Mike Parrow, the 35-year-old 300-pound professional wrestler who came out as gay earlier this year, entered his most recent NWA wrestling match draped in the rainbow pride flag. That’s a pretty big deal for a sport that has long wrestled with its own homophobia.
NWA Wrestling shared a GIF of Parrow’s entrance (below), showing him looking like a bad leather daddy as he walks downstage to face his three other opponents. The LGBTQ sports site Outsports reported that the match was actually a four-way championship bout during a pay-per-view event commemorating NWA Wrestling’s 70th anniversary.
.@Parrow_ representing with the ????????????! #NWA70 pic.twitter.com/fY1YCXV5jv
— NWA (@nwa) October 21, 2018
It’s great that Parrow is so open and outspoken about his sexual identity. In the past, he has spoken about his fiancé and his experiences in gay conversion therapy. He has also encouraged other LGBTQ athletes to come out.
Related: More white-hot photos of newly out beefcake wrestler Mike Parrow
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Parrow’s entrance reminds us a bit of WWE wrestler Finn Bálor’s entrance at this year’s WrestleMania event. Bálor entered the arena flanked by an applauding entourage of LGBTQ fans all wearing t-shirts with a rainbow-colored version of his logo. Although Bálor doesn’t identify as gay, a portion of his rainbow t-shirts sales benefitted the LGBTQ media watchdog group GLAAD.
While some fans might see these displays as showy and somewhat self-serving, longtime fans of U.S. pro-wrestling know that the sport has a long, problematic history of depicting its gay male wrestlers with any dignity. The sport has often resorted to stereotypically flamboyant sissy characters meant to offend the masculinity of other butch wrestlers.
The worst instance of this occurred in the early 2000s when WWE developed a months-long gay romance between wrestlers Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo. The two regularly wore matching outfits, were affectionate with each other and even had an hunky hairdresser named Vito.
WWE staged a wedding between Gunn and Palumbo in 2002 only to have both characters chicken out before saying, “I do.” Gunn then announced that he wasn’t gay (to the cheers of the audience) and called the entire thing a publicity stunt that went too far. The wedding then devolved into a huge brawl.
It all seemed especially insulting since we gay-baited LGBTQ wrestling fans couldn’t even legally marry at the time.So it’s nice to see that pro-wrestling has dropped all the homophobic pretense and just started letting gay wrestlers and their allies be themselves.
Scroll down for pics from Parrow’s Instagram account:
Donston
It’s nice to have someone who is completely unabashed and unembarrassed about being into guys, wanting to be with a guy and fully supports same-sex love and unions instead of merely promoting sex. However, his over-the-top daddy-bear thing is a bit much, but I guess caricatures come with the territory in pro wrestling. Also, let’s not act as if anyone knew who this dude was before coming out or act like he’s a part of a big organization like the WWE. The WWE has had one legitimately out wrestler of which they quickly shoved to the background.
miserylovedme24
They actually have one now. Sonya Deville is an out lesbian. As for Darren Young, he was never anything close to a star. If anything, his coming out led to him managing to stay in the company for longer than he would have otherwise. His not being pushed had zero to do with being gay.
Donston
After writing that post I figured there probably was an out female or two. I do agree that Young was never going to be anything and perhaps his coming out was a last attempt to gain some buzz (though I don’t like being that cynical). The point I was trying to make is that this kind of stuff is making some ground, but perhaps it’s not worthy of so much hype. It’s nice to have male athletes who are truly into guys and not afraid of people knowing this. But it’s not as if there are any examples in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, high level soccer, professional tennis or even currently in the world of the WWE.
AndThenTheresMax
Can we just have a moment for how ridiculously sexy this man is?!
Virpilosus
EXACTLY, WOOF AND LOL!!!