On November 28 it was announced that Jai Vidal had signed a multi-year deal with IMPACT Wrestling.
Vidal became the first openly gay male to sign with IMPACT, making history when he put pen to paper. Vidal had been in vignettes as Gisele Shaw's content creator and executive stylist and wrestled at past tapings in 2021.
Speaking to Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald, Vidal discussed his historic signing and working with Gisele.
"I didn't find out until the morning that I was doing the interview with OutSports. I was talking to the Head of Media Relations, Ross at IMPACT, and he was like, 'By the way, you're the first openly gay male wrestler to sign with IMPACT.' It really didn't hit me. 'Okay, that's cool.' It's not just cool, it's groundbreaking. The first openly gay male wrestler to sign with IMPACT. Now, I'm knocking down barriers so that other gay male wrestlers and lesbian wrestlers and so on and so forth will hopefully get into IMPACT without a second thought or second look. Especially because I do feel, as someone part of the LGBTQ community, that we all bring something different to the table. You can have more than one LGBTQ person on your television show and it be extremely diverse. That's what Iove about IMPACT. They've had multiple LGBTQ people on the roster and each one brings something different to the table. Along with that, I get to be beside Gisele Shaw, that's awesome. Now, you have me styling her, she already looked pretty, now she's looking like a bombshell. We're like peanut butter and jelly. We just mesh together so well and bounce so well off each other. All that chemistry you see on camera is the chemistry behind the scenes. I love and am honored to be making history alongside her," he said.
IMPACT is set to hold its Winter Warfare tapings on December 9 and 10 from Florida.
Fightful provides live coverage of IMPACT every Thursday beginning at 8 p.m. ET following by a post-show podcast on our YouTube channel.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
