I’d just like to say good for him having the courage to open up about this aspect of his life, especially in an industry as notoriously conservative as wrestling is and with his not exactly being a main eventer right now. Pretty surprising that an active wrestler would come out before a single active MLB or NFL player.
Don’t think he’s the first openly gay wrestler. Pat Patterson is gay, and pretty much everybody in the business (and many smart marks outside the business) has known about it for at least 30 years. I dunno if Fabulous Moolah ever officially came out, but her inclinations were well known as well.
The late Chris Kanyon was openly gay as well.
From what I’ve read, Patterson and Kanyon were more “everyone knows he’s gay” as opposed to “openly openly gay”.
I don’t believe either Patterson or Kanyon actually came out while they were active in the WWE, thought they both addressed it later.
Still, good for Darren Young.
One more way Black Cena is different from White Cena. 
Nah, good for him, and so far so good on the reactions. Stephanie McMahon, Paul Levesque (Triple H), John Cena and Titus O’Niel have all congratulated him.
The real test of how the company handles it will be if they let a heel use it against him.
I’m not sure you can ever believe any personal history about a wrestler. Don’t forget keyfab.
How many evil sheiks have we seen from Iran, Iraq etc? Or crazy blood letting Russians wrestlers during the 70’s and early 80’s?
Creating a character is step one of introducing a wrestler to a region.
They’ve had flamboyant characters and oddly feminine characters since Gorgeous George started it with the robes and feathers. Michael Hayes in the Freebirds. Rick Rude, theres a long list of feathered and sequined characters.
Well, if a straight wrestler thinks pretending to be gay is a good career move, that’s kind of even more remarkable.
That might actually be pretty cool and progressive, if you think about it. The storylines are already cartoonish, so why can’t a villain be a homophobe?
I doubt it will happen, but I think I could write a write a story line where it would work.
Kayfabe has been pretty much broken since the day the internet became a thing. Wrestlers give out-of-character interviews all the time, and considering that this outing was a spontaneous statement made to a TMZ reporter during a chance encounter in an airport, it’d be difficult to imagine how or why it would have been worked.
<shrug> They’ve been pushing the gay vibe hard since the 80’s.
I can’t imagine how the WWE could complain if someone was gay in real life. Doesn’t make any difference to me anyhow.
For the record, the word is “kayfabe” - and WWE has tried the “gay storyline” already (with the “Chuck & Billy Wedding” that ended when one of them admitted that he wasn’t really a homosexual), to expected disastrous results; I don’t think they’d dare risk that again.
The real test will be if they let Darren Young wrestle the next time whatever brand he is on (Raw or Smackdown) has a show in the Bible Belt. It was bad enough when the NWA would not make any black wrestlers World Champion out of fear of what the fans in the south would do. (They’ll probably find a storyline excuse for leaving him off, the way Jeff Hardy “conveniently” gets injured just before TNA goes on a tour out of the country so they don’t have to explain that the real reason Hardy isn’t on the tour is because part of his probation following a drug arrest is that he surrender his passport and not leave the USA.)
King of the Ring?
I can already hear (figuratively) some dumbass on the creative team (maybe even Vince himself) asking if it’s possible to give him the Flaming Homo gimmick. But I’m fairly certain that Paul (Triple H) would shoot that down quick.
Golddust was flamboyantly promoted as gay when his character first debuted, even though the announers were careful to never actually call him that. But he acted effeminate, kissed guys, and preened around as if he were gay. It was a good career move at the time and he became a pretty entertaining heel
Eeeeeehhh… It seems like you don’t see the difference between a character hitting some gay buttons and a performer being out. It’s very very different.
The problem would be… that Heel MIGHT get over big with the crowd either by using it or just by being a good villain…and then WWE looks awful in the mainstream.
Kanyon is gay?
Wait, Kanyon is dead? Man, I have been out of wrestling for a while, haven’t I?
Orlando Jordan still predates this by years.
When I read about this, it reminded me of Judas Priest singer Rob Halford saying, “I know that I have been a gay man all of my life.” That too was a very open secret in the music business.
I’m looking forward to the day when people don’t have to make announcements like this, because it doesn’t matter.