Effy: Most Wrestling You Watch These Days Is An Impression Of Wrestling
Effy wants to change the landscape of wrestling.
When it comes to leading the charge for indie wrestling, Effy is the person that you want on your team. With over 13 years of experience and hundreds of matches under his belt, other indie performers will often seek out the former GCW Champion for guidance in the scene.
Speaking with Jeremy Lambert and SP3 of Fightful Overbooked’s In The Weeds podcast, Effy talked about the difference between indie wrestlers and some contracted wrestlers.
“We’re in a strange time. If I say I’m a wrestler, the first thing people are gonna say is, ‘Oh, you work for WWE? You wrestle for AEW?’ I say no and they kind of get dismissive, but in reality, I look across the board at all of these people that are signed to contracts. I think it’s very good, it’s guaranteed money. They don’t wrestle as much as me. They haven’t wrestled as much as me. They haven’t wrestled as many places as me, they haven’t wrestled as many matches as me, they haven’t had as many opponents as me. So, when I look at what it means to be a wrestler, I’ve been able to actually do that when a lot of people have been able to put the title on their card and then wrestle once a month hopefully for five minutes when you get to match 30 on the taping. That’s not ever what I wanted in wrestling. To now kind of become my own journeyman and go wherever I’m wanted, I’d be very jealous of me if I was stuck somewhere, even if I was making more money than me because I’ve had the opportunity to actually do this thing. I think when the rest of the world kinda peers in and gets a look at what’s in this book, they might start rethinking what it means to be a wrestler too. There’s a lot of people that are going to miss out on the experiences because they’ve gotten comfortable. I don’t think wrestling has ever been a sport of comfort and I don’t think wrestling has ever been a sport of conformity. I don’t think wrestling has ever been a sport of sitting in the safe zone and waiting for your instructions. There’s a lot of people that call themselves wrestlers who I think are just excited to get to do that and don’t actually want to be wrestlers. When you’re on show four of the week and you’re sore as hell but you know you have to give someone the match they’ve been waiting for and the fans what they want, that’s a whole a lot different than sitting around in catering and waiting for someone to tell you you’re going to get a segment. I haven’t walked into a building that hasn’t asked for me to be there or wanted me to be there for a long time. I haven’t had anybody on direct deposit, I haven’t been expecting a paycheck. Every dollar, I have to go get. Every match, I have to go have.”
Effy embraces the strange quirks of indie wrestling, which can have you wrestling in the parking lot of a nightclub at midnight.
“Even Sunday night, I was thinking about Andy Williams because this is a guy who has worked so many gigs throughout his career. I double shotted two shows in Atlanta on Sunday. The last one I was at was, it’s Black Gay Pride in Atlanta. It’s a big event. I wrestled at one of the oldest drag clubs in Atlanta, the Marquette Club in the parking lot. We did not wrestle until 12:30 at night. I had already done another show in Alpharetta that day, I needed to keep busy because [Andy] was bumming me out. I just kind of thought, I was like, I’m 13 years into my career of being paid as a wrestler — 14 years if you include training — I’m still out here at a gay club parking lot at 12:30 at night, having a sick match with Edward Draven in front of these people for black pride. To think that is something that should be behind me now, what a sad thing to think when I am continually getting to go out and do strange gigs and meet wild people and bring wrestling to places that’s never had wrestling instead of just making a wrestling show that looks like the shows we’ve been watching since 1992. There’s a real issue of replicating what looks like wrestling now. For me, wrestling is an impression of conflict. It’s an impression of two things fighting it out because they have different opinions. In reality, most wrestling you watch these days is an impression of wrestling. I think it’s harder for me to get into any of that when I get to go out here and get in front of people that don’t really have an idea and sell them on wrestling every night by doing the wrestling. Getting into those spaces that aren’t wrestling safe necessarily, I want to continue doing that as much as possible and being an actual wrestler versus just getting to write it down because someone paid me to do it.”
Fans can check out Fightful Overbooked’s full interview with Effy in the video linked at the bottom of this article.
Elsewhere in the interview, Effy reflected on his 2024 spat with Tony Khan/AEW. Check out his full comments by clicking here.
Effy’s mom is writing a book, ‘Wrestling With A Rebel’. Learn more about that memoir by clicking here.
