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Other posts you may be interested in:

1. Royal Kill To Be Finally Released
2. Asian Americans and Mistaken Identity
3. Lena Chen, NOT a Student of Virginity
4. Danny Cho: Asian Americans are Killing Asians in the Entertainment Industry
5. Daniel Dae Kim To Star In Hawaii Five-O Remake

• Xxxtine
  I'd also like to point out that Gail Kim was with the WWE, back when it was still called WWF. For some reason, she looks different from what I remember of her back then. In any case, since I haven't been following wrestling since all the wrestlers deleted their personal Xanga sites ... it's good to know she's still doing what she loves to do.
• TestSubjekt
  I guess it's possible that was one of the reasons they let her go.
  
  I recall there was someone in WWE Developmental that was told to get a haircut because he looked too much like Triple H. And we know that WWE doesn't like having too many wrestlers with similar sounding names. Ask Shane 'Gregory' Helms about that.
  
  But when their recent quarterly report came out they said they'd be cutting ALOT of costs. Wrestlers that weren't being used are the first to be let go. And as we know Lena wasn't being used.
• Cristina
  I definately agree on a shortage of diversity in the WWE women's division.
  I seem to recall that when WWE wanted to make way for that awful Diva Search contest
  they released some very talented women. Molly Holly(who lacked the Barbie Doll figure)
  , Jazz, and Jacqueline(the two African American Divas), and Gail Kim.
  
  Gail Kim, and Jacqueline in particular are both very attractive, but more importantly could wrestle circles
  around most of the Divas roster in their sleep.Cherry was recently released because they felt she was too fat.
  I heard tell Cherry is a far better wrestler than WWE allowed her to show. Shelly Martinez also was released
  due image.
  
  It is very much a superficial , and to a point racial issue.WWE seems to think fans only
  want Divas that look like they can be returned to their cardboard box when playtime is over.
  
  Is is all that surpising? That incident between Mark Henry, and Michael Hayes proves that there is some racial tension in WWE.
  I doubt Hayes is the only one too.Even though I am only half Vietnamese it is somewhat disheartening to be made to feel that I am inadequate as a woman because I don't look like Barbie. Though it appears Gail Kim is coming back, I have to wonder for how long.
• Danielle
  Creative had nothing for her, so she was let go. I doubt that it was seen as a 1 for 1 trade. Although I am glad to see a woman with actual wrestling talent being (re)hired. I was a huge fan of Kim in her previous WWE stint.
• chris
  Cristina, in the case of Molly Holly and Shelly Martinez, Molly asked WWE for her release due to a breast cancer scare and wanting to pursue other avenues. Shelly was seemingly more trouble than she was worth as wrestlers who worked with her (Sandman, for one) have said she had attitude problems and didn't like anyone giving her advice. Sandman commented in a shoot interview that she was a pain to work with during 2007's ECW Originals vs. the New Breed angle. On the flipside, he praised Kelly Kelly in the same interview for having a great attitude and trying be helpful when he worked with her.
• R. Hopkins
  Racism? Hardly. You can say many things that WWE has done were racially motivated, but not this.
  
  Let's compare Lena to one of those "white, blond divas", Kelly Kelly. Let me preface this by saying that the only reason she got a job after bombing out of the Diva Search was because there were people in the WWE that believed because of her physical background in surfing and the like, that she could become an asset on the active roster given training. Lena was hired with the intention of becoming a wrestler. 11 months later, she still couldn't run the ropes. Her time in the interim as an announcer and a valet was met by indifference by the fans, with her most infamous incident as the judge of the Kelly Kelly/Layla dance-off. She interjected herself into the contest and turned a segment the crowd was hot for into dead heat. WWE cut their losses with her. And the Gail Kim thing is just coincidence, as WWE has a girl in developmental right now by the name of Angela Fong. Here's her picture: http://tinyurl.com/5r6vpd
  
  Kelly Kelly was hired to be eye candy, but expressed a willingness to learn the business both inside and outside the ring. And from the time she made her final appearance as Mike Knox's valet till her debut as an in-ring talent (about three months), she was able to become a competent beginner wrestler that competes on TV on a regular basis, improving all the time. As for the "no end of white, blond divas" line, the only diva wrestlers on all 3 brands that are blonds are Kelly, Jillian Hall, Michelle McCool, and Maryse. The others are brunettes and redheads.
  
  If Lena wants to just be eye candy, there are plenty of jobs in the TV entertainment industry that she can get, but she was hired to work matches. She couldn't do it and she couldn't connect with the fans, so she lost her job. I'm sure she is glad that she could ride the gravy train for as long as she did.
• Y2jubae
  They do look similar. When they hired Lena, I actually thought they were trying to get a Gail look-alike since Gail was doing so well in TNA at the time.
  
  Personally, I think WWE needs to stop with the Barbies and start getting girls, not so much with ring ability, but PERSONALITY! Jesus, is it just me, or is Kelly Kelly the most dull human to ever live. There is really nothing to her. Melina, full of personality!
  
  Don't get me wrong, I love the "model" divas, they just need to be valets/managers. Mickey, Glamazon, Gail, they deserve to be in the ring.
  
