“Imagine pro wrestling. You’re thinking about it, and you’re thinking: ‘Isn’t it a little gay?’
“And I show up, and go, ‘Yes.’
“And it’s positive, and we dance together, and then we celebrate community and uniqueness, and we beat each other up, but not out of hate, out of love.
“That’s what Effy is.”
…
In the world of independent wrestling, Effy has become a cottage industry.
On Sep. 26, his “Big Gay Brunch UK” returned to Hangar 34 in Liverpool, England — marking the 16th show presented under the “Big Gay Brunch” banner. As one of pro wrestling’s few openly queer stars, Effy’s boutique brand has become a nexus for the LGBTQ community.
In the main event, he’s beckoned to the ring by Elton John’s ballad, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Adorned in red leather, spikes, and fishnet tights; his slow gait is deliberate. In a profession that ceaselessly moves forward, Effy’s progress is measured. It’s a familiar spectacle, but one that never loses its luster.
“I picked [Goodbye Yellow Brick Road] for a few reasons. Some of them are funnier than others,” Effy explained.
“Number one, I knew I needed a theme song that was not going to rush me into the situation. You hear a lot of people’s theme songs and they’re heart-pounding, move-forward rock music, or heavier music, or just things that sound more explosive and exciting to introduce a character in that way. I did not want to waste all my energy up front walking to the ring. So I said, I need a slower song and I want a classic.
“And in the world of wrestling, you know, I’ve gotten hit for it a few times. There’s certain jobs you do where they’re like, ‘we can’t have DMCA,’ and I go, ‘it’s fine. Elton told me it’s fine.’
“And they said, ‘Warner Brothers didn’t say it’s fine.’
“Elton never told me it was fine, but I imagine he wouldn’t fight the gay pro wrestler, bringing magic to his song.
“But also the reason I picked the song is, it’s a song about, allegedly, Bernie Taupin and Elton going to a party and being told to play songs for people, and they said, ‘I’m not your puppet. I’m not your dancing monkey.’
“I have a professional art that I do in pro-wrestling, and I’ll take it home[…] Effy is mine, and I’m choosing to share it with this audience. And if you don’t let me live in the way I want to live, or do Effy the way I want to do Effy, I’ll go home, or I’ll go somewhere else. I don’t need you, necessarily. Thank you for having me. What a lovely time we can have together, but I’ll go home right now. I don’t care. And so I needed the song, you know, to kind of make sense to me when I’m walking out[…] If you listen to the lyrics: ‘When are you going to come down? When are you going to land?’
“I’m answering when I decide to. I’m not gonna come down. I’m not gonna land. I’m not gonna be a puppet.”
A decade’s worth of groundwork has afforded the 36-year-old that autonomy. Effy has become a household name on pro-wrestling’s independent circuit. This year alone, he’s wrestled 56 matches to date — against the likes of Billie Starkz, Colt Cabana, and Zack Sabre Jr.
However, October has proved to be a career month. On Oct. 1, Effy’s mother, Krista Colle Gibson, released her memoir, Wrestling with a Rebel. The book details her relationship with her son’s sexuality, his career, and her own crisis of faith; as the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister.
A week later, he was named as a committee member for PRODUCE Wrestling’s new Talent Advisory Council.
In helping promote his mother’s memoir, Effy has been presented with an opportunity to reflect on where he’s been, and a greater appreciation for what’s yet to come.
Effy’s love affair with pro wrestling began at an early age, even if it didn’t seem feasible.
“Early on, it felt like something that I could watch and was cool. It was theatrical, but it never made sense to me that you could actually do it. I think the first indie show I went to, you know, we moved around a lot when I was a kid. So, we were, I believe, living near or right by a marine base at the time. And I remember going to the marine fair, and one of the events they had in the livestock hall was an indie-wrestling show. And to me, these guys were superheroes. You know, I’m seven or eight years old going to this event. And in my head, this was the WWE. This is what this is, but there was no path to getting into doing it.”
“I got to go to a few [WWE] shows growing up, but it was never something that seemed in any way tangible as a real, functional job. And, you know, looking back on it now… Some days it still doesn’t work as a functional job. There are days where you’re like, damn, we’re really doing D.I.Y. out here to make it bye.”
It wasn’t until he was in college that Effy discovered the wide array of professional wrestling that exists beyond WWE.
