AEW is celebrating black excellence through the "Who We Are" album, which highlights black wrestler and musicians, telling their story through music.
Ricky Starks, the reigning FTW Champion, is featured on the album with his story "No Socks" being put together with Applejaxx, Brinson, and E.Quipped.
Speaking to Jaychele Nicole for Wrestling With Whiteness, Starks was asked for his thoughts on diversity and how to make the wrestling community more inclusive.
"That's a hard, loaded question right there. I mean, I already deal with my issues with not being dark enough from certain aspects of wrestling fans. Maybe my opinion is not- or doesn't hold any merit. I'm not sure what we can do. I don't think everything we do is always good enough for certain individuals. I think the best way that we can move forward is representing our own stories and our own lives in the way that someone else can relate to. My representation of my life, and the things that I've gone through, are different than yours, or it's different than Hobbs. It's important to be the flag bearer for that particular experience. So that way, someone can relate to you, and then they go into something else doing the same thing, with the same type of confidence. It's just building- it's the triple dollar effect. It's not gonna happen over night, it really ain't. But, it's a hard question to really ask, and it's not as easy. It's really weird. People think on Twitter, and TikTok, these social issues are very, no pun intended, but a black and white easy fix. It isn't. If it was, we would've handled this, we would've handled racism freakin', I don't know, a hundred years ago. It isn't very easy. I don't think a lot of younger people, older people, there's people who don't really get that. It's not easy," he said.
Starks had done WWE extra work for years, wrestled for various Independent promotions, and competed in the NWA before joining AEW in 2020.
Though Starks wouldn't be considered a veteran by industry standards, he has take on a mentorship role to some younger wrestlers in AEW.
"You have people like Daniel Garcia, Dante, Darius, Lee Moriarty. You have these crop of kids that- they're coming up in a different age than I did. So, the veterans that I talk to, they didn't come up in the same age that I did. Now, I find myself in a similar position when I talk to someone like Dante, or Daniel, or Lee. It's just me, when I came up, I am one of the last type of wrestlers that was just in the middle. It was the changing of the guard from the old times to what it is today. I've just been stuck in the middle in that sense. So, I try to give them as much insight and perspective as I can from what I know, and how to go from really working the indies to working these big shows. While I may not have been doing it for so long, I think I have a good grasp on how to be larger to people than just in the intimate settings on the indies. That's just how my mind has always worked. I do try to help them out and talk to them. I think they're great. I think it's cool. I don't think of my self as some old dude talking to these guys. I'm not even that old," he said.
Starks is coming off a successful FTW Title defense over Jay Lethal on the February 4 episode of AEW Rampage.
Fans can watch the entire interview with Starks in the video above.
