Everything he said in this promo was true – not only for wrestlers, but for many of the viewers. At a time when Latino wrestlers couldn’t main event in North America, and so recently white men donned brownface to mock the global south, Eddie Guerrero offered a powerful alternative – proud self identification, fighting for the collective rights of Latino wrestlers working in North America, on prime time television. He came back a week later with almost all the Mexican wrestlers on the WCW roster on his team. They yell, “Viva la raza,” literally long live the race, a slogan of Mexican-American pride. He presents a shirt in the red, white and green of the Mexican flag, and the others put it on. He says, loud and clear: “I can’t do nothing by myself, but together! United! La raza! Latinos!”
Eddie guerrero long hair full#
Eddie gestures to the crowd -“Looks pretty full to me in here tonight” – reminding the audience that it’s their money being collected by Bischoff, their money that he’s “rolling around in.” He’s getting booed by now, but smiles a bitter smile as he lists the luxuries that other, whiter wrestlers have: Lear jets, limos, choice over their fights. Most of the audience could probably nod along with the idea of being underpaid, of having to share space because your boss won’t shell out. He points out that they don’t get paid enough to rent their own cars or sleep in their own rooms – and the luchadors nod. He never gives us the opportunity to climb the ladder of success.” “He’s got us wrestling each other – week in, week out. He speaks English and Spanish into the mic as he asks them both what Eric Bischoff has ever done for them:
The Latino World Order officially began in 1998, when Eddie Guerrero climbed into the ring during a fight between Hector Garza and Damién 666 – two Mexican born luchadors. Their angle was “a war” on management, a “hostile takeover” of the powers that be – all staged, all scripted, all approved, carefully constructed to be exactly as edgy as was marketable. It included Scott Hall (the former Razor Ramon), Kevin Nash and Hollywood Hulk Hogan – self proclaimed outsiders of the industry, despite the fact that they were anything but. It was the brainchild of Eric Bischoff himself originating in 1996 as a stunt to draw audiences who were leaning towards WWE.
The New World Order was, at the time, one of the largest and best known wrestling factions. Latino World Order, however, was a parody which had already been in the works for months, and ended up in Eddie’s hands only because the original planned lead, Konnan, got offered other work. It is also true that Eddie Guerrero went to Bischoff looking to do more work, and Bischoff knocked over a coffee, which spilt on Eddie. Hall and other white wrestlers who dabbled in cultural appropriation dominated the market. WCW had, a few years earlier, hired Scott Hall, a white man from Maryland who had been playing Razor Ramon, a Cubano gangster modelled on Scarface. It is true that Latino wrestlers were underrepresented in the North American market. Eddie claimed that the disrespect Bischoff offered forced Eddie to form Latino World Order.
The story goes that Bischoff threw coffee at Eddie. I’m going to focus on his roles in his birthplace: the USA, where he was able to work within and around white society’s biases against Mexican-Americans.ĭuring his time in World Championship Wrestling, Eddie Guerrero allegedly confronted Eric Bischoff, the company president, over Eddie and other Latino performers not being offered enough opportunities in the company – no main events or pay per view shows. In Mexico, he was part of a villainous faction called Los Gringos Locos – the Crazy Americans, where he wore red, white and blue and played up his birthplace. In Japan, he was Black Tiger, the masked enemy of anime hero Tiger Mask. The way Eddie Guerrero handled this in all his markets was to lean in. If you’re a black, Latino, or Asian wrestler in a North American wrestling ring, you fight against a majority white audience’s expectations as well as your opponents. Diversity has only recently arrived in wrestling, and only very inconsistently. There have, over the years, been many wrestlers claiming a race or nationality they weren’t – Abdullah the Sudanese Butcher was actually Lawrence Shreve from Ontario George Gray, a white man, played Akeem the African Dream for two years – because wrestling needs heels and it’s easy to make a heel who is other. Blackface, brownface and yellowface all happen in wrestling. The convenient shorthand of racial stereotypes have always had currency in wrestling. Wrestling is haunted and one of the things it’s haunted by is racism.
0 kommentar(er)
