Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer, Big E and Kofi Kingston knew they had to do something to show that they support Black Lives Matter.
On an episode of SmackDown, in the weeks following the murderer, Big E and Kofi Kingston would symbolically take a knee in the ring and raised their fists and to this day, Big E, who is now wrestling solo, it's continuing to wear the names of other victims of hate crimes on armbands he wears during his matches.
Speaking with Yahoo! Sports, Big E revealed that he and Kofi Kingston went to Vince McMahon with their idea and he was very much in support of it.
“When Kofi and I got to the Performance Center that day, we felt like we had to do something,” Big E said. “We went and had a conversation with our boss, Vince McMahon, and he was completely on board. We felt like that even if it was just a five-second gesture, it was important to let people know that the things that affected them, we were feeling too. We’re not above this because we’re on TV or because we make money, we’re still people. I was born Black, I will die Black, I have lived my life as Black American much longer than I will ever be a WWE wrestler.”
He continued, “Right after George Floyd passed, we had lengthy conversations, the three of us in our text group. I can’t think of anything that hit me so much in my lifetime. I think a lot of it had to do with the pandemic and the fact that we had all of this time to think. There were very few distractions. It was something I kept thinking about day and night. It really weighed on me. I felt that even though I didn’t know how to change the structure or end systemic racism, I wanted to do something with my anger and frustration, I wanted to do something positive and we were all on the same page with that.”
The New Day also spoke about racial injustice in a very powerful podcast but you can listen to the podcast in its entirety at this link.
