WWE, bending the knee to the Trump oligarchy on DEI, just released a slew of its LGBTQ+ talents. AEW is going in another direction, with its women’s world champ, Toni Storm, declaring in a promo on Saturday’s “Collision,” “I am here, and I am queer, and I will always be, timeless.”
“I know there’s a fresh batch of sloptarts back there, trying to take a shot at this wide load that holds the gold. Yes, that’s right, everyone’s coming for Toni Storm, but you’ve got it all wrong, darling. Toni Storm comes for everybody,” said Storm, who came out as bisexual in 2021, and is married to fellow AEW star Juice Robinson.
Storm has been pushing the envelope with her on-screen sexuality since debuting her “Timeless” gimmick in 2023, with steamy on-screen smooches with rivals Mariah May, Saraya and Harley Cameron and an infamous three-way with May and Japanese star Mina Shirakawa.
“I am here, I am queer” is a play on the LGBTQ+ anthem “we’re here, we’re queer,” and is another step forward in AEW’s embrace of diversity, with former tag-team champ Anthony Bowens among the few out and proud male wrestlers, with a nice moment in a 2023 episode of “Rampage” in which he resisted the romantic advances of Cameron with the line, “I don’t know if you can see the gear I’m wearing, lady, I’m gay.”
Over in the E, meanwhile, the corporate behemoth just released LGBTQ+ talents Shayna Baszler, Dakota Kai and Kayden Carter, after cutting bait with Sonya Deville, who the company often trotted out as its token lesbian during Pride Month, earlier in the year.
Which is perfectly OK; WWE’s audience, demographically, trends heavily in the MAGA direction, so it makes sense for its multibillion-dollar corporate parent, TKO, which also owns the Trump-friendly UFC, to err on the side of playing to its base.
I don’t know the politics of AEW founder/owner Tony Khan, but I know that he’s not afraid to have a trans woman, Nyla Rose, a former AEW world champ, on his roster, and a Black man, Swerve Strickland, carrying his company’s top male championship, and Strickland, currently out of the world title picture, is still AEW’s top drawing card.
WWE will always draw bigger crowds and cultural relevancy because of its 60-year head start, but AEW deserves credit for trying to draw people outside the traditional white male MAGA base to the wrestling game.
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Chris Graham
