The body slams, the attitude, the chaos! It doesn’t matter if you’re ringside or watching at home, professional wrestling gets the adrenaline pumping in fans. LGBTQ+ fans have loved the costumes, characters, and storylines since the days of Hulk Hogan. Yet the genre often felt intentionally heteronormative to the point of LGBTQ+ exclusion.
But those days are down for the count. Impact Wrestling has a new star: Jai Vidal. He grew up in South Florida and is out of the closet and in the ring.
In this week’s SFGN, online now and on stands tomorrow, I talk with the up and coming superstar about his journey and this weekend’s so-flo shows.
Jai’s wanted to do this since he was four, and tells me, “Since that age, battling my sexuality at times and having to hide it, including when I first got into professional wrestling, I learned how important it is to not only chase my dreams but also to show representation on top of that.”
Living openly and doing what he wants comes naturally to him. From the time we met to the time I left, he never stopped smiling. He strikes me as genuinely happy. He credits a lot of that to his signing with Impact Wrestling, saying ““I feel like what Impact is doing, bringing in wrestlers from all spectrums of the LGBT community is helping to make this normal. It is what it is, normal.”
Impact Wrestling’s “Winter Warfare” is this Friday and Saturday at the Dodge Center in Pembroke Pines. These shows are really fun and really over the top. Let’s support a positive member of our community making positive change.
