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NewsAEWAnthony Bowens Discusses The Acclaimed’s Origin, Queer Representation In Wrestling

Anthony Bowens Discusses The Acclaimed’s Origin, Queer Representation In Wrestling

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During a recent interview with Pink News, Anthony Bowens commented on the origins of The Acclaimed, the progress of queer representation in the pro wrestling world, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:

On how he got paired with Max Caster: “The Acclaimed have amazing, amazing chemistry. I don’t know how Tony Khan [founder, co-owner, president and CEO of AEW] does it. He’s a visionary. He just sees these things and they spring up like a flower. But yeah, Max and I. He’s from Creative Pro, which is a school where we both trained. There’s one in Long Island, New York, and the other is in New Jersey. And I’m from the New Jersey school and Caster is from the New York school. We never really crossed paths all that much – I think we maybe wrestled once or twice. I didn’t really know much about him and he didn’t really know much about me. At the time, we were fielding offers from the other company and eventually Tony found out, so he invited us to come meet him in Jacksonville.

“I’m in the elevator and the door opens and Caster steps in. We find out we’re both going to meet Tony together. We get to his office and he’s like, “Hey, I’ve got this idea. You guys are going to be The Acclaimed.” OK, well, what is that? Who are we? What do we say? What does our gear look like? We had to make a lot of decisions because if the owner of the company has a vision for us and believes in us, then let’s go out there and make it happen. We ended up wrestling Best Friends [AEW tag team] and there was no audience due to the pandemic, so it was completely quiet, and I had no idea what I was doing. We had a great match though, and we started working on our craft every single week and we went to those guys who had no idea who The Acclaimed were to one of the best tag teams in the best tag team division in the world.”

On his match with Bryan Danielson: “To be on the shortlist of people that both Sting and Bryan Danielson have wrestled so far in AEW, or even just in general, is mind-blowing. That match in particular was a turning point for me as a performer. I was always very confident in myself and my abilities but you don’t truly know until you get in the wring with someone who I consider to be one of the best wrestlers in the world right now, if not the best. It was such a big confidence boost to go out there and know that I not only hung with Danielson, but I beat his ass… and then he actually got me at the end, but that’s not the point of the story! [Laughs] Everyone cheats against The Acclaimed, it’s very unfair! [Laughs]

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to go into the insider stuff, but Bryan personally requested that match with me, which made me even more confident. And I stepped up and hit it out of the ballpark. It unlocked this side of me where I’m so confident out there now. I thought, ‘If this guy believes in me just like Tony does, I can literally do anything.’”

On the industry’s progress in terms of queer representation: “It just goes to show how far we’ve come in pro-wrestling for LGBT+ athletes from, say Billy and Chuck [a WWE tag team from the early 00s made up of two straight men pretending to be in a gay relationship which was widely condemned by GLAAD and other LGBT+ organisations] to where we are with AEW and stars like yourself today.

“Society itself was very weird back then and so obviously we had a long way to go, but wrestling is in such a better place now in terms of representation. Especially with the AEW roster where we have myself, Sonny Kiss, Nyla Rose, and we just signed Jake Atlas. So the representation is ever-growing. And we’re all prominently featured on television, too! Nyla Rose was the first trans woman to be a champion on television and I’m in the main event of Dynamite. We’re not afraid at AEW to let our performers go out there and be themselves and be successful by being present and being visible on television.”

On being openly gay without that being his gimmick: “My form of activism has always been to lead by example. I’ve played baseball all my life and while I was never a captain of a team, I was always a go-to leader on the team. Honestly, outside of being a performer, I’m a pretty quiet person. I show up, I work really hard and I do my job as best as I can. And then I go home. So when I do speak up, it means so much more as opposed to constantly drilling somebody. I tend to notice that the more you try to drill thing into people the more they want to push it away. I like to just go out and be as successful and visible as possible and hopefully that leads to people turning heads and facilitating chance. And then, when I really need to speak up, I’ll definitely say something. But I try and do things a little differently than others.”

On the homophobic slur shouted at him during a match on Dynamite: “Max and I have done a tonne of meet-and-greets and I’ve always, always had positive interactions with the AEW fans. Granted, I don’t think anyone is going to mess with us or Max and I will throw them 10 feet across the room. [Laughs] But we’re not the typical tag team, we’re kind of flamboyant with what we do, and everything has always been very, very positive. And as I’ve said before, I think that’s indicative of our fanbase. There’s always one idiot that tries to come out and get a rise out of things but it’s cool to see, like you said, people rally behind us against that kind of stuff. From a wrestling perspective, [racism, homophobia and transphobia] it’s not heel heat, it’s just bad. You can come to the show, you can yell about my mom, I don’t care. You know, The Acclaimed are bad guys and you want to yell at us. But don’t bring racism, don’t bring homophobia and don’t bring transphobia. Keep that stuff elsewhere. If that’s who you are as a human being, go do it somewhere else.”

On what’s next for him: “Well, it’s baby steps but Max and I are intent on making sure that we continue to stay on top of the tag division. We want some tag team gold in 2022. But long term, obviously I’d love to be the first gay champion as part of a tag team, but also a champion as a solo competitor too. Once The Acclaimed maybe aren’t a thing anymore – or maybe The Acclaimed will be something forever, you never know – first it would be the TNT championship and then, you know, to be a gay AEW heavyweight champion. I have so many goals [laughs] but it’s one step at a time. Right now, it’s just getting in the ring and going match by match and making sure we win. And, of course, no more cheating from Sting.”

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