Between the Ropes, Beyond the Tropes

On a brisk December evening, a primarily Black audience of wrestling fans brave rain-slicked Charlotte roads to witness ASÉ Wrestling’s second anniversary event at Piedmont Middle School. The building buzzes with energy as children laugh and run around the lobby, while wrestlers chat and take pictures with fans. 

A makeshift concession stand is set up on a six-foot folding table, and workers serve chicken wing platters in styrofoam containers. It feels warm and familiar, like a Southern family reunion–and it’s a stark contrast to the pyrotechnics and jumbotron-glow of the WWE.

The evening’s match card features a stacked lineup of some of ASÉ’s finest performers. Live wrestling shows are inherently interactive, but the crowd lining Piedmont’s bleachers is next level, clapping rhythmically and cheering for the babyface heroes and lobbing insults at the heels, or villains. 

As Darian Bengston and Suge D face off in a “hold-for-hold” match—a grappling contest in which striking an opponent is outlawed—the show’s interactive nature is on full display. Bengston locks Suge into an arm bar before incredulously inspecting his foe’s elbow. “He ashy as hell!” Bengston yells out to the crowd. The audience erupts in laughter. 

Referee Yolanda Wright, an older Black woman affectionately known as Ms. Yolonda, calls a timeout to apply lotion to Suge D’s tragically dry elbows. It’s a hilarious and culturally specific moment, one that would only happen at an ASÉ show. 

Founder Darius Lockhart even gets in on the action, facing off in a grueling match against a heel named Frontman Jah-C. It’s a brutal match, with each man taking turns throwing the other into the metal guardrails located outside the ring. “Break his arm, Darius!” Lockhart’s mother, Jennifer, yells from the bleachers as her son traps Jah-C in a gnarly hold.

The evening’s main event was supposed to pit Bishop Kaun, a star of the Florida-based All Elite Wrestling (AEW), against high-flying bigman Calvin Tankman in the Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling Championship. Created in 2019 by wrestling promoter Johnny X, the Pan-Afrikan belt is a roving title held and defended by Black wrestlers in independent promotions around the world. Unlike most singles championships, it’s a gender-neutral belt that can be held by men, women, or non-binary wrestlers. 

The match was poised to be a classic. But just ahead of the event, Lockhart had been hit with a bombshell that threatened to derail the anniversary show he’d spent months building. Kaun had to cancel due to a contractually obligated appearance with his home promotion, All Elite Wrestling. These scheduling conflicts are common enough, and the smaller company usually gets the short end of the deal. While indie businesses can capitalize on the name recognition that comes with booking someone associated with a bigger promotion, it also means they might spend months advertising for a wrestler who has to drop out at the last minute.

ASÉ Men’s Champion Darius Carter was able to step into the main-event slot for a thrilling match against LaBron Kozone. Carter, known as a flamboyant and despicable heel, makes his entrance flanked by the Piedmont Middle School Orchestra. He slowly winds his way outside of the ring, taunting the crowd as the young musicians perform the iconic first movement of Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony.”

The match is a hotly contested back-and-forth, the momentum swinging dramatically between the two until Kozone’s mentee, Dontay Khalifah, enters the ring and cracks Kozone in the back of the head with the championship belt. 

Carter—ever the opportunistic villain—takes his chance, hitting Kozone with a legsweep facebuster, pinning him, and retaining his title. As the boos rain down from the bleachers, fans shuffle back out into the cool Charlotte night.

Breaking Out of Stereotypes

Lockhart, 30, reflected on the show the next morning in his Charlotte home, including the triumphs and challenges of running a Black-owned promotion in an industry long permeated by racism.

“My heart’s desire is for this to become a bigger and better product,” he said, and one that allows ASÉ wrestlers to make enough money that they don’t have to go to WWE or some other major company “that may not understand them.”

“We’re not victims; we’re just quality performers,” he said, “but at the same time, there needs to be someone in the room who understands how important it is for Black people to be seen winning, to be seen as full humans.” 

