One of the wrestlers I have have been a big fan of is the wrestler who used to be part of NXT known as Jordan Myles. I have been a fan of his when he was known as ACH and wrestling in places like Ring of Honor or appearing for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Along with his styles of wrestling as a cruiserweight and high flying, personally, he appealed to me a lot as an open anime fan who would cosplay his way to the ring. As a fan of anime, he spoke to me as a person. Even before he got under WWE’s radar he would come to the ring dressed up as Luffy from One Piece or wearing a headband from Naruto as he came to the ring.
But recently he has quit NXT and left the WWE umbrella. A potential shirt was made public but wasn’t actually sold to fans that he found to be racist and imitating blackface.
That could be true. It has a look to it that people could see as racially insensitive. That shirt isn’t very good even without taking into the racial issues. He has claimed that the WWE culture is racist and as being a fan since the Hulkamania days, I can’t disagree with him either. I remember the days of Tony Atlas marching around as Saba Simba.
I also remember Kofi Kingston was the first black WWE Champion this year, with some kudos to the Rock being half Samoan and half black being the champion back during the attitude era. There isn’t exactly a run of Black WWE champions in WWE’s history.
I’m not sure I can blame Vince McMahon for this issue though. I’m not trying to excuse him from any near sided stupidity here, but how much does Vince even know about a T-shirt that wasn’t even at the merchandise level to sell to people about someone on the developmental level like NXT? Isn’t anything from NXT supposed to be under Triple H’s oversight? If anything, I would be asking questions at his feet to try and figure out what happened. Even if ACH had done nothing, having a shirt like that get that far into development shows that someone along the line either completely doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to.
As for ACH himself, I hope he turns up somewhere that doesn’t punish him for this. Granted, there may be more to this then is being let on, but even if there isn’t he still deserves a new place to make his money and pratic his craft. From the fan side of things, there doesn’t seem to be much. There may be some issues with ROH and not wanting to go back there. AEW may be an option but I’ve complained so much about the stuff they have done, I fear he may be cast as something really stupid and them not getting it either. I wonder if his issues with ROH extend to New Japan Pro Wrestling as he had some good matches there and wonder if they would take him back. I would enjoy a reunion of ACH and Taguchi in the Junior heavyweight ranks. There is also Impact wrestling but those guys never seem to get anything right and probably would screw ACH up to.
I’m not sure where he will end up but I hope he ends up somewhere. No matter the color of his skin, he is too good to not be wrestling somewhere with a lot of people noticing him.
