EXCLUSIVE: EFFY Reveals His Philosophy Of Staying An Independent Wrestler

Independent Wrestling is still going strong.

EFFY Is Forever

EFFY is not only a top name in Game Changer Wrestling, but a big name all across the independent wrestling scene. Plenty of times EFFY has said that he’s an independent wrestler for life, for various reasons. 

Now, EFFY sat down with BodySlamNet’s own Game Changer Weekly where he was asked about his attitude of being unapologetically independent, and gives his philosophy on why he chooses to be that way. 

Yeah, I think that’s, you know, the biggest kind of revolutionary statement to open this up is sort of, I figured out early that the path to getting into a company and convincing them to change from the inside, was, I mean, as political and superfluous and low-chance of happening as possible, but I figured that if I really wanted to see the industry be different, I had to go do these things on my own to show them they were viable and creating opportunities where, you know, LGBTQ wrestlers are drawing fans, where we are doing numbers for EFFY’s Big Gay Brunch, trying weird gimmicks, trying different things, opening up the acceptance, bringing new fans to wrestling, that sort of thing is the hope of these bigger companies to eventually go “wait a second, they’re onto something” and move their business in that direction, rather than going “I’m just going to be so good at wrestling that they hire me and I’ll be so good there that they pick me, and they’ll pick me and I’ll be the gay one and it’ll be okay and we’ll fix it for everyone.” You know, the pick me, I’m using words specifically, but it’s like, these things don’t work that way. You have to, these are publicly traded companies, you know, not all of them, but the largest is a publicly traded company. They’re not going to move their business in a direction just because somebody got hired and says they should do it. They’re going to watch outside of themselves and see what is going on. They’re watching the indies. I mean, even with the WWE ID thing, we’ve been seeing Gabe backstage for months, we’ve been seeing him all over the place. I’ve been asked permission to allow him to be there a few times and I think that’s exactly the level of respect I should be treated with by promoters who are bring him around, that’s fine. But, they are watching these things more intently than you think. I know GCW streams have been backstage at a lot of NXT and WWE events. I know people are watching what we’re doing, and so now to be in a position of Independence, because of the internet, because we have no limit to the way we can get to people, if it is good, it’ll find the audience and if it is very good, they will take our ideas and use them and it sounds opposite, but that is the goal. If we want to see the business the way we want to see it, we have to go “Look! It works! It works! Every time, it works.” And then, have them follow in that footstep. I want to see business change and so to do that, I have to go put the flag up myself and I have to go set my own standards and I’m just a very picky, bratty person, I kind of always have been, you can ask my parents. I think it’s a good thing, I think it’s a bad thing. I want things a particular way and I don’t, I’ve said it in an inflammatory wild way of like, I can’t take directions from someone isn’t as cool as me, right? And I don’t think people working at these companies are as cool as me, and so I cannot listen to them tell me what is the coolest way to be EFFY. But, if I show them the coolest way, and then they copy it, some people may say “oh, that’s disrespectful, they stole from you!” But in reality, that’s all EFFY wants. I want to show you the correct way and you don’t even have to give me credit for it, because then, when you do it, I know in my heart that I was correct and that’s really the only validation I need, along with being able to continue to work and make my money.

EFFY has done a lot for the LGBTQ+ community in wrestling, especially in GCW where he’s putting on his own “EFFY’s Big Gay Brunch” events and giving opportunities to people who may not have had them otherwise. Doing independent wrestling his way, is something every indie star should strive for, do it your own way. You can see the full interview below.

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