D-Von Dudley opens up about dealing with racism in the pro-wrestling industry.
The Hall of Famer spoke on this topic during a recent interview with Good Karma Wrestling, where he discussed the success of black wrestlers and how different it was for them when they were first breaking into the business.
It’s grown a lot. I remember when I first broke into the business in 91, racism was still alive and well. Just like I feel like racism is still alive and well today. I like to say what Malcolm X used to say, ‘A lof the Klan traded in their white sheets for suits,’ walking around and doing what they’re doing. It’s still relevant in the wrestling business, it is, but we have come a long way since then. It’s going to be hard to stop us from doing what we love to do. We watched this sport, we love it, want to be a part of it. We’re coming in there and doing exactly, not what we want to do in a disrespectful way, but doing what we want to do to pay homage to those who have come before us that we watched and idolized for so long. I’m very proud. Sometimes, I speak to guys like Koko B Ware. When Bad News Brown was alive, we talked anytime we went to Canada, he pulled me aside and gave me tips on how to survive as an African American in this business. Something Tony Atlas said on Junkyard Dog ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ was ‘a black man in this business has to understand that we can’t do what the white man does and expect to get away with it.’ You still have racism in this business, and if they gave you enough rope to hang yourself, and you hang yourself, there is nothing you can do about it. You’ve never heard about me being in no controversy, drugs, anything like that. I’ve kept my nose clean for 30 years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done things before cameras came about, but I’ve never been in trouble with the law or given them a reason to want to mess with me in any way. Whenever I disagreed with something in the business, I always had a Plan B in case I didn’t like Plan A. I couldn’t go, ‘I don’t want to do that, I’m not going to do that.’ I always said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable, here’s what I think we can do.’ Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I went in there with a smile on my face, did it, and if they told me I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. That was fine.
D-Von reveals that there was someone in WWE who once told him that he disliked him because he was black, but refuses to name who they were.
I do understand that we have come a long way since I broke into the business in 91. I remember coming into certain locker rooms, and there were certain people that didn’t care if it got out how they were treating you. There was a prominent figure in WWE, he was office, who basically told me he didn’t like me because I was black. Two occasions told me. Bubba was there on one of them, and he was there on the second one, along with Paul Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, and Spike [Spike Dudley]. To this day, I have no respect, nor do I like this individual. I’m not going to go put him on blast, but I don’t care for him, so I stay away from him. I just know we have come a long way. I’m not going to sit here and cry over something that might have happened ten years ago. I move on and make the best of it. Look at my career. I have nothing to be sad about or have any remorse about. Bubba and I have become the greatest tag team of our era. It’s very disrespectful to say you’re the greatest tag team of all time in my book when you have tag teams like the Rock N Roll Express, the Midnight Express, Tully & Arn [Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson], Steve Williams and Terry Gordy, the British Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation, the Road Warriors, so many tag teams before us. I don’t think we’re greater than them, but I do think, during the Attitude Era and our time in ECW, we are the greatest tag team of our era.
It was recently revealed that D-Von, and his longtime tag team partner Bubba Ray Dudley, had signed new legends deals with WWE. You can read about that, which includes details about their upcoming IMPACT 1000 appearance, by clicking here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