“We’re in a very strange era of streaming now, but when those first apps where you could pirate stuff came on the scene — I started getting my hands on PWG matches. I started getting my hands on Japanese wrestling. I started getting my hands on some of these shows; that, you know, I’m getting to work at some of these places now, that have had 20-year careers; that I was running across in college because my friends are going, ‘this is wrestling too, and it’s crazy.’
“Seeing Jun Kasai for the first time after Limewiring old shows from Japan was like… What the fuck is — what is happening here in this world? Just being able to access those things has given such a bigger fandom to me throughout those college years.
“And I said, I just think if I don’t go for it — I’m sitting here telling myself it’s not a thing that can happen. And I’m starting to look around and going, ‘It’s happening more than you thought it was happening. And it does seem to be pretty popular, and you didn’t know this existed anymore.’”
It takes years for most wrestlers to hone their craft and cultivate a persona. For Effy, that period of acclimation hinged on another variable: the social climate of professional wrestling needed to evolve.
“I think wrestling’s always been sort of a heightened version of life, for me. Coming in, in the American South, I started doing matches in 2014, and you would think at that time, we’re progressive, we’re here, we’re still in the Obama era. We still feel good. But, starting in the south, there were parts of me that, even if I wasn’t being fully out and wild, and queer in the match, they were gonna notice anyway[…] So it sort of became this kind of rebellious thing where you’re — you know — how your performance is going to be taken. So, you kind of take it up a notch, and you take it higher.
“And, you know, at that time, by proxy, I was playing heel a lot of the time, but what I started to see is, when people talk to me, it shows. When people were able to see me multiple times, see what I was doing, they were gravitating to me, and they were saying, ‘These people might boo you, but I’ll never boo you, and you’re such a fun person to talk to. I love watching you wrestle.’”
That experience reaffirmed Effy’s commitment to authenticity, both as a performer and as a means of expression.
“I tell a lot of the LGBTQ kids, especially if they’re doing seminars with me, or they’re doing classes, or learning, or having matches with me… I don’t want you to be a palatable version of yourself. I want to open the path to where you can be the most gay, the most trans, the most bi… The version of yourself that is real and is you.”
As one of pro-wrestling’s most visible openly-queer stars, Effy has shouldered the responsibility of being the “gateway drug” for other LGBTQ wrestlers, and styles like exoticos in lucha libre. And, it’s a responsibility he bears with pride.
“I’m gonna be the person that goes out there to sort of gateway drug them into our community. I want to be able to take someone that maybe you’ve given up on or you say that person’s never going to understand anything. And, showcase this world to then go, it’s not as scary as you think. These people are not trying to get you. We’re trying to live and have fun and entertain our friends and we are good professional wrestlers. We can do stories that you can’t do, but I also found myself in this position where, as my success grew, I went. I want to be myself 100% and I’m a crazy person[…]
“So I want to be able to be that gateway drug to get people into our brunch scenarios, like, with the Big Gay Brunch that I’ve done: 11 times with GCW and five times now with TNT and Liverpool, UK. I’ve got to do it all over the country. I originally wanted this show to be me looking like a goofball. I wanted all of my matches to be silly as hell. That first match with Marko Stunt, where it was just like a too-hot-for-TV match, and I think he ended up dealing with a lot more ire and trouble than I did. But, I wanted to be the goof on the show where you go, this show is named after Effy. ‘Effy’s Big Gay Brunch.’ It’s all of this stuff, but look at the rest of the card. Look at Sonny Kiss versus Cassandro, the (legendary) Exotico. Look at the tag teams and people we have that are coming in where you go, ‘I didn’t know these people existed in wrestling.’ I wanted to highlight everyone else by using my name to get that over. “
At only 36, Effy is in the midst of a career-defining run. Two weeks ago, Pro Wrestling Illustrated named him the 72nd best wrestler in the world, on their yearly list of the 500 best professional wrestlers; all while creating space for other LGBTQ wrestlers. However, the environment he’s fostered couldn’t be any more dissimilar from the one that nurtured him.
“For my mom to sort of reassess her own faith, which is, you know, both of my parents were pastor’s kids. Everyone in my family. My cousin, Jordan Colle, is a praise and worship minister and a recording artist for a pretty large Christian label. These are people that have had their faith tested along the way, and they’ve ended up where they are to look at your whole life when it’s dependent on those things and go, maybe I’ve been wrong about a few things.
“It’s very fascinating, the compromises we’ve come to, and you wouldn’t expect me to be the one that would kind of show you how to love someone[…] But, then to have your mom go like, no, this is a greater example of acceptance and love and treating people the way you should be treated than I expected.
