Ahmed Johnson has lifted the lid on the shocking details behind his WWE departure.
After making his in-ring debut in 1989, Ahmed Johnson signed with WWE — then known as the WWF — in 1995. In large part due to his size and impressive athleticism, Johnson rose through the WWE ranks quickly and was reportedly seen as a man who could go on and become World Champion.
However, a series of injuries and backstage problems ended his main event push before it really took hold. The most famous of these real-life feuds involved Ron Simmons, Ahmed Johnson later accused the star of injuring him deliberately.
Speaking in a new interview with Steve Fall for WrestlingNews.Co, Johnson opened up about his time in WWE and what ultimately led him to leave the company. During the conversation, Johnson claimed that WWE wanted him to take part in a lynching angle, despite the racial connotations involved.
He further alleged that racism from Shawn Michaels and “some of the other boys” also played a part.
“I think racism did play its part in it, but not from Vince, from Shawn Michaels and some of the other boys. I mean, like they did that thing with DX when Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation and the Nation of Domination was getting into it, and they wrote all that stuff on the wall, you know, that was pushing it for me and I couldn’t have done that, and the thing with the Truth Commission was, what they wanted to do, they wanted him to hang me from a rope. You know how lynching is a very sore subject with black people? They wanted to hang me from a rope.
That just wouldn’t happen with me, brother. I’ll do any other angle, but the rope? No. I didn’t want her (his dying sister) to be in her last minutes watching me get beat up. She was a big fan and then she passed like a day or two after that, after I left, so she would have had to see me get beat up and hung from a rope before she passed. That was not an image I was trying to put out, not for her, not for the black kids out there, to anybody. That is going too far.”
Johnson isn’t the only black star who has experienced racism in WWE, as D-Von Dudley has opened up about a “prominent individual” in the company who told him he didn’t like him because of the colour of his skin.
When Did Ahmed Johnson Leave WWE?
During his time with WWE, Johnson performed as part of the Nation of Domination and won the Intercontinental Title. The star left the company in early 1998 before making a short stop in WCW.
Johnson wrestled his final match in 2003.
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co