A Rant About Being a Wrestling Fan in 2025 USA, Trans Edition

 I had wanted my first post to this blog to be about my experiences attending live events in Japan. That's still coming, but there's been some things that happened over the past few days that I've been turning over in my head and the more I do the more annoyed I get. So rather than let that fester or turn into an angry thread on social media, let's do this instead.

So like, what the fuck is up with WWE fans right now anyway? Is that harsh? I hope so.

Keep in mind, this is not going to be about the quality of their current product. I don't like it, but I can abide the existence of a wrestling company with bad wrestling even if they're trying to make the sport a homogenized and boring version of itself. If that's all they were doing I wouldn't have my hackles up as much as they are these days.

No, my big "gripe" goes beyond that. Much of this stems directly out of the current and ongoing Vince McMahon sex trafficking case that saw the man thrown out of his own company TWICE. That part shouldn't be ignored, the board of the company found out what he did, saw it was fucked up, tossed him out, and then VOTED HIM BACK IN AS CEO. And then the Wall Street Journal published their piece of Janelle Grant and that was the final straw. 

I'm highlighting all of that because a big thing that is hard to ignore from extremely online WWE fans is they won't defend McMahon, but they will defend the company as completely reformed now that he's gone. Never mind that it's currently being run by his son in law. Or that he hired Nick Khan. And that there were all people who pushed him out, voted him back, and then pushed him back out again. People who are still in the company all knew this shit was going and only took permanent action when their hands were forced. Fans can pretend that those still there had nothing to do with the crimes McMahon is accused of but it doesn't change the fact that the company from the head offices to the locker room has an infamously toxic culture. People have made extremely profitable careers just talking about that toxic culture in shoot videos. When something is that ingrained in one company it does not go away just because the man who created it went away. Why would it go away? There's so many people still in the company who profited from the way things have always been! And they're in charge now! You motherfuckers! But my gripe isn't even about that. I hate them for that, but I'm not ranting here specifically because of that. 

People will make excuses to keep up with the WWE in spite of all the scandals and lawsuits and dead wrestlers and nightmare stories of former employees and sleep well at night. Okay, fine. "Just leave me alone with my graps and my cinema," they say. "I want to support the wrestlers I like, they didn't do anything." Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. 

You see the title of this? The trans edition part? Do you follow me on Bluesky? Actually, if you're reading this you probably do (what up, oomfiesaurus rex). I don't make much secret that I'm a trans woman online and if you're trans person in 2025 things aren't really great. It's not great for trans people, it's not great for immigrants, it's not great for any person of color, and frankly it's not great for anybody. I watch wrestling as an escape because if I can turn off the bullshit of the modern world for a couple hours at a time I think that's great. And I can't do that with WWE at all because all I see when I see their dumb logo is Paul Levesque sitting behind Linda McMahon talking about all the ways she was going to help the Trump Administration weaken the Department of Education. I look at the WWE and see regime collaborators. 

Maybe I'm being harsh, but it's very hard not to take this shit personally right now in light of everything that's going on. But I don't see it any differently than people still giving money and attention to JK Rowling. Your money and support is going to a company that is heavily invested in seeing the success of the current US government and all the authoritarian power grabs that entails. And hell, they're even apart of it. Even if they're not apart of it, they sure don't seem to mind it. The fact that the company has been perfectly fine keeping transphobes like Logan Paul around tells me that it doesn't want my time and money. And I'm perfectly fine not giving them either. When I see indie wrestlers and companies happy to put the WWE ID logo in big giant fucking letters that overshadow their own names, I just see people who are perfectly fine taking the money of the company that thinks this fascism thing is good for business.

I might be overly sensitive about this right now and that's a fair argument. You can call me a hater who just does Fed Bad posting to get attention and clout. You would be wrong about that part, because I have no clout. If I did, I'd be able to shame every single person with an excuse into not watching WWE. I can't, but I think that they feel some shame in spite of the Stand Up For WWE mentality that they have. If they didn't, would they be so quick to repeat the same tired defenses that I have seen to shield Vince and his company from criticism for my entire life? They're sure not being paid to do, so I can only see it as a defense mechanism to shield themselves from the fact that they don't want to think about the fact that the biggest, most popular wrestling company in the world likes to cozy up with the people dismantling whatever protections the United States had in place to keep the most vulnerable people in society safe. Like shit, I haven't even touched on all that Saudi blood money that everyone is cool with taking over there. 

At the end of the day, I have no power to make anyone stop watching. I don't have the power to convince any wrestlers with a conscious to quit. I can just say my piece and I have. I do not intend for this blog to just be for slagging off The Fed, but this post has. Woops, and it's my first one. I also hope that future posts are better structured but this has been mostly off the cuff and half rewritten because of how annoying it is seeing the so-called "outlaw promotion" suddenly excited to be part of the WWE ID program. It sucks when I see people who are LGBTQIA+ or who espouse to be leftists or who just want to be seen as allies getting sucked back into the Wrestlemania fervor even as they hire racist piece of shit comedian Tony Hinchcliff to do a fucking roast of all things. Remember that guy? The guy everyone hated who did all the racial humor for Trump's big Madison Square Garden Nazi rally? You're okay with a company bringing in that fucking guy? Sorry, but I can't take you seriously if you do. 

Watch what you want. If you want to watch the fascism supporting wrestling company, go right ahead. I just wanted to make it clear that I don't think very highly of people who do, especially if they're not willing to grasp what it is they're supporting. Next post will actually be about wrestling. Until then, have a great time or something.

Fuck. I need to think of a better sign off.