Bradshaw Canned From CNBC

Well, everyone else has weighed in on this, so I might as well too....

What Bradshaw did, in character or not, was deplorable. So was it wrong? Absolutely. But has he been the only one perpetuating stereotypes in wrestling recently? Not at all.

Just look at some of the recent WWE gimmicks and storylines: we've seen racist comments from Randy Orton directed at Shelton Benjamin (the infamous 'you people' promo); About a dozen guys on the SmackDown roster being grossed out by Rico's homosexuality; Rico, himself, for allowing it; John Cena with a lot of the raps he's done over the past 2 years (although, he has toned down his act recently); the whole Eugene character and the idea that being mentally challenged is funny; and of course, "Mr. Sensitive" Bradshaw's repeated knocks at Eddie Guerrero and the Latino population in general.

Who's to say which of these is worse than the other? I, personally, had relatives who died in the Holocaust, so I am certainly not making light of the situation. But I guess I'm just saying that, when the whole company seems to condone it, it sure becomes a whole lot easier to justify Bradshaw's actions.

Wrestling, if you think about it, has done tremendous business perpetuating stereotypes over the years, from the ethnocentric WWWF in the 60's and 70's to characters like Bad News Brown and Razor Ramon in the 80's and 90's, right up to a lot of the modern-day crew. Are there less horrible sterotypes now than there were 20 years ago? Without a doubt, but then again, the world has changed, too. WWE needs to at least catch up to the standard that is expected from society today.

So this whole CNBC thing I find to be a positive development. It sends a message that "Hey, just because you hide behind being edgy in the wrestling world, the rest of us still call it racism." I have NO IDEA how much of that was Bradshaw's personal opinion or not, and I don't really care. This at least shows that there are sometimes consequences to your actions.