After their first rally in Jacksonville last month, there was no small amount of push back on All Elite Wrestling for what some saw as empty rhetoric when it came to their “change the world” mission statement. You could bet on fans asking questions — bet on anything else at Bethard Sportsbook — and sure enough they did. There wasn’t a lot of substance behind statements about “equal pay” or “taking care of the boys” (specifically around general health insurance for wrestlers). Heck, they only announced two women for the roster - one introduced as a supporting act to a male wrestler.
Fans wanting change beyond “we’re not WWE” weren’t seeing it.
There were noticeable differences at the Double Or Nothing Ticket Announcement Party yesterday (Feb. 7) in Las Vegas... and not only because AEW’s performer-managers learned from their mistakes and didn’t drop buzzterms they weren’t prepared to answer follow-up questions about.
The women’s roster tripled in size, and features two Japanese wrestlers. The partnerships with China’s OWE and now Mexico’s AAA were featured much more prominently, with the former’s management team on-hand along with the wrestling face of the organization Cima, and the latter represented by Cruiserweight champ Sammy Guevara and The Young Bucks’ opponents for the Double Or Nothing, Lucha Bros.
More than gender balance and global partnerships, AEW took historic steps with LGBTQ representation.
Sonny Kiss was one of the first people introduced poolside at MGM Grand yesterday. Kiss is openly gay, and might best be known to audiences as Lucha Underground’s XO Lishus. But he’s said he doesn’t want to be labeled an exotico (a lucha libre staple where male wrestlers work exaggeratedly feminine gimmicks) because “I want to be known as just a wrestler.” Talking to Afterbuzz TV’s Women’s Wrestling Weekly last fall - the same interview where the previous quote is from, Sonny talked about his experience on the independents:
“I definitely dealt with racism and I definitely dealt with homophobia but I think once people see who you truly are, it kind of smooshes that away. And I feel like that’s what happened with wrestling, it was like ‘yo, this guy is a little weird’. Once they really looked at me and saw me ‘you know he is kicking butt’ and he is powerful and strong black man and confident, they were like, ‘ok he is something different’.”
AEW didn’t tout Kiss as their first gay signee or anything, but there was even less acknowledgement of the truly landmark addition to the roster. WWE’s featured homosexual performers before (Darren Young, Sonya DeVille), but when Nyla Rose was introduced via a confrontation with Kylie Rae, most fans (this writer included) weren’t even aware she’d just become the first trans person signed to a major wrestling company. It wasn’t until Rose and the company retweeted this story that many learned the fact:
This is history. @NylaRoseBeast @AEWrestling https://t.co/eWXhMM7YDo
— PinkNews (@PinkNews) February 8, 2019
Since that hit, and the sad but predictable responses hit her timeline, Rose confirmed the Pink News story and revealed additional details that will really ruffle some feathers:
I’m bi too ♀️ and a POC... the REAL triple threat pic.twitter.com/IRyWPHcc2k
— Nyla Rose (@NylaRoseBeast) February 8, 2019
The lack of promotion of Kiss and Rose as members of the LGBTQ community might partially be a pragmatic decision to avoid attention from those who view representation as a negative, but it’s also refreshing. It doesn’t feel like Sonny or Nyla are associated with AEW for public relations points, but because they’re part of the pro wrestling world.
And while at their first event it seemed All Elite might just talk about change, at their second they made strides toward being about that change.
Bring it on.