Bianca Belair discusses the importance of representation in WWE.
Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill and Naomi have struck up an alliance on WWE programming in order to combat Damage CTRL and are set to face off with the faction at WrestleMania. The image of the three powerful black women has been one that fans have been excited to see in WWE, and Bianca Belair is just as excited.
While speaking to the Pivot Podcast, Belair was asked how much of the responsibility of being the representation for black women she was aware of, with Bianca noting that she is aware of all of it.
“All of it, since the very beginning, since I got to WWE. Even being here at the Performance Center, when I was in NXT, which is where you start first. I’ve always been very intentional on bringing my full self, my culture, being unapologetically me. In NXT, I was more of a heel character, and I was very cocky, I called it overly confident. My thing is, I’m not dimming my light for you. That’s your insecurity showing through. I’m gonna be me, I’m gonna be unapologetically me. I’m a Black woman as well. That’s how I’m showing up. Now I’m on the main roster. I’m more of a babyface, and I switched it over to more of the confident side.8 call myself ‘The EST’ of WWE. So I use that as motivation for everyone else to show up as the absolute best version of yourself, and just I’ve carried over being intentional about bringing my culture from being in NXT over to the main roster. So doing things like being one of the first Black women to main-event WrestleMania, going next year to WrestleMania and going to them and saying, ‘Hey, I had this idea for an entrance. I want to have the HBCU band bring me out.’ My high school band mimicked an HBCU band, so it was nostalgic for me, and explaining to them, not just any regular band, I need an HBCU band, and explaining the cultural significance of it, of people who might not know what it is but educating them and showing the WWE Universe what it is. To the next year at WrestleMania, bringing out the Divas of Compton, all little black girl dance group who look like little mini ESTs, had the long braid because I was going to these meet-and-greets, and I was seeing all these little girls come up dressed like me, and it blew me away."
Bianca continued, noting how she is aware of the fact she is a role model to a lot of little girls.
"I’m seeing all these little girls dressed like me, and it’s not to boost my ego. But it’s letting me know that what I’m doing is working, and I’m doing it the right way, and it [has] an impact on these little girls. I’m where I’m at right now because of the role models that I had, and I’m able to do that for them, so bringing them out there on that stage, and I’m wanting other little girls to see themselves in these little girls and seeing how they have all this confidence. That’s always been my goal, to show up as my full self and really just be representation all across the board. What I will say is, we were at a point where it was all three of us, and I just saw it becoming something so huge, where we were all champions, and I saw this, this is the first time where I feel like it’s not just one of us, it’s three of us. Now, when people think about the women’s division, they’re gonna think about three black women. The first women that they think of when they think it WWE women, it’s gonna be three black women. I just saw it being something huge and monumental, and then it all kind of went away, and I was the only one. Some people want to be the only one, but I felt like I was left by myself to do it by myself, and it’s a lot of responsibility."
Bianca would then point out the debut of Jade Cargill and the return of Naomi
"So now, we have Jade Cargill coming in, and you have Naomi that’s come back, and I feel like we’re back on the right track. Representation is so important. But when you only see one, it’s cool, it’s good because you see one, you’re like, oh, I know that’s possible. But when you see one, it makes it seem like it’s an anomaly, like you have to be lucky, that lucky one gets into it. I remember being a little girl, and I knew I wanted to perform, and I couldn’t sing. I tried to sing, but I knew I couldn’t be a singer. So I was like okay, maybe I can be an actress. But the one real black female actress that I always saw was Halle Berry, and I knew it was possible, but it was like, it’s only one that I really see, so it seems like you have to be that lucky one. So it’s very important that you have more than one."
The six woman tag team match is set to go occur on night one of WrestleMania 40 later tonight.
Fightful will have coverage of WrestleMania 40 beginning at 7 p.m. ET on April 6.
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