Monday, June 10, 2019

The Goldberg/Undertaker Silliness, or Taker's A White Supremacist

The Phenom(enal Nazi)
Photo Credit: WWE.com
So, if you, like me, didn't watch Super Showdown Friday, congratulations, you didn't indulge WWE's blood money fiesta for a genocidal regime in the most volatile region in the world (thanks in part to the United States, woo!). You also didn't see a shitshow of main event, where Goldberg knocked himself out and then got even more knocked out when Undertaker dropped him on his dome with a much-too-real tombstone. If able-bodied young wrestlers are not allowed to do piledrivers for fear of what could happen when they go wrong, why should a decrepit, fiftysomething part-timer be allowed to do one? But I digress.

The optics of this match, having the most prominent Jewish wrestler in the industry's history, do the job in one of the most antisemitic countries in the world, were already off-kilter. When you factor in that Taker appears to be a White supremacist, well, the optics just damn went and fell off the fuckin' rails. Taker already took the bloom off his rose with his social media accounts, liking boomer memes and following right-wing dillholes like Sebastian Gorka, Dan Bongino, and of course the President himself. However, it's not a recent development, as intrepid wrestling journalist David Bixenspan uncovered this gem of a picture:
Yes, that is a logo for the Schutzstaffel, otherwise shortened as The SS, Adolf Hitler's paramilitary thugs who enforced things like the Holocaust. Known wrestling neo-Nazis the Harris Brothers have the symbol tattooed on their bodies, and yes, they're running buddies of Taker. As Bix has noted, while wrestling is awash in motorcycle enthusiasts, few have ever adopted Nazi iconography except the out-and-out Nazis. Taking it all at face value, how can anyone deny that Taker has now surpassed Dick Murdoch as the most visible and famous White supremacist in wrestling history?

That's what makes Matt Riddle's reaction to the whole thing more disappointing. Granted, it started on a personal level, when he found out Goldberg blocked him on Twitter. I get bitter when that happens too, especially when it's someone I used to admire or follow or was friends with. That being said, his final reaction putting over Taker was, well, a shock in the worst way:
For one, Taker hasn't been a stallion since at the latest WrestleMania XXVI, but that's beside the point here. Taker's legend cannot be viewed without the filter of his fascist leanings. I know people want to beat the drum of "well, separate the art from artist," but at the same time, that's true for someone whose conservatism doesn't involve immigrant genocide or Hitler affinity. Like, if you're Dolph Ziggler, and the thing you bang your drum on most loudly is like tax rates, I can separate art from artist (although in his case, he sucks anymore so). For someone like Taker, I just can't.

Of course, it all makes sense when you look at WWE as run by racists and fascists. I mean, Vince McMahon donated to Trump, took the deal with Saudi Arabia, and runs his business with a ruthlessness that places like Uber can only hope to emulate. OF COURSE he would not only look the other way when Taker wore a shirt with the SS logo, but he probably had a laugh with him about it. More and more, it's harder to look at WWE as anything but a wretched hive of scum and villainy, even as its individual contractors do awesome things like raise money for victims of the Syrian civil war.
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