Source: Jobbing Out Podcast
ROH star Cedric Alexander appeared on the latest episode of the Jobbing Out podcast with Glenn Clark and Aaron Oster. During the interview, Alexander talked about why he wouldn’t appear on WWE programming as a Rosebud. Alexander noted that he knows people who would never do it because of “guys like The New Day.”
“This opens up a whole different can of worms here, because everyone I know that watches WWE is offended by The New Day… extremely offended because of the whole racial thing,” Alexander said. “It’s like, ‘oh we’re three black guys, we’ll sing, we’ll dance. You’ve got Kofi Kingston, who’s a phenomenal athlete, Big E Langston is a gigantic, threatening man and Xavier Woods is extremely intelligent. So why make them sing and dance when they obviously can be more… serious, I guess?
“When they first started this thing, it was like two or three weeks that they did it where Xavier would come out and be like a Malcolm X type of thing. He was preaching black power without saying black power, which I think is fantastic because you don’t offend anyone. But when you’ve got three black guys singing and dancing, stereotypes get fed too much and I hate it.”
Alexander was asked if there was a bigger problem in pro wrestling regarding African Americans in the business and it was noted that African Americans are rarely involved in big matches at an event like WrestleMania. Alexander said that while the business has gotten better from even 15 years ago, there’s still an issue. He said that he loves Caprice Coleman like a brother, but he always thought that he was put in a team with him because ROH simply didn’t have a black tag team.
“It’s always a weird thing because you’ve got one black guy and another black guy, let’s put them together in a tag team,” Alexander said. “If you take a guy like ACH and Rich Swann and compare those two guys who are completely different wrestlers. But if you put them side-by-side, people who are not big indie fans automatically assume that they’re a tag team or do the same moves because they’re two black guys who happen to be smaller and athletic.”
Alexander said that wrestlers probably take stereotypical gimmicks because they’re under contract and getting paid “a buttload of money.” He noted that the New Day gimmick might be more bearable for the group because they are close friends.
