An event taking place Saturday night in Phoenix combines two forms of entertainment that you might not think at first blush should go together. But Charles Pelayo, a former pro wrestler and co-founder of WrestleDrag, says, in fact, they really do.
WrestleDrag is a professional wrestling company that also includes drag performances. Pelayo says it is not, though, drag queens wrestling. Pelayo, who goes by the name of Charles Cassus inside the ring, says there are three shows a year, including Saturday's.
Pelayo joined The Show to talk more about this, starting with what the thinking was behind putting these two entertainment forms together.
Full conversation
CHARLES PELAYO: So, my business partner, he is a part of a softball team, the, the gay softball team, and he loves drag. I love professional wrestling and did it for over 10 years and I came out in 2019. I always make a joke that me coming out outside of the pandemic.
So I came out in December 2019 and, I started to get more involved in the community trying to discover myself and one of my students, his brother does drag, so I went with their mom to my first drag show to see, their name is Beatrix Bella Rouge. I went to go see her perform and I've seen, like, Drag Race and stuff like that, but to see it in person, it was just like a different experience and you realize real quick that pro wrestling and drag is pretty similar.
MARK BRODIE: What are the similarities between pro wrestling and drag shows? Because sort of on the surface, one seems like a very, very sort of macho enterprise and the other really doesn't.
PELAYO: Yeah, and it was, it was, I think for a very long time it was presented as the super macho like we're just going to beat the crap out of each other. And but if you think about it, we're human beings that dress up in outfits to go perform for money, hopefully.
So, it's a more violence space, obviously, but on the surface when you really think about it, we're just we're dressing up in cool costumes, shiny outfits. We perform, we play different types of characters. We hopefully make some money and we get more popularity, and we go home.
BRODIE: Do you find that other people make that connection between the similarities between pro wrestling and drag shows? Like, I just wonder if the Venn diagram of people who are fans of both of those things, like how many people are in that center circle there?
PELAYO: Yeah, I think if you're a fan of both, especially, you can, you can see the similarities. For our shows like Wrestle Drag, it's been great because we'll have people who come for the drag and people who come for wrestling, but they see the entire show.
BRODIE: They first experience the other one.
PELAYO: Exactly, and they're so like there's like, “Oh this was exciting,” and just whether it's the combination or just the attraction of it. But, I haven't, at least to me, no one has come up to me after and said, “I like the wrestling part, but the drag was ugh,” or the other way around. Like they just come in and was like, “This show was entertaining.”
BRODIE: What was it like for you growing up doing wrestling and even, you know, as a young adult, being a professional wrestler and sort of coming to understand who you were as a person, in a field where, you know, there are LGBT characters, but they're characters and they tend to be sort of portrayed in a very specific way?
PELAYO: Yeah, so like, back in the day, I would say in my opinion, I think it was very, because it was so macho. You had, these are all the pro wrestlers and then here's our attraction of the gay wrestler, and that was all they were known for. So, the gay wrestler was just this one dimensional thing that fit every stereotype.
So like the purpose of WrestleDrag is to show that we have a roster complete of every part of the LGBTQ community, allies and queens and everything. But, you're not getting the same thing over and over like these are personalities, these are different characters, different human beings, different experiences, like everything into one, and you're just there to be entertained and we're kind of slashing that whole, “We only need one of these, right?”
And for me growing up, I mean, I grew up in a very macho household as well, and for me, wrestling was a big escape. So, as I got into wrestling, even though it was being more open, it was more inclusive, it was still a little terrifying, and the way I looked, the way I'm presented to me added a little bit more because I'm like, “I'm going to be looked at in a certain way. The character I played is just gonna be judged for everything if I come out,” and it was scary.
It was, it was a scary process and once I figured out exactly like where I stood and who I was, I was like, “OK, now do I take this with me forever or do I just come out and if I come out, do I have to be ready to not wrestle anymore, not be accepted?”
But, when I came out the most positive, overwhelming experience and response when I did, it was, it was insane. It was incredible, just all the support I got from like every direction.
BRODIE: It's interesting because I wonder if, even maybe subconsciously, you know, as a wrestler, as we've talked about, you're playing a character and as you were trying to figure out who you are, and then how to let other people know about that, I imagine in some ways outwardly anyway, before you came out, you were also playing a character, maybe a different one than your wrestling character.
PELAYO: Oh yeah, my. I was told that my character was essentially my shadow self. So, it was everything that I couldn't be or I wanted to be. I, in real life, I'm not a confrontational person. R3 or Charles Cassus, very confrontational. I'm not big on like violence. R3, Cassus, very violent. So if you see, it's funny because even people see my pictures of me and then me in gear and they say, “I know it's you, but they look like two different human beings.”
And when I came out, one of the things that I didn't want to do is feed into, like, the stereotypes. Like now that I'm out, I don't want to be known as, I don't want that to be the thing. I can still me. And yeah, I mean the best part was being able to represent my community. All my gear, on my clothing and be more open about stuff, and it helped in every aspect, like it was just such a huge weight lifted off.
BRODIE: Did you find that in some way, having experience with playing a character, as it turns out, was kind of like who you actually are, did that help in some way in your decision to ultimately come out?
PELAYO: Oh yeah, definitely, just the people, wrestling became and still is like my entire life so meeting people and listening to experiences and just learning from all that, because you kind of get thrown to the wolves you have, you have to be a certain way and have certain traits.
It's funny because I was scared to come out because I thought I would lose wrestling, but wrestling and everybody in it is what helped me make the decision to come out in the end.
BRODIE: To you, does WrestleDrag take on any different significance this year, given what's going on nationally with, you know, for the LGBTQ community?
PELAYO: Oh yeah, totally. I mean, so the show coming up is our three-year anniversary, and we've always had, like, the message of, safe for fans, say for our wrestlers, for staff, and we just try to help people within the community.
We've raised money for scholarships. And yeah, now with, like potential defunding of certain charities and hotlines like this is more important now than ever, even if it's as simple as providing a space for someone to feel comfortable and safe for three hours and entertained.
And for us to simply just reassure the crowd, for me to go out there and just say, “Hey, this is, here's the message, we're gonna keep going, we're not gonna stop the show,” because obviously when stuff like this happens. There is a fear, like, “Hey, if we do shows we're gonna get shut down. Is this gonna not be allowed anymore?” But, I don't think we can live, and I don't want to live like that, so we're gonna keep doing the shows, providing the space. But, if all we can do is provide the space and help charities whenever we can, I think it's worth doing.
