Anthony Bowens Discusses AEW’s Locker Room Inclusiveness

AEW

The Acclaimed have quickly become one of the most over acts in all of All Elite Wrestling, with their scissoring of daddy ass becoming a popular phrase among the AEW Galaxy.

The duo, consisting of Anthony Bowens and Max Caster, competed for the AEW World Tag Team Championship at the AEW All Out event, coming up short against Swerve in our Glory on the night. The pair are set for a rematch for the titles at AEW Dynamite Grand Slam next week.

As well as being one of the most popular stars in all of AEW, Anthony Bowens of the group is openly gay, which, when speaking with the Sports Courier, he cited as one of the main things that made him want to sign with AEW.

Bowens spoke about his time as an extra in AEW prior to his signing, and seeing people like Sonny Kiss and Nyla Rose being themselves backstage without judgement as a thing that attracted him to AEW.

He said:

“It’s one of the things that attracted me to come into AEW when I came here as an extra before I was signed. I saw people like Sonny Kiss and Nyla Rose just walking around being themselves without judgement and people being inclusive with them and there was no fear for them at all. That was super important to me for wherever I would land at the time. There’s never a time at work where I’m consciously thinking about it, it’s something that’s openly celebrated. I bring it up openly in front of my friends and co-workers, so we’ve come a long way on inclusiveness in locker rooms and such. Fans from time to time, we still have got work to do but it’s been overwhelmingly positive. I take that responsibility of being an out athlete very seriously because I’d like to show that you can be a successful openly gay professional athlete without it being the center of attention or center of focus. At times, it is important to bring it up. For example, next week Max and I are gonna fight for our lives in this match and we also wanna bring home gold and if we do, I end up being AEW’s first gay champion, which is something that I would be super proud of.”

The Acclaimed’s ‘Scissor Me Daddy Ass’ shirt was finally released recently, and made record sales after doing so.

transcription via Fightful

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• the acclaimed
• Anthony Bowens
• LGBTQA+
• AEW

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