Anthony Bowens was blown away by the positive response to his AEW Rampage segment where he refuted Harley Cameron’s advances by reminding her “I’m gay.”
The Acclaimed’s segment with QTV during the June 23, episode of Rampage quickly went viral with many praising the positive response from fans to Bowens’ homosexuality.
The Acclaimed member admitted on the “Chrissy Chaos” podcast that he wasn’t sure how the crowd we’re going to react, but was blown away by the response. He said,
“I didn’t ever want to shoehorn anything in there and make it too disingenuous,” he said. “I wanted it to be the right moment and when I was presented with this … I was like, ‘This will be a fun moment, nobody has ever said it in a wrestling ring before, so this should connect with a lot of people and I hope it does.’
“Everyone just stood up and gave a standing ovation, they started doing the, ‘He’s gay,’ and I’m like, ‘What the f*** is going on? This is insane. In comparison to what I saw when I first came out, and Michael and I started our YouTube channel, it was totally different … To fast forward and just kind of scroll and see how much happiness and positivity it brought people made it even better.”
Bowens is a one-time AEW World Tag Team Champion, having held the gold with Max Caster from late 2022 to early 2023.
