The world of wrestling has always been a little gay (let’s be honest), but it seems that in the past few years more and more LGBTQ wrestlers have been appearing. (And we mean real LGBTQ wrestlers, not the ones who pretend as a gimmick).
We’ve talked about a pansexual wrestler named Jack Sexsmith with you all before, and now we’re happy to talk about a wrestler in drag who might have influenced an increase in LGBTQ-ness in the ring.
Rick Cataldo’s wrestling career took a positive upturn in 2014 when he formed the Fella Twins, which was created in part by the inspiration of female wresters that came before.
"At an early age I was attracted because even in such a violent atmosphere there could be beauty and colour," he tells Newsbeat.
"Plus, the big boobs and the blonde hair? That wasn't so bad either."
Before that, Cataldo had a hard time fitting into the world of wrestling. While some wrestlers put on fake personas of being gay, Cataldo found out the life of a real gay wrestler was hard.
"They'd throw my bags out of the locker room because they found out I was gay and it wasn't just a character [I was playing]," he explains.
"To this day, independent companies won't book me because of a fear of what families might say."
But that’s when something finally clicked inside Cataldo and he decide to try wrestling in drag. That’s when he found that being himself in the ring could really work.
Now that’s it’s been three years later, Cataldo is proud of the legacy he’s building and he's also proud to see that more LGBTQ wrestlers are coming up behind him.
"Over the last three years there have been a lot of LGBT wrestlers," he explains.
"A lot of them reached out to me and said how much I'd inspired them. I reach back to a lot of them because there was no-one before me to do that."
But just this amount of success isn’t stopping Rick Cataldo. He has big plans in store.
"My main goal, overall, was to look back and have left a dent in the world of professional wrestling," he says.
We think you’re well on your way Cataldo.
Update: An earlier version of this post refered to Rick Cataldo as WWE wrestler. After he quickly pointed out that wasn't the case, we corrected the article.
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