How Wrestling Saved My Life and Let Me Express My Queerness

Wrestling never stops, so I couldn’t stop, and thus I am still here.

It might sound like an exaggeration when I say that wrestling saved my life. But sometimes, the truth really is that simple.

In November of 2017, I learned I’d be losing my job. At the same time, my marriage was collapsing. It’s an old cliché: We settled down too young and, over the years, our dreams had diverged. He wanted kids with a doting wife and mother. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t that; his vision of a happy future sounded like a death sentence to me.

We hoped a counselor would help us resolve our incompatibilities. Instead, he ended up pointing out that the phrase “irreconcilable differences” exists for a reason. We put in all the work we could. In the end, the kindest thing to do was to let each other go.

As painful as the prospect of separating was, it gave me room to consider what my own happy future might look like. I married my husband because I loved him, but I’d always wondered what my life would have been like if I’d had more time to experience the world on my own. Mostly, I wondered if I would have married a man at all.

I never explored my queerness when I was married. By the time we separated, it was too late to deny what a part of me had known all along: I was very queer, and not being able to be my authentic self had made me deeply unhappy. I didn’t know how to be out, but I knew I couldn’t stay in the closet anymore.

By the spring of 2018, I’d been laid off, my husband had moved out, and I was grappling with a full-blown identity crisis. The life I’d known was destroyed, my misfortune a flood of lava burning everything and leaving only ash. I was shell-shocked, living off of microwave burritos and trying to maintain baseline functionality through a crushing bout of depression. I needed a reason to survive, so I found one.

I found wrestling.

It’s probably unusual for a thirty-five-year-old-woman to become a wrestling fan. Wrestling is for kids; it’s a scripted game of pretend where good guys fight bad guys for literal golden belts. I started watching wrestling because I had friends who did, but I didn’t take it seriously at first. I thought it was entertaining, but I didn’t get why people were obsessed with it.

That is, until I watched my first episode of Lucha Underground, a campy episodic drama powered by an engine of lucha libre. This is typical of wrestling: Companies create storylines to engage viewers, and then the plot is driven forward by the showdowns in the ring. This plot revolved around the Lucha Underground championship, held by Mil Muertes, a massive heel who, within the universe of the show, came back from the dead for the express purpose of wrestling. (He was resurrected by a witch, who is also inexplicably invested in wrestling.)

Ivelisse was Mil’s first female challenger and this was the episode where they were set to clash. Ivelisse was my favorite wrestler on Lucha Underground. She was loud and mean, hated by fans and fellow wrestlers alike, but also one of the toughest fighters on the roster. Though her chances of victory were zero, that didn’t stop her.

She jumped onto Mil’s back and wrestled him into a submission hold, choking him and making him stumble. Every punch he landed just made her more determined. She swayed, but she stayed upright, a defiant spark in the face of death itself. She nearly pinned him, but in the end she could not overcome his incredible strength. He knocked her flat and retained his title.

Within the storyline, Ivelisse was never a real threat. Her loss was a plot point, meant to reinforce how unbeatable and brutal Mil was as champion. That didn’t matter. She didn’t leave with the belt, but she left with her pride. It was a victory in defeat. That was when I grasped the beautiful paradox of wrestling, where persevering in the face of certain doom can mean more than a win. If Ivelisse could spit in the face of death, I could spit in the face of my own fractured future.

Soon, I was watching grainy old bootlegs of Japanese wrestlers, following every wrestling Twitter account I could find, and signing up for every streaming service on the internet. I knew nothing about wrestling except that it made me happy. That was all I needed to know.

I needed a reason to survive, so I found one. I found wrestling.

People love to laugh at crying wrestling fans, the “it’s real to me!” proclamation made memetic. Yes, wrestling is fake, but the emotions it inspires are real. Wrestling gave me a release for the pain I was going through. I couldn’t scream about the cavalier way I’d been laid off to my blank-faced CEO. But when SmackDown Live had Sami Zayn, one of my favorite WWE wrestlers, nearly killing the evil manager of the show he was on, just to save the life of his enemy-turned-friend Kevin Owens? I could cry the tears I’d been holding back, and cheer when Sami kicked his boss in the face. I needed that catharsis.

Wrestling also introduced me to badass women like Bull Nakano. Bull was first delivered to a wrestling company as a juvenile delinquent by parents who’d washed their hands of her. People mocked her larger size, her furious scowl, the way she defiled the ring with her unladylike presence.

The things that degraded Bull in the eyes of others were her biggest strengths. If the crowd doesn’t love you, you have everything to prove and nothing to lose. She was arrogant enough to dive off the side of a steel cage and crush opponents beneath her. She was tough enough to strut in front of jeering fans, scowling at anyone who would question her. The woman who carried their scorn on her back became one of the all-time greats, so compelling I could become obsessed with her years after her retirement.

On the hardest days, I’d pretend to be Bull. I’d walk down the street with her theme song loud in my headphones, my head held as high as hers when she entered the Tokyo Dome to fight Alundra Blayze. I’d think of her while I bluffed my way through phone interviews, channeling her brash confidence.

“Victory Through Guts” was the slogan of the company Bull wrestled for, and soon it became the phrase I’d murmur under my breath when I needed to be brave. I whispered it to myself before job interviews, in therapy sessions, in the office of the counselor who explained the difference between a divorce and a dissolution. If Bull could survive the notorious meat grinder that is the Japanese women’s wrestling industry and come out on top, I could survive this.

