WWE has pulled a new Trick Williams T-shirt from its online store after fans criticized the design for playing into a longstanding racial stereotype.
The “Lemon Pepper Steppers” shirt went on sale at WWEShop.com on September 21 as a new arrival, priced at $34.99. The front showed Williams’ signature white boot surrounded by fried chicken wings, with the “Lemon Pepper Steppers” phrase printed across the back.
The design was built around Williams’ own catchphrase, turning it into a literal image: lemon pepper wings for “lemon pepper” and his boot for “steppers.” Once the shirt began circulating on social media, however, fans pointed out that pairing fried chicken imagery with merchandise for a Black wrestler invokes a racist stereotype with a long history in the United States. Many questioned how the design made it through WWE’s approval process.
The product listing described the shirt as a way to show “that you’re all about two-stepping in Lemon Pepper steppers,” and opened with a callback to Williams’ “Whoop that trick” entrance chant.
The shirt was removed from WWEShop.com within about a day of going on sale, as criticism spread across social media. WWE has not publicly commented on the design or its removal, and Williams has not addressed it as of this writing.
The wing reference comes from Williams himself. “Lemon pepper steppers” is the name Williams gives his white shoes, and it has become one of his signature lines since his call-up to SmackDown in January. He told Bleacher Report in July that the line dates to his first night on the brand, when he interrupted Sami Zayn and told him to respect “Mr. Lemon Pepper Stepper.”
Asked on the RoneDotCom show earlier this year what the phrase means, Williams said it had nothing to do with the shoe’s color or texture and compared it to a sauce, naming Wingstop and KFC, per WrestleTalk’s transcription.
Some fans compared the situation to the October 2019 controversy involving Jordan Myles, formerly known as ACH, who publicly called a WWE shirt design made for him racist, saying its graphic resembled blackface imagery.
WWE had already pulled that shirt by the time Myles spoke out. In a statement at the time, the company said Myles had approved the design, that it works collaboratively with performers and gets their input and approval on logos and merchandise before proceeding, and that no shirts had been sold. Myles disputed that account, saying he had only seen the design on a white shirt, and he left the company the following month.
Williams was a two-time NXT Champion before his main roster debut on January 2, when he made that interruption wearing a white mink coat, a look that has since become part of his presentation along with the white shoes. He beat Zayn for the United States Championship at WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas in April and retained it against him in a rematch at Backlash in May. He lost the title to Baron Corbin at SummerSlam before winning it back at Sunday Night’s Main Event earlier this month.
His “Whoop That Trick” entrance, built around the song of the same name, has become a regular crowd singalong at SmackDown shows.
