Celebrating Black History Month: 10 greatest black WWE superstars

February marks one of the most important months on the calendar: Black History Month. With that being said, it was a privilege to put together a list of the 10 greatest black superstars in WWE history.

Black History Month is one of the most important times on the calendar. It’s a reminder of all the great accomplishments of black movie stars, artists, athletes, politicians, teachers and role models.

WWE has had its share of black stars over the decades of being in business. Men like the late great Junkyard Dog, Tony Atlas and “Soulman” Rocky Johnson paved the way for such stars as Ahmed Johnson, Farooq and of course, The People’s Champion, The Rock.

Big E., Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Sasha Banks and Rich Swann made it clear a few months back. Black Excellence is a beautiful thing. When five of the business’s best performers all are wearing gold around their waists — and happen to all be black as well — it shows that people of color have a place any and everywhere across the world.

As a person of color, when I was given this assignment, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, put together a list of the best black stars in WWE history. You can do a list of five, but if you want to do more, go for it.”

“Seriously?! Let’s get it.”

It always brings a smile to my face to see a black man or woman prosper in WWE, and the fact I get to make a whole list of them has me grinning from ear-to-ear.

So, without any further adieu, let’s put together a not-so-definite-but-definite list of the 10 best black stars in WWE history, starting with those that juuuust missed the cut.

Honorable mention

• Sasha Banks – Look, I’m probably already catching heat for this one, but she’s only 23 years old. Her career is just beginning — and it’s going to be one of the greatest ever for a woman in WWE. I adore Sasha Banks. She’s 5’5″, 114 pounds and tougher than a two-dollar steak as Jim Ross would say. Just because she didn’t make the cut on this list, doesn’t mean she won’t when it’s all said and done. She’s beautiful, she’s wonderful and destined for much more success than she already has achieved.

• Jacqueline and Jazz – You think I feel bad for leaving Sasha off this list? How do you think I feel about the two most successful black women in the women’s division before her? Jacqueline rightfully entered the WWE Hall of Fame before WrestleMania 32 last year, and Jazz was a key part of the best era in women’s wrestling in WWE before Banks and the rest of the “Four Horsewomen” came along. They’re both fantastic and both helped put women’s wrestling on the map.

• Bobby Lashley – I know Bobby Lashley is doing his thing at the top of TNA’s cards every night, but this is a WWE list. However, even though Lashley didn’t make the cut, the man was still a beast during his WWE run and an ECW Champion during his time in WWE. (It’s hard to win a world title with John Cena and Batista at the top.) He’s got a 15-2 record in professional MMA, he shaved Vince McMahon’s head at WrestleMania 23 and is still built like a god.

• Viscera – Whether you still called him King Mabel, Viscera or Big Daddy V, the mountain of a man was an awesome one before he passed away in 2014. Nelson Lee Frazier Jr. was just 43 years old when a heart attack ended his life, but the former 1995 King of the Ring was the World’s Largest Love Machine and despite never winning a world title, was always one of the more interesting stars in WWE.

• Abdullah the Butcher – The king of the bloody gimmick matches, Lawrence Shreve is one of the biggest and scariest superstars in the history of professional wrestling overall. Not only did Abdullah the Butcher enter the WWE Hall of Fame in 2011 despite never technically wrestling for the McMahon family, he had a restaurant called Abdullah the Butcher’s House of Ribs and Chinese Food. Plus, Abdullah appeared in YoungBloodZ’s “Damn!” video, which was one of the best songs in the early 2000’s and still should be on anybody’s playlist to this day.

• Koko B. Ware – Brian Kendrick is the man with the plan, but Koko B. Ware is the man with the bird. One of the most colorful stars in the history of wrestling, Koko entered the WWE Hall of Fame in the 2009 class that featured Stone Cold Steve Austin as the headliner.

• D’Lo Brown, Mark Henry and the Nation of Domination – What kind of piece would this be without the Nation of Domination? You’ll see a couple others from the Nation on this list later, but D’Lo Brown, Mark Henry, Ahmed Johnson, Kama Mustafa (you know him better as The Godfather) and Crush deserve a shout. Their duels with D-Generation X were the stuff of legendary rivalries in the late 1990s.