  Hopefully WWE picks up some more ethnicity (I'm white by the way), cuz I think they have enough blond haired divas to fill 6 shows.
  
  Seriously, other than Trish and Sable, what blond diva has ever made any symbolance of an impact?
• R. Hopkins
  Oh...I forgot about Beth Phoenix, but she is am honest to God wrestler and not meant to be a Barbie Doll, like Natalya Neidhart.
• Clockwork Halo
  I'm actually a little surprised that, if you are indeed going to talk about potential racism in the WWE, that you didn't mention the character Kung Fu Naki. If you are offended by these types of stereotypes then someone doing a bad Karate Kid all the while speaking broken English would surely get your goat.
  
  http://www.wwe.com/superstars/smackdown/funaki/
  
  As for Lena Yada, I personally doubt her firing was racially motivated. While athletic, history has shown as that good athletes don't necessarily make good professional wrestlers. Her release also came along at around the same time with about half a dozen other wrestlers such as Kenny Dystra, Chuck Palumbo, Elijah Burke, Paul London, and Armando Estrada. Throw into the equation that she had been rarely used since her debut seems to indicate that this was more of a cost-cutting measure by the company more than anything that is racially motivated.
• mike
  wwe released elijah burke who was super talented because they couldnt find a storyline for him and didnt like him they also released kenny dystra a white young male with all the talent who they burried so i honestly doubt its racist as your post was indicating. as for lena yada the girl was good looking amazing body but clearly she wasnt clicking or something sorry but she wasnt fired for not being white if that was true theres a hispanic female walking around with regal who wouldnt be walking around with him named layla
• Andrew M
  For me (I'm Filipino/Mexican), I have to say that WWE has its share on racism stereotypes. I just glad they're using Batista right than both Jimmy Wang Yang and "Kung Fu Naki". But to me, I think Vince McMahon and those buffoon writers tend to treat Asian wrestlers, unless you're not tall as Batista who's 6'3'', get treated as jokes such as Jimmy Wang Yang as a "Asian Redneck" who is know a frequent jobber???, him coming out looking like John Wayne along with broken redneck accent or what about "Kung Fu Naki" doing a bad impersonation of the Karate Kid??? At least, they treated that one, Kenzo Suzuki (with his wife Hiroko), who was 6'2'', got the respect, but not champion material, but tag team material when he was teaming up with French wrestler Renee Dupree those years ago. So if you're Asian and who's not tall and is below 5'11'' working for the WWE, then automatically they'll come up with a despicable stereotype gimmick god know what else there is. I'm 6'7'', but if I was in
  the WWE, they'll probably treat me as a "dim witted frankenstein" shtick like the way
  they're doing with the Great Khali not showing my true potential, but that's just an
  example.
  
  As for Lena Yada getting fired, she does look a lot like Gail Kim, but that doesn't mean she can lace her boot like her. WWE made SOOO MUCCHHH mistakes in
  hiring "Barbie Dolls" and firing great potential women wrestlers such as Jazz (who was a tremendous valkyrie) or Jacqueline or even Ivory (Lisa Moretti), but one already knows that the only way to be a diva in WWE is to look like "Barbie Dolls". I don't how many blonds are in the biz, Kelly Kelly looking dull as ever, Jillian Hall, great wrestler, bad gimmick...Maryse, never heard of her...but most dominant Beth Phoenix. Natalia Neidhert, who's blond, but now a redhead. But I don't see any Mexican women wrestlers nor African American women wrestlers...guess thats not the WWE's direction for eye candy. For Gail Kim signing with WWE, I wish her the best because she is one of the most better wrestlers there is. I'm just hoping they'll use her right rather than giving her a dumb stereotype gimmick like the way they did for Wang & Funaki.
  
  Oh yeah, TNA Knockouts vs WWE Divas (even though you got women wrestlers who deserve to stay in the ring like Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, Victoria, Natalya etc.)
  
  Winners: TNA Knockouts
  (But I would like to see a Beth Phoenix vs Awesome Kong...but that will never happen, but hey you never know)
• Ronnie
  Hi, I actually wrote this very same article on bleacher report. Not sure if yousaw it or not but good to see I'm not the only one who think's what you suggest.
  My wife is asian, and I am latino and feel WWE firing Lyna because in their words "she looked too much like Gail Kim" is a disgrace in this day and age.
  It' hard to imagine people are still this narrow minded and prejudice.
  My article is on bleacher report.com under thw wrestling section. here's the link:
  http://bleacherreport.com/articles/82116-more-p...
• R. Hopkins
  Please try to remember that the “she looked too much like Gail Kim” is pure speculation. Gail Kim was in WWE the same time as Hiroko Suzuki and Gail Kim will be there (probably) at the same time as Angela Fong, so I think that too much is being read into this.
• Rob
  Let's keep in mind that both Asian men and women get treated much differently. I'm not surprised that the Asian men are treated as buffoons. The comparison between the two Asian men to Batista is laughable because Batista doesn't even look Asian; if anything, he looks Latino.
  
