{"id":79762,"date":"2020-12-01T17:29:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T22:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=79762"},"modified":"2021-05-12T12:49:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T16:49:01","slug":"indie-watch-effy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/12\/01\/indie-watch-effy\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie Watch: Fishnets & Shenanigans – The Big Gay World of EFFY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indie Watch is our regular series that looks at all of the amazing talents working the independent circuits around the world. Some are veterans revitalizing their careers, some are indie prospects hitting their peaks, while others are names to be on the watch for! In this edition, we take a look at one of the most popular entities on the US indies, the flamboyant superstar known simply as EFFY.<\/em><\/p>\n

With an unusually high amount of high profile indie stars making the jump to major televised companies like WWE\/NXT, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), IMPACT Wrestling, Ring of Honor<\/strong>, or Major League Wrestling (MLW)<\/strong> in the past few years, it’s opened up positions on cards for a new class of superstars to ascend in the cards. Names like Chris Dickinson, Blake Christian<\/a>, AJ Gray<\/a>,<\/strong> and Allie Kat<\/strong><\/a> are now finding themselves in hierarchal positions that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. One of those stars is a Tallahassee, Florida’s Taylor Gibson who has not only risen the ranks as the flamboyant EFFY<\/strong>\u00a0but become one of the leaders of the rise in the presentation of LGBTQ+ wrestlers and one of the industry’s best all-around showmen and good hearts.<\/p>\n

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For decades, from Gorgeous George<\/strong> in the 1950s to “Exotic” Adrian Street<\/strong> in the 1970s, from “Adorable” Adrian Adonis<\/strong> in the 1980s t0 Goldust<\/strong> in the 1990s, professional wrestling has always embraced the ostentatious characterization of characters designed to shock or incite based on a gimmick that appears to showcase a side that bordered on (or flat out mocked) homosexuality in society – in most cases, these characters were intentioned heels, designed to draw the ire from a mostly conservative fan base that looked upon LGBTQ+ people in a negative light. And while there still remains bigotry towards people in the LGBTQ+ community, its never been more embraced and beloved in the world of pro wrestling than it has in the past few years, thanks to the emergence of national stars like NXT’s\u00a0Jake Atlas<\/strong>, WWE’s\u00a0Sonya Deville<\/strong>, AEW’s Sonny Kiss<\/strong> and Nyla Rose<\/strong>, and former WWE Superstar Darren Young<\/strong> (now competing as Fred Drosser in New Japan Pro Wrestling<\/strong>). While homosexuality has been portrayed in Mexico with its own division – the\u00a0ex\u00f3tico<\/em> – with such legendary stars as Cassandro<\/strong> and Pimpinela Escarlata<\/b>, it’s the been the tireless work primarily on the US independents in the past decade that has helped inspire, elevate, and push LGBTQ+ performers into positions equal to their heterosexual cisgender counterparts. Performers like the West Coast’s Dark Shiek<\/strong>, England’s Charlie Morgan<\/strong>, as well as names like Billy Dixon, MV Young, Alex Ocean<\/strong>, and Parrow<\/strong>. And of course, names like EFFY. And like Queer Nation first championed in the 1990s, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”<\/p>\n

EFFY first began his journey into the world of pro wrestling while studying at the University of South Carolina in the early 2010s, when he and some friends found a new love in watching WWE’s flagship, Monday Night Raw<\/em>, as a way to pass the idle time between studies.\u00a0His foray into wrestling came just as EFFY had made his decision to clean-up his act – not his outward personality, but his abuse of substances. “I was drinking all the time. I was smoking weed all day, every day. I was doing whatever pills I could get my hands on. I didn\u2019t usually say no to anything. One day I took, like, eight hits of LSD, went mental in my house, ended up in the hospital\u2013and went stone cold sober from there,” he stated to INTO<\/a> in 2018. That last trip also convinced him to try wrestling. “I took 8 hits of acid and tripped for 4 days and came to the conclusion that John Cena was a hologram and then became a wrestler to prove my brain wrong. Maybe John was a real man. Maybe this schedule is possible for a human,” he recalled to Fansided<\/a> in early 2019. “Plus, I got sober after that trip and getting punched is my new high.” The larger-than-life world connected to EFFY and when he returned to Florida he began training in 2014 with Florida indie wrestler Steve Hetrick (aka Logan Steel<\/strong>).<\/p>\n