Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Know Your LGBT History

Friday, June 11, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Adorable Adrian Adonis

A few months ago, I featured a segment on the "Exotic" Adrian Street, a rule-breaking professional wrestler who acted gay to unnerve his opponents.

At the time, I said Street's portrayal was an excellent satire on homophobic fears.

Unfortunately there have been other exploitations of homophobic fears in pro wrestling and they weren't all as well done as Street.

The late Adrian Adonis (Keith A. Franke) is not known to many except for the die-hard pro wrestling fans (like myself) and this is a shame because he was one of the best.

In the American Wrestling Association, he and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura formed the East-West Connection and held the tag team titles:

Then he moved to the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wresting Entertainment) where he held tag team titles with the late Dick Murdoch.

During this time, he had a tough guy leather gimmick which was pretty cool:

The man interviewing Adonis is one "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Then Piper was in his super rulebreaker, bad guy wrestler mode with his show "Piper's Pit," which made him legendary amongst wrestling fans. Remember this because it's important for later.

Then things changed. Adonis took to not only wearing dresses and make-up during interviews and also while he wrestled:

This led to a very interesting angle. An "angle" in wrestling terms is a storyline. In this particular "angle," Roddy Piper had left the WWF due to a leg injury and Adonis had taken over his show, changing it from "Piper's Pit" into the "Flower Shop."

Needless to say when Piper came back, he wasn't pleased. And yes it was because of the homosexual implications. If you don't want to watch the entire clip below, here is the gist. Piper is HIGHLY offended by Adonis's show and his manner and says so, leading him to be destroyed by not only Adonis but two other wrestlers:

Which led to a match at Wrestlemania 3 where the loser gets his hair cut. Guess who lost?:

3 comments:

Penny Marie Sautereau said...: Actually, vividly remembering that angle as I do, I'd like to point out that Piper cut several promos leading up to Wrestlemania III citing it wasn't Adrian's gay appearance that offended him, it was how he used it to play on the fears of really stupid people to win matches, basically calling him a lying coward playing on homophobia to advance his carreer. Now if you REALLY want an example of "Possibly gay wrestling character HORRIBLY done", I have two names for you; Dustin Runnels and Orlando Jordan.; 5:04 AM
BlackTsunami said...: Hey,

thanks for that clarification. And I agree with you regarding Dustin Rhodes/ Gold Dust and Orlando Jordan, who himself is openly bisexuals.

I'm trying to find a a video that will complete my triumvirate posting of lgbt wrestling angles i.e. Miss Atlanta Lively,a.k.a. Ronnie Garvin.; 8:49 AM
Penny Marie Sautereau said...: Oh hon I can feed you LOTS of examples. Harvey Whippleman passing himself off as "Harvina" to win the women's title, Santino Marella's "sister" Santina. Plus, the long-kept industry secret that Terri Power AKA Tori in the WWE is a post-op MTF. Wrestling, sadly, has limitless examples to dissect and ruminate on I'm afraid.; 9:46 PM