Black History Month Leap Year Supplemental B

Mark Henry v The Rock 98
Mark Henry v Goldberg 2003

“2003 and the only things worth watching on Raw were Rock, Goldberg and Mark Henry”

So I feel like I’ve kind of been copping out lately by writing about black wrestlers when presented by black promoters to black audiences. Those are really exceptions. Wrestling in the US is promoted by white people, starring white people to appeal to the prejudices of white people. Occasionally it’s promoted by white people using minorities to appeal to minority audiences. Often it is promoted by white people starring minorities to appeal to prejudices of white people.

So felt like I needed to write about black wrestler presented by a racist promoter to appeal to the prejudices of a white audience. So it’s Mark Henry time. Mark Henry was an Olympic powerlifter who the WWF signed to a ten year contract in 1996. Over that period he was given a string of racist degrading roles and developed into a really great smart wrestler. These two matches give you a sense of that development.

The first match is from a 1998. Henry is working the most successful and biggest drawing Black wrestler of all time the Rock. Henry at the time was working the gimmick of Black man who is presumptuous enough to believe that he can compose literature. He in fact is so presumptuous that he also believes that he should be allowed to attempt to woo a white woman (the hideous Chyna).

Henry is a powerlifter and like many powerlifters (possibly due to muscle memory from repeated squats) has a big vertical leap. The Rock match consists of Henry flying around for Rock’s offense during opening parts. Henry comes back with lots of high elevation offense (big elbow and leg drop) and then Henry puts Rock in a chinlock. Rock comes back and Henry goes back to bumping—shmoz finish. Really a nothing match.

Second match is from 2003. Henry has gone from being heel Black guy who thinks he’s a poet to being heel sullen Black guy who never says anything just grimaces.

Henry is no longer flying around the ring. He’s working lots and lots of immoveable wall spots and it makes the match feel like a big deal. Makes it feel like a “Big time Heavyweight” clash. How will Goldberg take down this wall? Crowd pops big for the first time Henry goes down. Henry continues to work as Wall. His big “ups” offense here consists of a nasty leap through the ropes on Goldberg’s back and neck and a jumping forearm shiver. Henry holds Goldberg in a keylock variation which Goldberg struggles in until countering out of it with a take down escape. And Henry goes back to fighting as a wall. Every time he does get taken down it means something, it makes Goldberg look strong and the crowd pops accordingly.

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The Quest for the Whitest Match in History: Day 3

Vince Hall vs. Rob Rogers
Matrats - 2001

This is from the same episode as the previous Matrats match. Phil reviewed the whole thing in a DVDVR back when it happened, and I don't want to just rehash his old material, but I can't rob you of this one.

Rob Rogers....I can't figure out if fake redneck is whiter than actual redneck. It's a question I find myself pondering as I go through this, and I try to figure out if your great Southern wrestlers over the years really fit the tone of this project. I mean, the south's most obvious claim to whiteness is racism. I suppose southern wrestlers who are overtly racist, on-screen or off, probably qualify, but otherwise, I'm not sure being Southern alone is enough. With the fake redneck - particularly the insulting stereotypical variety like Rob Rogers, who "goes to family reunions to meet girls" - the southern caricature makes the whiteness implicit. Rogers isn't portrayed as being racist. In fact, he really isn't portrayed as being anything. He wears a cowboy hat to the ring, wrestles in a flannel jacket, is nicknamed "Redneck", and had the above quote about him from the announcer. That's the extent of his southernness. He didn't even get an introductory promo. Without the nickname and the implied incest, I could just as easily think he was working a Canadian lumberjack gimmick, or a Mick Foley tribute gimmick. I mean, it is Canada, and he does take some big bumps, most notably a nasty back body drop onto the ramp. Implied redneck should be white enough to qualify for this, but does it qualify if it's totally through implication?

None of that really matters, though, because this match has Vince Hall. Earlier this same show, we had a guy working a bipolar college busker gimmick that might have been the whitest gimmick I had ever seen. Then we are introduced to Vince Hall, and with one sentence - "Snowboarding was the most important thing in my life until my father left me" - he out-whites Apocalypse by an order of magnitude. Hall has to be the whitest wrestler ever. He has to be. There's no way anyone could be any whiter without lapsing into self-parody. Guy is introduced as a snowboarder who wrestles to eventually get revenge on his absentee father, comes to the ring to "All the Small Things", wearing what appears to be a sweater wrapped around his neck that he tosses into the audience before the match. And it's all played totally straight.

The damnedest thing about it, though, is that it totally works. The audience is made up entirely of young girls who had just been expected to cheer for a scraggly, bipolar college busker and boo a hunky surfer dude, and it worked about as well as you would expect that to. Here, they're given your classic blowjob babyface, and they go nuts for him. Hall is an entirely competent babyface, and a pretty sharp worker, for that matter. Takes some wild bumps, all his offense looks good, really athletic. He charges the corner at one point, Rogers moves out of the way, Hall springs off of the turnbuckle, backflips, lands on his feet, backflips AGAIN, and lands in position to hit a flapjack gutbuster. It's the kind of fruity embellishment that I usually don't care for, but damned if this one didn't look cool. He eventually wins with a big splash while doing a snowboard-style toe grab (and while wearing Rogers' cowboy hat), and the crowd goes wild. The ambiguously gay referee beats up another wrestler (this time using the Famasser, appropriately enough), and the ending seems to position the ref and Hall as equals. But the ref just walks backstage uninterrupted, while Hall gets mobbed by girls in the audience. This was a good little match designed to showcase Hall, and they did a fine job of doing that. One gets the sense that in an ideal world, they would have been able to pull off building the promotion around him as a long-term babyface, feuding with the various hired goons his father sends to stop him, before he turns 21 and finally takes down the old man himself before retiring. Maybe that's how you get the bipolar college busker gimmick over in a fed aimed at young girls and gay men. Vince's dad (Buddy Rose, maybe? Or Scott Hall? Curt Hennig was still alive at this point, right? It's not like any of the girls in the audience would have known who they were.) marries Apocalypse's mom, and starts going on about how much prouder he is of his stepson than of Vince ("He's getting an education! He's learned a valuable skill! What have you done?!"), and Apocalypse basking in the praise like a total schmuck. Whatever happened to Hall, anyway? Seems like a dude who would be right at home in Ages of the Fall. Oh, well.

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