a case that the way they've been booked hasn't helped them in every case. I think there's five black wrestlers in prominent positions right now in WWE and they're all in two factions. They're also pretty popular and, from a critical standpoint, probably getting the right amount of push in storylines to maximize their current ability.

 

Looking it up on Wikipedia, there have been a total of 45 wrestlers who have been the WWE champion, going back to the beginning of the lineage to Buddy Rogers in 1963. Three of them: Kane, Mysterio, and Andre the Giant (an interesting random threesome), held the title for one day or less. No. 42 on the list is Vince himself, during one of those goofy storylines, who held it for 6 days.

So, in reality, 41 wrestlers have held the WWE title for one week or longer. Think of the thousands of wrestlers going back to 1963, which can include everyone from Terry Funk, whose been working since that time, or Jay Leno, who had that one tag match. Plus all the people who go to wrestling school and quit because it's too hard (one of Hogan's stories is that he had his leg broken in his first lesson). There are really two chances to be WWE champion, as Gorilla Monsoon used to put it. Slim and none.