I don't believe that. People just want to see a logical progression by you working hard at your craft and improving. When Thunder Rosa dethrones Britt Baker at some point this year it's not going to be because she's Latina. It's going to be because EVERYONE can see that progression. She's worked her ass off and deserves to get that spot. With Swole there was no progression. She couldn't get over with the crowd and didn't use the resources available to improve herself.
Women like Tay Conti, Britt Baker, Kris Statlander, Red Velvet, Nyla Rose, etc all are better performers now than when they first came into the company.
Yes there's always going to be naysayers but the majority of people are gonna be on your side if they see that you've worked hard to get that spot.
He's grooming those future black stars now. Hobbs, Martin, Moriarty, Starks. They all will be taking their next step in their progression this year. In addition to that there's no doubt in my mind that Jay Lethal is going to be in the main event scene at some point this year. If they sign Keith Lee he's going to be in the main event scene. People are just impatient and want quick results. It's going to take time.
At best, it's probably a 50/50 split between people who pay attention to progression and those who don't.
Me and you, we understand the concept of progression in wrestling, but I honestly think we are in the minority. Because this discussion pops up every other month, and not just on here, likely because there are a lot of people who are just like Swole's daughter - they cut on the TV one day completely out of context and be like "where the chocolate people at? Why aren't they the champions?"
If people like that actually paid attention to the product they would see why them brothers haven't been heavyweight champions. They would see that they haven't progressed further enough yet.
Between Jericho (biggest name in the company), Moxley (fresh outta WWE) and "Top 5 Best Wrestler in the World" Kenny Omega and their runs, imagine if they had thrown in a Scorpio Sky AEW title reign. You would've quickly saw how bland this brother is and it wouldn't have done him any good. The same with just about any other brother on the roster. And you would've fa sho heard "oh they only gave it to him cuz he black" because it would've been true.
But people are acting like that's what they want, tho. That seems to be the expectation from the people who keep being like "well why isn't so-and so [insert black wrestler] champion?" that's how you know that they don't follow the progression.
As for the lack of progression from the wrestlers themselves, I don't even want to put the blame on just the wrestlers or just AEW and Tony, it's just that some of these things just take time. AEW just turned 3 today.
In contrast, Big E debuted like 10 years ago. It took 10 years for him to progress from being Dolph Ziggler's mute henchman to WWE's champion.
It took Kofi 11 years and Bobby 15. I'm not saying it should take that long, but damn, AEW was supposed to do that in less than 3?
Sure, it can be done with someone who's incredibly talented and organically over. But for someone who is lacking in several areas, going from virtually a nobody to the main guy is gonna be tough to do in less than 3 years.