Major and independent wrestling promotions alike have long developed their characters through the lens of racial, ethnic, and nationalist stereotypes. Some of the most egregious offenses have been reserved for Black entertainers, such as earlier decades’ Kamala, portrayed as a cannibalistic tribesman from Uganda, and the bulletproof-vest-wearing, TV-stealing duo Cryme Tyme. 

It hasn’t gotten much better. In 2023, former WWE writer Britney Abrahams sued the organization, claiming that CEO Vince McMahon and others had “discriminated and retaliated against her for raising concerns about ‘offensively racist and stereotypical jargon’ used in the promotion’s scripts.” Later that year, backstage segments showed Black wrestlers shooting dice in a graffiti-pocked back alley. 

The talents of many Black performers were simply never allowed to elevate above those depictions. 

Lockhart, who became a wrestling fan at 12, recalls attending his first SmackDown show in 2008, which featured WWE superstar R-Truth, a dynamic performer whose blend of athleticism and comedic relief has kept him on TV for the last 26 years. 

“A Black man from Charlotte about to come in here, and he was doing all these cool moves,” Lockhart recalled. “I was really geeked about R-Truth existing, and then I noticed, like, there was, like, a ceiling. He never really got past a certain level.”

Despite his longevity, Truth has never been presented as a star. In 2025, he was unceremoniously released from WWE despite being both beloved and a top merch seller. It was only after a wave of online protest and “We want Truth!” chants at live shows that WWE brought him back; he has since been relegated to short matches and backstage segments.

Still, Lockhart found himself enraptured by the physical action and emotional storytelling in the ring. He joined his high school amateur team during his junior year, but quit to train as a professional wrestler at Highspots Pro Wrestling, a North Carolina–based school and retailer. After working under legendary wrestlers George South and Cedric Alexander, Lockhart had his first professional match in August 2013. 

He climbed the independent circuit while attending UNC Greensboro, where he majored in communication studies and minored in African Diaspora studies. He says he started questioning some of the tenets and practices surrounding Black wrestlers. 

When an opponent intentionally tried to injure him in the ring, he saw another side of the industry and the people in charge of it. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it because I really looked up to them. That environment didn’t really help protect me, and they helped sweep it under the rug,” he said. “It sucked, but that was a wake-up call.”

Lockhart doesn’t consider this as his “origin story”–he’d rather focus on the triumphs that shaped his early career. But it’s not hard to see it as a driving force behind his desire to protect Black wrestlers. He took some time off after the incident and studied abroad in England, even wrestling there for a bit.

It was a pivotal period in the political consciousness of many Black millennials, Lockhart said. National news was flush with stories of the extra-judicial police killings of Black men like Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

In 2016, Lockhart christened himself “The Revolutionary,” a character that conjures the charismatic ’60s Black radicals like H. Rap Brown, Kwame Ture, and Fred Hampton. Lockhart views himself as an extension of that tradition, shaping the storytelling he does with the character and creating a space where a political leftist can be the hero. 

“You talk about the excessive racism that pro-wrestling has seen since the ’80s, one thing that’s a part of that is them always making the person who is standing up for people the bad guy,” he said. “They’re made to be booed, right? I knew I wanted to escape that pitfall.”

Most pop cultural depictions painted Black radicals as unserious buffoons or cartoonishly aggressive goons. Lockhart’s Revolutionary is different: a scrappy babyface who can triumph over the most vicious heels and be a people’s champion. “I had to educate myself so I could make sure I did this character right,” he said. “And I hate to call it a character, ’cause it’s an extension of me.”

By 2021, Lockhart found himself wrestling matches for more well-known promotions like AEW and National Wrestling Alliance. He found himself dissatisfied with the state of professional wrestling, especially as it pertained to his peers. 

“There were so many young Black performers in our age group who were dropping out and retiring early at the time. And it was just like, Why? Why is this always so mentally exhausting for us? It’s because it’s the way we’re being treated.” 

