AJ Gray Speaks About Lack Of Diversity On AEW Roster

When AEW launched, it promised to have a diverse roster, and ensured that they’d try to make professional wrestling for everyone.

While speaking to WrestlingInc, AJ Gray opened up about his true opinions of the diversity on AEW’s roster, claiming that the majority of African American wrestlers just wrestle on Dark.

Obviously, there is Scorpio Sky, who is a former AEW World Tag Team Champion and was one of the first people to challenge Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship last year.

However, Gray states that African American people perhaps don’t get the same chances in AEW that other people do, particularly in the men’s division.

“With WWE I don’t get time to watch as I’ve got to work every day. AEW – they preached – when they started their company how different everything would be, how diverse it would be and all of this stuff. I even talked about it on Twitter – if you look at them – one singles wrestler that’s a black male. Now with their women’s division, they’re actually doing something decent with that as they have quite a few with different backgrounds in their division. They have quite a few women with a different ethnic background but when you look at the males, it’s almost like it’s no one.

“It’s Scorpio Sky and the African Americans they did use, they get about 2 minutes and 50 seconds on Dark. They get beat up really fast and that’s it. Is that all you think of that talent? Come on now, give them a legitimate chance. You gave Alan Angels a legitimate chance against Kenny Omega and now you signed him. What’s stopping you from doing that with Suge D or someone else?”

Gray then turned his attentions to WWE and said while the company is not 100% innoncent, it has been “ahead of the curve” in recent times:

“I don’t wanna sound like I’m picking a side right now. WWE has been guilty of doing really messed up things to African Americans. But they also have been ahead of the curve a little bit when it comes to using African Americans. MVP and Lashley aren’t new names. They were there 10+ years ago? They were doing great things and now they’re actually getting a chance to run with stuff. Mark Henry getting a chance to run with stuff. A lot of people getting a chance to run with stuff.

“Then you have to still think about the ACH situation. It’s like, yes, they are doing good but they can be better. It’s just stuff like that.”

WrestleTalk has an interview coming out soon with ROH star Jonathan Gresham, where he speaks about some important issues such as race in wrestling, so make sure you check that out when it drops.

• AEW
• wwe
• Diversity
• AJ Gray

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