Jai Vidal Wants To Keep Knocking Down Barriers For LGBTQ+ Talent, Signing With IMPACT Is A Full-Circle Moment

Jai Vidal is excited about the new opportunity he has with IMPACT Wrestling.

During a recent interview with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard, Jai Vidal spoke about signing with IMPACT Wrestling and getting a chance to perform in front of a hometown crowd. IMPACT is in Pembroke Pines, Florida for its “Winter Warfare” tapings on December 9 and 10, and Vidal called it a full-circle moment he was happy to be part of.

“I love it. To me, it’s come full circle. This is my stomping ground. South Florida is where I first started my professional wrestling journey, getting trained down here by Gangrel. This is where I learned how to hit the ropes, how to bump, how to how to put on a show. The fact that I’m going from 2016 wrestling my very first match at the Opa-Locka flea market to wrestling or being now a part of the show with IMPACT Wrestling, it’s come full circle. I love it. I’m super grateful to be here now.”

Vidal also maintains a residence in Las Vegas, where he also trained with and worked for Las Vegas’ Future Stars of Wrestling promotion. Vidal said he ventured out west because he wanted to keep pushing himself and take himself out of his comfort zone.

“So actually, I was down here in South Florida. I want to say it was 2019, and I remember just thinking to myself, something in my gut just told me I have to make myself uncomfortable so that I could get out of this box that I’m in. Because the Florida wrestling scene, as amazing as it is, it doesn’t feel like there’s too big of a hill to climb, if you will. You could only get so big there. So I thought to myself, ‘I need to go somewhere completely different.’ I put down a list of different cities that I would move to and I just kept reading them to myself. Las Vegas was the one that just connected inside my gut and soul. I moved out there in July of 2019 and started training over there under Sinn Bodhi who’s a very good friend of Gangrel. He’s actually the one who recommended Sinn Bodhi’s school at Future Stars of Wrestling, and that’s just kind of where that started taking off. It’s where I was able to debut this character, which is in essence just me, turned up to 1000 Jai Vidal.”

Jai Vidal is heralded as IMPACT’s first openly-gay signee, and he’s been paired on-screen with Gisele Shaw, who came out as transgender earlier this year. Vidal praised Shaw for helping break down barriers in wrestling and touted the community feeling and bond that the LGBTQ+ community shares.

“1,000% she knocked the door down. She’s highly admired by a lot of LGBTQ talent in this business, including myself, for doing so. We call it a community for a reason. So even though we went through different struggles, it still comes back around the same way. That’s why those alphabet letters are put together. The LGBTQ+ community, because we’re all going through that struggle, but we’re all rising up against it. And I am honored to be the first openly gay male wrestler to sign with IMPACT and to be one of those people knocking down those barriers. I always say like, ‘yes, I do want to break the stigma for what a gay wrestler is’ but in that sense, I also do want to show that I could go out there and be my true, authentic self, because there are people out there, there are kids out there who do paint their nails or act flamboyant when it is, or at least used to be more so quote-unquote looked down upon. It’s like we exist, we’re out there, so why can’t we be out there on a TV program and be represented?

Asked what steps need to be taken for wrestling to be more inclusive and have LGBTQ+ talent as a more regular part of the show, Vidal believes continuing to give talent a platform is a move in the right direction.

“Well, I think as IMPACT is doing right now, which I absolutely love, is including so much LGBTQ talent in the roster as they’re doing now and as they’ve done in the past. Just doing that in and of itself, you know what I mean? Giving us a platform to be ourselves and go out there and perform because this is what we’re here to do. We are professional wrestlers. We’re here to show that we could hang with the best of them and at times even outperform them. I would see it a lot in — I was part of that, even if it was on a smaller scale of that thing in the Indies, being part of, for example, these Big Gay Brunches [orchestrated by Effy] where you see a multitude of LGBTQ talent and they’re all different. I think that that’s where the conversation is, that all of these people bring something different to the table. It’s not your token gay wrestler. For example, who this wrestler is, is  different than who this wrestler is, is different than who this wrestler is. I think that IMPACT is definitely helping knock down those barriers on that stigma.”

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