There is quite a bit going on right now in the world of wrestling, in particular on WWE and Monday Night Raw and I may get to some of that before the column is up but there is a disturbing trend I noticed on Monday night that I feel needs to be addressed.
A month or so has passed since Darren Young was kicked out of Nexus. Now I don’t really have much an opinion on that. Other than his hair style, not a whole lot stood out about him. He seemed to put on a solid match the night he lost to Cena along with his spot in the group, but on grounds for eliminating him from the stable, I can’t really say it was a good move or not. I don’t know enough about him.
He always seemed to be eliminated first in matches, and it had to be somebody, so not much of an issue there IMO. Then two things happened last night that really concerned me. The first of which was Michael Tarver being kicked out of the group. After the beat down by John Cena, Wade Barrett declared that he had been wanting to rid the group of him for sometime now and that Cena had done him a favor, so it appears that we have also seen the last of the Michael Tarver in Nexus. This is where things start to become….oh lets just call it questionable for now.
Now Nexus started off with 8 members, 3 black, 3 white and 2 while of English or South African decent, essentially 2 more white guys. So a good mix but nothing really worthy of speaking about. Had it been 8 all white or black guys, nothing really would have stood out that much to me. Although WWE has about 8 black stars total, so an 8 man black stable may have been slightly more noticeable. Now I am rarely the type to figure race as an issue. I realize it plays its part on some level for a lot of things. I think most decent people see it as almost no factor and I would like to believe that I am apart of that percentage. But these actions as of Raw have really got me wondering.
Not only have 2 of the 3 black members of the group been kicked out but now they are planting the seeds for a storyline where the only black member left is trying to align against the leader of the group. This is just one too many coincidences for me to accept. If you didn’t notice last night on Raw, David Otunga kept planting these tiny seed that he wants to take over or stray from Wade Barrett and the Nexus. Now I have no issue with the idea for that storyline but losing one black member is one thing, kicking out a second is starting to become questionable at best but having a third potentially leave the group for an entirely different reason is just way too much to handle.
Now it is entirely possible that out of the original 8 Nexus members, that Tarver, Young and Otunga are the worst performers overall. I couldn’t really say I haven’t given it enough thought or attention. The point is that these three men were a part of the group, for one reason or another and with two being excommunicated and a third ready to disband all together, something has to be done. I think the idea of doing something solely or mainly based on race, just isn’t logical or really should almost never be done. But in this case I would make an exception.
The idea of having all three original black members of an 8 man group being gone one or way another while the group is still a functioning unit, sends a really bad message to all your fans, particularly when there is two young white men waiting to take their place in the shape of McGilicuty and Harris.
Despite whatever actual talents or attributes each men may or may not have, I would strongly recommend that whatever decision be made, something be done to rectify this situation and at the very least one black superstar is either retained or added to the group. If not and Otunga is the third out of 3 black superstars to leave the 8 man group, this could be the start of a A Very Disturbing Trend.
( I will say one other thing on a note to the atricle. You may point out both both Skip Sheffield and Daniel Bryan left the group. But you would notice that Sheffield left due to injury and Bryan because he was fired from the company. Yes it was real. So those don’t have the same impact as they left for different reasons not just a creative decision to boot them from the group)
At the very least this issue needs addressing, feel free to include your thoughts.
