Reflections From a Long June

     お久しぶりよ. Long time, no see, no write. I've had ideas for blogs I wanted to write, but if I am being honest I was reaching a burn out point on pro wrestling. You can enjoy something but when the world is doing it's best to be constantly horrible and you've got only one main outlet of escape even that pressure value starts to wear thin. But this past month of June has been different. 

    So how do I recap this last month? I actually went to Philly Pride and that made me a queer militant for about a week and a half. And Pride was essentially the origin point of Piper and I getting our new AEW podcast Wednesday Night Fake Fights off the ground. And really, I've doubled down on the amount of work I'm willing to put in with the Fake Fights Network and lest you doubt my commitment, I watched three nights of Hulk Hogan movies sober. 

    Look folks, I love wrestling and always will. It's part of me at this point in my life and even if I get too burned out to watch four hours of Dynamite for two weeks in row I will still come back for more eventually. So in honor of the past month of Pride, I want to talk about how wrestling turned me trans.

    Okay, that's hyperbolic. Wrestling didn't turn me trans, that was the vaccine nanobots (for liability purposes, this is a joke). What wrestling is responsible for is making me queer in general. Young Eri didn't know her name was Eri when she was watching Steve Austin vs. Yellow Dog one Saturday afternoon but it started a lifelong fandom. And there were times when it wasn't terribly popular to be into the pro wrestling in my life. And people would say, "Hey, Erika (people don't deadname me in this hypothetical flashback) why do you watch wrestling? Isn't it kind of GAYYYYY? I mean those muscular men are in speedos and grappling each other." Well, no that itself isn't necessarily gay it's actually about the stories. But then also yes, wrestling was full of hot people, but I wasn't going to say that shit out loud at my Catholic all boys high school. Things were awkward enough and they only allowed one openly gay guy in the school to be tolerated because he ran the choir stuff. I am digressing hard here.

    The point I'm ultimately trying to make is that for the longest period of my life, I very much ran from my identity. It was rather clear that I wasn't straight or cisgender, but being brought up in a way where you're convinced that you will not receive support from anyone around you. Even when I got older the expectations of wearing that mask of being that masculine straight guy just beat me down. Wrestling was an outlet where I could forget all that and just vibe and chill and say "wow what a great physique" or "I hope Tyler Black never stops wearing those high cut trunks" and people wouldn't go, "what are you, gay?" And then along came the Golden Lovers.

    DDT is a fascinating wrestling promotion, don't you think? I used to watch Japanese companies back then, but DDT at the time leaned into the fan service of it all more than the major companies did. Forget the Danshok Women are a massive market for wrestling in Japan and DDT has always been more than okay catering to them. Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega being a pair of extremely talented professional wrestlers who may or may not actually be dating unlocked something in me that said, "It's okay if I'm attracted to men AND women." I'm not saying that wrestling turned me bisexual, because going to visual kei indie concerts in college definitely had a part, but seeing that representation even if it was just a gimmick made me feel more comfortable in my own skin and I was able to come out to people over it. Going from letting Undertaker commit a hate crime on television to Chris Kanyon to wrestlers like Fred Rosser, Anthony Bowens, and Toni Storm celebrated by audiences is a wonderful feeling. 

    I would also be remiss not to acknowledge my other coming out and how being able to see trans wrestlers across the indies and television really encouraged me to go forward and transition. Shout out Edith Surreal, Dark Sheik, Nyla Rose, Gisele Shaw, Gabbi Tuft, Kidd Bandit, VENY and fucking all of them. The fact that there's too many trans wrestlers to list out there right now making the dream work in the face of the shit we go through in this country today is inspiring. Dark Sheik was right in what she said in her Big Gay Brunch X promo: trans hands can carry this business.

    This Pride Month has been a roller coaster. Insane highs and crushing lows all in the span of 30 days. But hey, we're still fucking here. And we're gonna still be here. We're not going anywhere, we're gonna watch wrestling, we're gonna post through it, we're gonna live our best fucking lives and there's nothing anybody can do about it. So happy Pride, how it was a good one. We all fucking earned it.