  I find it funny how Asian men are bending over backwards to overlook the fact that they're getting stomped on and focus in on how Asian women are treated. No wonder no one respects Asian men in America. You let people stomp all over you. No self determination at all.
• christopher
  Re: Andrew M
  
  Regarding Maryse, I'm confused as to how you don't know who she is when she regularly teams with Victoria and Natalya. She's been on Smackdown almost every week this year. She is a very good arrogant, mean heel.
  
  Also, WWE does now have Mexican divas as the identical twin sisters who debuted recently on Smackdown, Brie and Nikki Bella, are half-Mexican and half-Italian. Alicia Fox, the woman who split up Edge and Vickie Guerrero in their storyline (and who returned to TV on ECW last night), is African-American.
• Mr-A
  The WWE has no shortage of pretty blonde women, who come and go like they are a flavour of the month, and that firing Lena is most likely due to cost cutting.
  
  A number of wrestlers have been released recently and I believe this to be the case as to why Lena was let go. Either that or cost cutting.
  
  Also, Gail Kim didn't lowball TNA. She probably wanted to stay in TNA but went where the money was, to secure her future, much like Christian Cage(Jason Reno) is probably going to do also.
• Michael
  there is this nasty rumor going around that in both the WWE and ECW, the fights are NOT REAL and that the outcomes are planned in advance. not real competitions!
• Ben Franklin
  What a bunch of "marks". Lena's release was purely racial. We don't know how good she was for sure, but she certainly had personality. Kelly Kelly is awful, but they are pushing her all the way to the top! She's beat every heel diva on Raw (and SD's Victoria on the 11/17 episode of RAW).
  
  And what do you mean, "Trish and Sable being the only two impact Blonds ever..."? Sable was frackin awful, but yet they mad ethe entire women's division around her.
  
  Trish was pushed like no other woman in history! She was on a minimum of 3-4 segments a week the entire time she was on TV!!
  
  And plus, you forgot Sunny, Torrie Wilson, Medusa (Alundra Blaze), and current Diva's Champ (and 1st champ) Michelle McCool. All these women have gotten huge pushes in WWE.
  
  WWE has always felt more comfortable using the "girl next door" as their top star. OF course, the "girl next door" is always, ALWAYS blond!
  
  The entire Alundra Blaze gimmick was having her be the pretty blond going against giant Asian monster wrestlers!
  
  The promo and wrestling abilities of Melina, Victoria, and several others throughout the years has never gotten them to become the top star! And without any top "marketable" blond, you have to have noticed the WWE squashing the Women's Division right now.
  
  If you think you have an argument, ask yourself this; do you think you will ever see a headline of any PPV being a Black wrestler against an Asian wrestler? Or how about a women's feud with two Asian women, for example, Gail Kim against Angela Fong? Or even Kim against a famous Japanese wrestler? How about two Black women wrestlers having a headline feud?
  
  It's amazing they could so easily headline HHH vs Cena vs Orton, but would they ever push to headline MVP vs Ron Killings vs Shelton vs The Undertaker in a Fatal 4 Way for the Title?
  
  Heck, they did not even headline Eddie Guerrero vs The Rock on a PPV back in the day!
• R. Hopkins
  That's just ridiculous. She was hired to wrestle and to learn how to wrestle and she couldn't . And if her firing was because she was Asian, then why did they hire her in the first place? Furthermore, why did they center segments around her and try to get her over?
  
  Trish got pushed because she was able to connect with the audience and turned a women's match in the WWE into something more than a pee break.
  
  Alundra Blaze fought Rhonda Sing(h), who wasn't a big monster Asian, but a big monster white woman from Canada.
  
  And perhaps if Shelton Benjamin could actually get over as a midcard wrestler would he be put into the main event. They put a lot of work into him by letting him beat Triple H 3 times and making him Intercontinental Champion for 10 months, but he just couldn't get over.
  
  But I digress. The main point here is Lena Yada didn't have it. And when I say "it", I don't mean "white skin and blond hair". She doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, can't cut a promo, can't conduct an interview. Hell, she can't even dance...which is the standard "diva" fallback ability. Take a look at the other white wrestlers that you despise that are getting time on TV like Kelly Kelly. At least she knows how to lock up and run the ropes. Other wrestlers and on-air talent have been fired quicker for having more or less. They should keep her around and collect a paycheck for doing nothing just because she's Asian?
  
  Please save the "that's racist!" talk for when it's warranted. WWE has done racially questionable things in the past, but getting rid of a deadbeat diva who just happened to be Asian isn't one.
• kevinmiller
  I think McMahon and his writers are Very Racist towards Asians.Look at how quickly he got
  rid of the Suzukis.Look at how much of losing buffoons they turned Jimmy Wang Yang and
  Funaki into(Is Funaki still in the company?).How about the speed in which they got rid of
  Lena Yada,never giving her a True chance to succeed? He also got rid of Tajiri.And the most
  heinous crime of all,they are wasting Gail Kim's Incredible talents(which she posseses more
  than 3/4 of the Divas there)by jobbing her when they should be giving her Good storylines
  and allowing her to be Champion as she should be! He and the writers refuse to sell her to
  the audience the way she should be.