“For [my parents], it’s been a long path to get to where we are now, and for them to sort of go like, we just want to know how to operate in the world in a way that is loving, I think a lot of people have had bad experiences with religion with Christianity.
“I don’t look great during parts of the book, because I was a real asshole to my parents when I was dealing with my own sexuality, and unsure I would ever be able to be the person I can be[…] Looking back at it now and our relationship together, she’s kind of found this thing to say, like: ‘You did need to become the person you needed to be. And if we were holding you back from that, then we were missing out on something that could have been a greater thing.’”
While Effy was able to find common ground with his family, he’s keenly aware that others aren’t afforded the same privilege.
“Right now, we have a serious white national Christian fascism problem in our government, and in our country[…] There’s a new wave of children cutting their parents off and I think they have every right to. These parents are telling them not to live as themselves. These parents are cutting them off when they turn 18 and saying this won’t be in my house. These parents are not giving them resources or love or saying that the love comes with conditions of whether or not you come back or show me that you’re not going to be this thing. And this book is literally saying the opposite.
“And it’s going, I was completely uncomfortable with what was going on with my son. I had no idea how to deal with it. But what I realized is a lot of the issues and struggles and problems that we were having with each other were because I was not actually hearing this person for who they were. And it, you know, telling parents here, I think if you read this book — it is our journey together, me and my mom, but it is also this journey that I think is happening across a lot of parents and kids right now. Which is, ‘this isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I agreed to. This isn’t what I thought when I was having a kids, my kid. It should do what I want.’”
Effy hopes his mother’s testimony will influence other Christian parents to make the same concessions and allow love to triumph.
“She really took a leap of faith in just jumping into my world and it’s so exciting to see, you know, how people are reacting to it, but I hope that the Christian moms and Christian parents and people in the church are going to get a hand on this and go, maybe we’ve been a little wild. Maybe we’ve been a little too harsh. Maybe there’s nothing in the Bible about, you know, abandoning your — well, there probably is some stuff in the Bible about abandoning your children. But I think, you know, my mom’s more of a Jesus-free kind of hippie Christian now. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her favorite verses and her things, but when you look at the main message of this book is, you know, hey, we’ve been forgiven. We’re all going to mess up. We all have sins. You got to love one another. You got to meet people where they are. If that’s a crazy belief system to have, and that’s, you know, outside of what the Christian nature really is supposed to be, I think she’s looking at the church and saying, there are some things you probably should reassess.”
His mother’s memoir has been a marked success, debuting as the number four LGBTQ biography on Amazon books. Elsewhere, Effy has found equal measures of success in the squared circle. Earlier this week, Effy was named a committee member for PRODUCE Wrestling’s new Talent Advisory Council.
In Effy’s own words, PRODUCE is “giving you pro-wrestling by pro-wrestlers.”
Now, that mantra has been taken to its logical extreme. Led by Jonathan Gresham, the group will serve as PRODUCE Wrestling promoter Adam Abdalla’s liaisons across the country, assessing talent and helping to build a stronger infrastructure for the independent scene.
“Adam Abdullah, of the Cultural Council and of ORANGE CRUSH, wanted to create a company where he, you know, and I hear a lot of things a lot of times, from people; I’m on the road and they go, ‘I’m starting this company. We want the wrestlers to be in charge… I’m starting this company. We want to hear what you guys actually want to do.’
“And Adam has really taken that to heart and sort of created a group of wrestlers that he says, look, as a wrestling fan, I’ve been really interested in what y’all are doing.
“I also feel like a lot of the time you’re making do with what you’re given, and you’re doing the best to provide for the fans, but there are certain shows and settings where I’m going to do what I’m hired to do, right? I’m an independent contractor. And, so to have Adam go, I want to do this thing, and I want to have you guys producing it; I wanna have you guys putting out what you think is the right wrestling.
“We’re getting to, what is this, ‘Volume 5’ coming up? Karl Fredericks is the main proponent of the show coming up Monday in Brooklyn: Skoden. Karl Fredericks came to Adam and said, ‘I want to highlight wrestlers that are of Native American origin, our Indigenous peoples, and to have four or five matches on this show that has a lot going on,’ that are just sort of coordinated by Karl Fredericks and coordinated to highlight—hey, there’s a lot of Indigenous wrestlers out here who are very good. You haven’t seen them in the right light yet, but then also putting that with other wrestling matches that he wants to see on the show and have on the show.
