There's An Expectation Of How Black Wrestlers Should Talk, Says Keith Lee

Former WWE "NXT" Champion, "NXT" North American Champion, and AEW World Tag Team Champion Keith Lee has not been shy about discussing the boxes he felt he's been put in by some promoters in the wrestling business. For example, just over a year ago, he went in-depth on Chris Jericho's "Talk is Jericho" podcast about how Vince McMahon had told him that "you sound too smart for your own good," something that was widely seen as an invocation of stereotypes applied to Black wrestlers. In an interview with the "Grapsody" podcast released on Friday, Lee followed up on those comments when asked by co-host Philip Lindsey about the feeling that Black wrestlers are unfairly singled out as somehow being lesser at cutting promos or otherwise not being good talkers.

"Not only that, but when they're given the microphone, they're often told what they have to say," Lee explained. "Given a script, or what someone else expects them to speak like. And listen: I'm the poster child for this ... Myself, the way that I speak, my cadence, the way that I carry myself, is something that has been looked at with a side-eye for the majority of my career. And I'm okay with that, because I like being different, I like setting new standards, I like being a trend-setter, I like making history, I like changing the game. And I think that, given the opportunity, you can find a lot more people can do that, too. It would be fantastic to see, so I'm in agreement with you."

After being taken out with a storyline injury at the hands of Swerve Strickland and Mogul Affiliates, Keith Lee returned to AEW programming on the February 17 episode of "AEW Rampage." He followed up by teaming with Dustin Rhodes to defeat Strickland and Parker Boudreaux on this past Friday night's live "Rampage" in San Francisco.