So Shall It Be

Lockhart decided to take his destiny into his own hands and form ASÉ in 2023, a space that could highlight his own work and support Black wrestlers from around the world. ASÉ takes its name from the Yoruba word that describes the creative power of the universe and is often spoken as an affirmation that roughly means “so shall it be.” 

Staying true to the tradition of small, independent promotions, Lockhart serves as ASÉ’s booker. Before professional wrestling companies became large, corporate entities, the booker was responsible for the creative direction and administrative overview of a promotion. They’d build the show from the ground up, either on their own or with the help of a small, trusted team. The booker determined the winner of each match and wrote the storylines in concert with an overarching narrative that plays out across multiple shows. 

Lockhart does all that while managing personal relationships with his talent and still jumping in the ring himself.

“I’m really having to operate with, like, four different brains: the wrestler, the writer, the producer who’s putting this together,” he said. “And then just a friend as well.”

Today, ASÉ stands out as the freshest and most innovative product in American wrestling. Episodes of ASÉ Wrestling TV on YouTube are edited into sleek, black-and-white audio-visual “mixtapes” that feature high-energy matches, music, interviews, and archival footage and historical bits about past Black wrestlers. 

ASÉ’s roster now includes some of the best and most respected performers in the business, like Carter, Women’s Champion Charity King, and ex-WWE superstar Cedric Alexander, as well as gifted up-and-comers like Jada Stone and Sonny Kiss. Black wrestling legends like Aja Kong, Ron Simmons, and Teddy Long also feature in live segments, connecting ASÉ to the Black wrestling tradition. Suge D says that by respecting and celebrating Black talent, past and present, ASÉ has cultivated an environment where wrestlers can thrive. 

“It’s bigger than just wrestling,” said Suge, whose real name is Carl Wilson. “There’s a fully formed, thought-out, functioning universe here with some of the finest talent you’ll find in the world.”

Lockhart and team are also intentional about highlighting women and openly queer wrestlers in an industry that marginalizes or outright ignores both. Performers like King and Joseline Navarro were given a prominent slot on the anniversary show, and gender-fluid wrestler Sonny Kiss has been featured in ASÉ shows since being let go from AEW in 2023.

“I’m a big believer that we’re not free until we’re all free,” Lockhart said. “I’m not perfect, but I’m more educated on intersectionality, and I know that helping the most marginalized people helps the rest of us.”

At the Piedmont show, Billy Dixon—a Black, queer brawler from the Bronx—cut an incredibly vulnerable speech that tied his family’s real-life story of resilience to his in-ring rivalry with Darius Carter. Their beef dates back to a 2020 incident at Dixon’s “Paris Is Bumping,” an innovative live show that combined wrestling, drag, and ballroom. 

True to his character’s nature as a despised heel, Carter crashed the event, slapped Dixon in the face, and condemned the event for “exploiting” professional wrestling. The feud has since played out across multiple independent wrestling companies and culminated at an October 18, 2025, show where Carter defeated Dixon to retain his ASÉ Men’s Championship title. 

In his promo, Dixon explained how his grandfather struggled to raise a family after relocating to New York from Savannah, Georgia, during the Great Migration.

“I know my family may not like airing dirty laundry, but my grandfather couldn’t read, my grandfather couldn’t write, and he couldn’t do math,” he declared. “But he took those challenges, with my grandmother, and put food on the table every single night!”

As the intensity reached a fever pitch, Dixon brought it home to his rivalry: “If I spent the last 10 years paying tribute to a man who didn’t give up, what the hell do I look like giving up to Darius Carter?”

This kind of care and investment in Black storytelling is rare in professional wrestling, but Lockhart sees it as a model for what could be. Many of the most beloved characters are marginalized: “They’re fighting the boss, fighting the system. … What Black person can’t relate to that? What Black person doesn’t fight with that same struggle?”