Itis June and that means for the whole month we get to celebrate extra hard about being ourselves every day! And because of that, every day here throughout the month, we are going to spotlight one LGBTQ+ wrestler. These names are not going to be in any order. So, this won’t be a countdown but more of just a highlight to celebrate.
- June 1 – Toni Storm
- June 2 – Sonny Kiss
- June 3 – EFFY
For June 4 we have a veteran and an OG — Mercedes Martinez
Mercedes Martinez is openly lesbian and has been in the wrestling industry for the past 25 years. Wrestling on the indie scene through most of her career, Martinez has wrestled and won gold for SHIMMER, SHINE, wXw, WSU, and others. She would eventually make her way to WWE on its NXT brand and a brief call up on the main roster. Martinez also worked in AEW/ROH where she became the ROH Women’s World Champion.
In 2019, Martinez would publicly come out. During an interview with Busted Open Radio in 2022, she would open up about the struggles she had in the business due to her sexuality.
“Being in this business, you couldn’t be openly out. I’m a lesbian, and I couldn’t be that person. I had to hide that part of me because the locker room was very taboo. The media was ‘No, you can’t do this.’ It came to the point in my career that I had to hide that because for me to advance, you can’t put that out there for fear of safety for me and my family, because that was not socially acceptable in all realms of life. So it was a very humbling experience. But now being here, 41 years going on 42 years old, I know who I am. And ain’t nobody going to tell me any different.”
Martinez is now 44 years old and isn’t wrestling as much as she used to, but did challenge for the SHINE Championship last month.