Bobby Lashley is a pioneer in the world of pro wrestling.
But when it comes to the role of race in AEW, “The Almighty” is downplaying the matter.
On Saturday, Lashley participated in his first AEW pay-per-view, defeating Swerve Strickland at Full Gear. And while taking part in the event’s post-show press conference, he and his “Hurt Syndicate” stablemates, Shelton Benjamin and MVP, were asked what AEW’s track record of booking “Black champions” meant to them.
Although the question was directed toward the trio, it was clearly a subject that Lashley had already given some thought to. As such, he volunteered to answer it, making it clear that he’s moved past viewing pro wrestling through the prism of race.
“I don’t like that. I don’t like that ‘Black champions’ — it’s just a ‘champion,'” Lashley said. “See, we’ve normalized this already. And that’s what I want to do with it. Winning a title as a ‘Black champion’ and there’s other ‘Black champions’ here, we can kind of erase that word now. We can just say ‘champion.’ It could be a Black champion, it could be an Asian champion, it can be a Latin champion, it can be any champion. So we’ve already normalized that. So we can kind of erase that ‘Black champion’ and it’s just ‘champion’ now.”
While many on social media were quick to criticize the reporter for her question, the reality is that pro wrestling does have spotty track record when it comes to race. In addition to often utilizing racist tropes, many promotions rarely booked minorities — and especially Black — wrestlers as their world champions, a symbolic role for top stars.
That, however, has changed in recent years, with Lashley being a primary example of how such attitudes have shifted. After becoming TNA Wrestling’s first-ever Black world champion in 2014, the 48-year-old went on to win the WWE championship for the first time in 2021.
Considering all he’s accomplished, it’s perhaps not surprising that Lashley would possess the perspective he shared. But that also doesn’t invalidate the question that was asked — especially considering the industry’s history when it comes to race.