“You know, being on the show with Lee Moriarty producing, and that TAIGASTYLE vibe of the show, and seeing that main event with him and [Jonathan] Gresham where you’re going, yes, we always hear, these are two of the best technical wrestlers in the world. Very rarely do we get to watch them technically wrestle for 35 minutes at the end of the night[…] A lot of shows would be like, well, what if you did 15 minutes on match five and that’s all you get? [Adam] has jumped in completely, saying, ‘Hey, what does your vision of wrestling look like?’ We wanted to get over with the fans. We want to give them the good stuff. And what you’re finding is these wrestling fans have seen a lot of wrestling. And so to have a new skew on things, a new vision on things, to be able to put wrestlers in positions where other wrestlers are going, ‘this is a match I really wanna see with you.’”
One of the throughlines of Effy’s journey in PRODUCE has been his rivalry with Fred Rosser, formerly known as Darren Young in the WWE. Rosser was the first openly gay man to actively compete in the WWE, coming out while Effy was still training to become a professional wrestler. Since then, he’s experienced a career resurgence in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, where he has since becoming a trainer at the NJPW Academy.
At “PRODUCE Vol. 2: TAIGASTYLE,” Effy and Rosser competed in their first singles match.
“If you go back and watch that match, I’m slapping ‘em in the mouth and messing with him, and he beats my ass for it. And to be in that position where I can go, you have a vision of wrestling and I do too, and I’m not scared of getting my ass kicked, I want to fuck with you. I want to mess with you. It’s been really awesome.”
While Effy prevailed in their encounter, Rosser will have a chance to even the score next weekend in Los Angeles, at “PRODUCE Vol. 6: Hell Comes to Dogtown.” Before their sequel, the rivals have agreed to join forces this Monday at “Skoden,” to face the team of Mad Dog Connelly and SLADE.
“I don’t wanna lose. You’ve got two of the best historically gay wrestlers of all time in a tag team, I don’t care if we hate each other[…] I want to actually show people, when me and Fred Rosser work together, we’re actually the Super Powers. We’re the Mega Powers. We’re the best of the best, even if we have severe disagreements on how wrestling is run.
Regardless of the outcome, their match on Oct. 22 will surely provide ample chaos.
“There’s no rules in LA. We had matches with rules. We’re going crazy. We’re going nuts.”
Like Effy, Rosser was named as a committee member for the Talent Advisory Board. And, while their vantage may differ, they’ve found a commonality in their shared purpose.
“The biggest problem in wrestling right now is getting seen in a sea of everyone being there. And it’s hard to tell these kids, look, an email doesn’t cut it anymore. Telling me the seminars you’ve done doesn’t cut anymore. I need you to find a way in front of me, and there are ways to get in front of people, but when they do it like this, and they say, you’re gonna have eight different companies in this place, and having Gresham on that talent advisory board, having PRODUCE, and having Adam saying, ‘guys, we should be working together, we should be making it easy for talent to get in front of us, making it easy for ourselves to find new talent.’
“This is such a diversified group of people that are all being heard. It’s lovely being around Darian Bengston or Jonathan Gresham, where I say something, and they go, ‘bro, that sounded so stupid,’ or ‘that was such a silly thing,’ but I’m not being attacked personally. I have people around me who are taking this seriously and doing a thing that is, hopefully, going to last for more wrestlers to come into and that they want to join a part of. Let’s make sure we’re doing all the right stuff. Let’s make sure we’re aligning with the right people and aligning in the right stages.
“I’m very excited for the future of it.”
Few pro wrestlers are as cognizant of professional wrestling’s uniqueness as an art form, as Effy is.
“We’re a really strange type of entertainment. I don’t think people realize how strange, because It’s easy to compare us to theater, but imagine if there was an actor, right? And the only role he played was Hamlet. And he went town-to-town doing Hamlet, and everybody knows he is the best Hamlet[…] Now, I want you to imagine his play every night he’s performing is not Hamlet. You just know you’re going to be Hamlet in a part of a bigger picture.
“To be in wrestling, you have to hone a character that can get reaction from people; that can get people involved or gets people to want to come there. And, that character is then constantly put against other characters or other situations that weren’t even expected until that day, or expected until that moment.
“You know, Shakespeare wrote 34 plays, and that loser didn’t perform in a single one of them. I write a play every night with a stranger.”
Effy performs.
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