Wrestling fans questioned AEW’s willingness to build a diverse roster, but signing Sonny Kiss and Nyla Rose made important statements to the promotion’s prospective fanbase.

AEW’s Double or Nothing Ticket Party was a banger that delivered in more ways than one. In just over an hour’s time, AEW was able to announce some major signings while also setting up some of the company’s biggest angles and feuds. More importantly, the company made some monumentally significant moves. One of those wholly important moves came in the form of signing Sonny Kiss.

Apart from his independent work, some viewers may recognize Sonny Kiss for his stint in the latest season of Lucha Underground as XO Lishus. With that said, as we all know – and we say this with love, LU Execs, so don’t get mad – Lucha Underground airs on approximately seven television screens across the world, so it’s unlikely you would have seen his LU work. So, without further ado, here’s a brief introduction.

Sonny Kiss comes from an extensive background in dance. The New Jersey native studied at a performance art school before deciding to try his hand at professional wrestling off the suggestion of some friends. As it turns out, after training at the East Coast Pro Wrestling training center, he’s really good at the wrestling and he’s kept at it for the better part of five years now.

Also, he’s openly gay.

Wrestling has a history with treating the queerness of queer characters as the butt of a joke more often than not. If not a joke, then their sexual orientation gets danced around. Aesthetically, queerness is represented in their appearance, but as far as who they are as characters, it’s flat-out ignored. A promotion like WWE has proven to be too afraid to let their characters call themselves “The G Word” or properly express who they are in a way that goes beyond the typical one-dimensional jokes.

It creates a huge problem within wrestling culture, but it looks like AEW is taking the proper steps to eradicate such problems. By signing Sonny Kiss, AEW actively gives a huge platform to an openly gay character that may not get the same respect on a WWE stage. At the same time, Sonny Kiss’s signing helps make AEW a positive and inclusionary space for not only queer wrestlers, but queer fans as well.

Obviously, we have to wait and see how AEW chooses to book Sonny Kiss on their programming. They could easily drop the ball and make some missteps with him along the way, but signing Sonny is a big move in itself. It’s baby steps into flipping what queer characters mean in wrestling canon.