Gay Grappling Show 'Fist Club' Proves that 'Wrestling is Drag for Everyone'

Fist Club is a gay wrestling show that combines the physical prowess with campy sensibilities to create a unique entertainment experience. "For me, it's all about the queer joy," one of its creators, Ash Wilk, says, according to Reuters.

Wilk created the group together with Daisy Lang and Heather Brandenburg, and the "joy" of what Fist Club does, Reuters said, "comes as much from the costumes and make-up, incorporating drag and cabaret elements, as it does from the clinches and joint lock moves performed in the ring."

"Forget everything you think you know about wrestling shows," the group's website says. "We are flaming, stupendous and action packed with one clear mission – to prove that wrestling isn't just drag for straight people, it's drag FOR EVERYONE."

The group doesn't just put the drag into the thrills; the show includes all the other elements that make wrestling popular, such as "smack talking kings, sexy ring babes of all genders, flying bodies, burlesque, Cher, backflips, rippling muscles, drama & danger in the silliest way possible."

Reuters noted that, "By creating a space that is queer-focused and trans-inclusive, they believe they have created a show where everyone can feel at home, a modern-day version of the wrestling that drew in audiences of millions when it was televised in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s."

"My identity doesn't fit with the cis-straight man identity of your kind of typical wrestler," Lang told the news outlet.

Host Katy Bulmer told Reuters that the group "can just book queer people, you can book trans people," and "people will come, and people will cheer and people will understand."

Check out some of the posts from the Fist Club Instagram page: