WWE Champion Big E. was recently interviewed on The Breakfast Club podcast and discussed whether or not he’s experienced racism in WWE and the message he would like to send to black children regarding the George Floyd tragedy. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
Big E on New Day’s authenticity: “It has been important for us, the three of us are nerds. We are comic book nerds so we wanted to really just be ourselves. I think too often in our industry, you would see talent of color put in certain boxes like you have to be a rapper or dancers. We just wanted to be ourselves. We came out wearing bright colors, just doing silly stuff and the response at first was rocky, but we just wanted to show people you can be yourselves, you can be unique, and still be proudly black.”
On whether he’s ever experienced racism in WWE: “In WWE, no, honestly I haven’t. I will say, as far as our representation on TV, we are getting to where we need to be. It’s always a work in progress. Often times, if there are issues it would present themselves as, people see you a certain way and they want you to, as a character, ‘oh you’re a big black man,’ so this is the role you need to play. Our goal with The New Day was to start tearing down those boxes so people don’t see performers. When they see a black woman, they think she needs to be doing certain things. I look at somebody like Bianca [Belair], she’s so dope to me because not only is she an incredible athlete, but she’s so authentic. What you see on-screen is who she is off-screen, and I think we are getting more of those black characters on TV that are authentic.”
On his conversation with Vince McMahon after the George Floyd murder and wanting to send a message to young Black kids: “So I haven’t necessarily asked Vince about his political views or donations, but there are things that I wanted to do, smaller gestures, but things that matter to me. After George Floyd, Kofi and I decided we needed to show people, ‘Hey, we are with you and we are feeling the same pain you are, we are crying the same tears.’ So, I went up to Vince and said, ‘Hey, we want to kneel and throw a fist up, is that cool? I just want to run it by you.’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ and it was no problem whatsoever and that’s what we did. I’m not saying we changed the world by any means, but a lot of things that I felt were important to me, this past year especially, and I feel like George Floyd’s death touched me in a way. I think it had a lot to do with, I wasn’t jumping on a plane, I didn’t have all these distractions, I had to sit with this, we all had to sit with this. There are things that I want to accomplish and that I want to do, especially when you see these black kids at shows. We are here to entertain kids from all backgrounds and ethnicities, but there’s just something to – you can look out and see a young black girl or boy and they remind you of yourself, or my sisters when I was young, and that means a lot to me. To let them know that just because we are on TV and have money or fame or whatever it is, that doesn’t make us above feeling the way that you feel. I’m hurting like you hurt.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
