NBC is reviewing more than 17,000 hours of World Wrestling Entertainment video to look for and remove content it deems racist or offensive before it is made available on the company’s streaming service, several industry websites reported.
Streaming service Peacock already has removed a backstage segment from ''Survivor Series 2005.'' In the segment, WWE CEO and host Vince McMahon used the N-word in a ''casual conversation'' with white wrestler John Cena, prompting Black fellow wrestler Robert ''Booker T'' Huffman to remark, "Tell me I didn't just hear that." McMahon walks off, which also was removed, PW Insider reported.
Another segment removed includes one from the pay-per-view event ''WrestleMania VI,'' shot in Toronto in 1990 in which WWE Hall of Famer ''Rowdy'' Roddy Piper appears with half his body painted black for a match against Black wrestler Bad News Brown, also known as Allen Coage, wrestlinginc.com reported.
News of the editing appeared to draw mocking approval from at least one former WWE wrestler, who posted to Twitter if NBC wanted to edit out a ''dancing gimmick'' from a 2003 event, ''that’d be okay.''
He followed up with another post that read ''Glad to be in Canada,'' where viewers have access to all of the WWE content, wrestlinginc reported.
WWE announced in late January that it had licensed its library of video for NBC’s Peacock over-the-top (OTT) streaming service in a deal The Wall Street Journal valued at $1 billion.
Peacock launched the WWE content on March 18.
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