I couldn’t do everything Bull did. I couldn’t bearhug my nosey landlord into submission when he asked what I’d done to drive my husband away. But I could imagine what it would feel like to do so, because I’d seen the justice Bull created for herself with her precise, balletic violence. When I shakily confessed the end of my marriage to my sister, only for her to sigh and inform me that she’d seen the separation coming long ago, it was a perfect chance to practice Bull’s intimidating stare. I borrowed Bull’s badassery through a thousand uncomfortable moments. It got me through more than I’d like to admit.

It wasn’t long before I started writing about the wrestlers I loved. I met new friends through my writing, people as enamored with the fantasy as I was. I cherished these friendships, small and electronic as they were, as proof that I could still connect to people in my darkest times.

And these times were dark. Despite the comfort wrestling brought into my life, I was lonely, and sad, and navigating overwhelming grief in the face of an uncertain future. Every day was a gauntlet of painful tasks and reminders of what I’d lost. I was overwhelmed and scared, and when considering what it would take to rebuild my life, it was hard not to wonder if it would make more sense to simply end it.

I knew this was a sign that I needed help. I asked a therapist what to do and, in our subsequent weekly sessions, we worked on finding reasons for me to live. The first reason I gave myself to stick around was that I couldn’t commit suicide if I had front row tickets to RISE, a women’s wrestling show in Illinois. I’d promised to review it, so I couldn’t kill myself, because that would have been unprofessional.

Then I couldn’t kill myself before WrestleMania 34, because I had to see what happened to Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. I couldn’t die until those two got their final revenge on Sami’s evil boss and they were triumphant once more.

Then my Bull Nakano essay got into the next issue of Atomic Elbow, my favorite wrestling zine. I couldn’t die, because I wanted to make sure one of the contributors’ copies made it to my dad. It was a neat trick I pulled on myself, tying the red string of my life to a violent, unending soap opera. Wrestling never stops, so I couldn’t stop, and thus I am still here.

Wrestling gave me a reason to stay alive, and it helped me take my first steps into embracing the queer identity that had always been a part of me, just hidden. Understanding what it meant to come out was the first step in creating a new life from the ashes of my old one.

Wrestling has a significant queer fanbase, despite the fact that it’s historically been unfriendly to them. WWE has a shameful past of homophobic writing and performances. On the independent scene, queer wrestlers and fans struggle against a toxic masculine culture that either tolerates them grudgingly or rejects them outright. And yet, there are tons of us who love this weird sport, despite all its flaws.

Wrestling never stops, so I couldn’t stop, and thus I am still here.

One of the ways queer wrestling fans find each other is online. I didn’t know how to make queer friends in real life, but I did know how to make friends on Twitter. So I gravitated towards them and started an aggressive campaign of friendship. They didn’t know I was hacking through the Gordian knot of shame that accompanies coming out of the closet fifteen years after most of your peers did. They just knew I was queer and I liked wrestling—and that was enough.

These were my first queer friends. When someone mentioned how hot Lita is, I enthusiastically agreed. When conversations about queer representation in WWE bubbled up, I could chime in with what I wanted to see too. I got comfortable calling myself queer in online wrestling spaces before I ever called myself queer in real life.

My internet success led to real-life bravery. I began to wear rainbow merchandise to wrestling shows. I was screaming across the color spectrum, trying to emit my energy at a frequency my fellow queers could hear, calling out an SOS in the rhythm of breaking chairs––See me and recognize me as one of your own.

And it worked!

I can tell you the first moment I didn’t have to think twice about calling myself queer. On a trip to Chicago, I met a new friend at a taping of SHIMMER, a women’s wrestling show. They sat next to me in the dark for two full hours until I noticed them quietly checking out my array of rainbow pins. I complemented their shirt. We chatted intermittently for the rest of the show, then we headed to a nearby bar to continue the conversation.

We made small talk, nursing ginger beers and studying each other in the dim fluorescent light. Brodie was queer, non-binary, and excited to see another person like them at their favorite show. I shared that I was newly out, which they found delightful, and that I was reviewing SHIMMER for a website.

I stuttered, emotion making me blush as I explained that I didn’t want to be one of those creepy wrestling writers that ignore women’s skills and rates matches based on who they want to fuck.

Brodie giggled, running a nervous hand across the back of their neck and ruffling their aquamarine buzzcut. “You’re allowed to find women attractive. You’re queer!”

If someone said that to me before, I would have denied it.

But in that moment, I felt seen for the first time. So I agreed.

If nothing else, wrestling gave me that.

By then, a year had passed since my personal apocalypse. My now ex-husband and I parted amicably, filing dissolution paperwork alongside our taxes. I’d found a new job. I moved into a new apartment. I came out to my friends and family, and eventually the world at large. I learned how Tinder works. Somehow, life went on.

As I write this, I sit in my new apartment in the queer neighborhood of my Midwestern town. I’m trying to write, but I keep getting interrupted by greetings from queer friends rolling into town for Pride, invites from wrestling friends to SummerSlam viewing parties, and queries from editors and open mics. I feel safe and secure again for the first time in a while.

I’ve suffered more than I thought possible. But like Ivelisse, I spat in the face of my defeat. Like Bull Nakano, I faced down adversity and came out triumphant. If the narrative requires suffering, so be it.

Winning is an important part of wrestling––the glimmer of gold around your waist, the joy reflected back by ecstatic fans. But that glory comes after the fight. It comes after the pain. That’s how you earn it.