Peacock removes controversial WWE ‘blackface’ and n-word moments from network

The WWE Network has moved to Peacock in the United States – and the streaming service has already made some big changes.

NBCUniversal’s platform has become the new online home for WWE content, and the organisation has started to remove some of the more controversial moments in the company’s long history.

According to various reports from the likes of Fightful and social media posts from subscribers in the US, one example comes from WrestleMania VI in 1990, which featured a match between ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown.

The event saw Piper – a white wrestler – painting his body and face half-black for his match against the African American performer.

As well as the entire match, Peacock has also removed a backstage interview with Piper in the paint.

Fast forward to 2005, and some fans have noticed another controversial moment which has been edited out.

At Survivor Series that year, WWE boss Vince McMahon used the n-word during a backstage interaction with John Cena, who was appearing in a hip hop gimmick at the time.

The camera then panned to black wrestler Booker T, who delivered his ‘Tell me he didn’t just say that’ catchphrase.

In 2015, WWE said in a statement: ‘It was an outlandish and satirical skit involving fictional characters, similar to that of many scripted television shows and movies.’

Last year, WWE Executive Director Bruce Prichard commented on the incident on his Something to Wrestle With podcast and admitted the company wouldn’t do the same segment today, while he was also asked if Booker and his wife Sharmell Huffman’s thoughts were factored in.

He said: ‘I don’t think it holds up well. Probably so [would do it over].

‘Well I think there was people whose opinions were asked and again, it’s just a different time and a different place where you did different things that were not things that hold up and I go back and I’m into the Alfred Hitchcock hour now, taping it every single night.

‘You sit there and you watch some of the things on television of men just basically slapping the s**t out of women back and forth as if it was just another day at the office and it’s just time has a way of making things cringeworthy.

‘Again, different time, different place, different mentality.’

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