Montel Vontavious Porter, better known as MVP, has been an important figure in wrestling for his representation of Black excellence.
In 2006, MVP debuted on SmackDown as an arrogant free agent and brought a new level of representation for black men in wrestling. He also made history in 2011 when he entered a tournament to crown the inaugural IWGP Intercontinental Champion.
In a recent interview with YoJoshMartinez, MVP spoke about the importance of Kofi Kingston winning the WWE Championship and its impact on black representation in wrestling.
MVP noted that Kingston’s title victory was an important step forward for black representation because he is a dark-complexed black man with dreadlocks. The WWE veteran also discussed how The Rock — who is half-black, half-Samoan — had previously held the WWE Championship but that Kingston’s win was still significant.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Gaspard’s release of the WrestleMania 35 video: “At first, I was really pissed off at Shad for releasing that video, because I thought that was a very candid moment, and I thought it was something very personal. But when I saw the reaction to the video, and how other people expressed what my reaction and Shad’s reaction were, and how people responded to that, it changed my position and I wasn’t upset about it anymore, because representation matters. It’s a very important thing.”
On what it meant to see Kingston’s win: “Kofi — if I’m not mistaken — was born in Ghana and moved here when he was a small child. He’s a dark-complected Black man with dreadlocks. No one that looks like him had ever held the WWE Championship. So across the country and across the world, there were dark-complected young people, from Africa and neighborhoods across America that said ‘Hey, that guy looks like me. He’s holding up that championship. If he can do it, I can do it.’”
