Think of all the dumb things done in professional wrestling. Now, think about the fact that those were the ideas good enough to be written into the show and that 1000 awful ideas were left in the writer’s room. If what makes it on TV are the “good ideas” the bad ideas must be absolute garbage.
Here’s an idea that’s absolutely terrible but not for the reasons you’re thinking.
Apparently WWE at one point had plans for Brock Lesnar to be a gay character in their television storylines.
According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE was playing with the idea of debuting a gay character in 2002 that would be a tough guy who outs himself as being gay, but would do none of the stereotypes and would be portrayed as a kick-ass main eventer. The idea was for the person to be Lesnar when he made his debut that year.
The idea originally came from two of WWE’s magazine writers, one of whom was Brian Solomon. Solomon reportedly pitched the idea directly to Stephanie McMahon that year, with the pitch being that it would blow fans away to see an unstoppable hyper-masculine bad ass revealing himself to be gay, and be pushed as a top babyface.
Allegedly, the idea made it all the way to the writer’s room but was finally squashed by, I’ll assume, more than a few homophobic ex-wrestlers and a couple closeted guys who wanted to keep their secret hidden so pretended to be offended by the idea. The angle eventually involved into the Chuck and Billy wedding and we all know that TV moment skyrocketed the careers of those two gents and WWE is now one of the most popular forms of entertainment for gay men and women around the world.
It didn’t. It’s not.
This all happened back in 2002. It’s doubtful they would have played this correctly thirteen years ago before Michael Sam and same-sex marriage being legal. But this is what pisses me off — I’m sure there were guys on the roster back then who would have killed for the opportunity and might have been, wait for it, actually gay. Maybe like this guy.
WWE has an openly gay wrestler on the roster RIGHT NOW. He’s even black! Good lord, he’s perfect! He’s a solid ring worker, he’s good on the mic and has massive appeal but until six months ago, the WWE had absolutely no clue what to do with him. Darren Young’s sexuality is never mentioned in stories or on TV.
WWE was open to creating a gay character thirteen years ago and pushing him to the top but doesn’t want to consider it now. An enormous white guy pretending to be gay works for the company. Two men pretending to be gay and getting married in a storyline is digestible for the audience. An African American man who’s actually gay is just a little bit too much though.
The WWE should stop trying to get society to accept gay people merely for monetary gain and concentrate on getting people in the company to do it.
[via SEScoops]