“National Scissoring Day” was last Wednesday.
No, Oct. 5 was not a real holiday, but that didn’t mean Anthony Bowens didn’t have reason to celebrate how scissoring, his unique handshake, has become one of the most popular things in professional wrestling — and more.
The former college baseball player at Seton Hall and Montclair State has seen the scope of his fame continue to grow in 2022. He’s an All Elite Wrestling (AEW) tag-team champion with Max Caster (the son of former NFL tight end Rich Caster) as part of The Acclaimed, one of the most popular teams in the industry thanks in part to their handshake that has fans lining up to participate with them.
It’s a big difference from when he began working his way up in pro wrestling after his baseball career ended. It’s a long way from the concussion he suffered in 2016 as an enhancement talent (those brought in to make main stars look good) following a botched move during a match on WWE’s NXT brand. That forced Bowens to withdraw from all his booked appearances for December 2016.
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He joined AEW in October 2020, and The Acclaimed truly have arrived. And Bowens, 31, couldn’t be happier. His career is on the rise, and he understands how that can inspire others.
Tuesday is National Coming Out Day, and Bowens, an openly gay athlete, began the process of coming out privately to friends and family in 2010 and went public in 2016. He understands the significance of being a Black, gay champion and what that means to others. Bowens and his boyfriend, Michael Pavano, have plenty of fun with parodies of reality TV shows on their “Michael & Anthony” YouTube channel, making social media friends with some of those they spoof.
Bowens spoke to The Athletic about the ascent of The Acclaimed, his struggles with coming out and much more.
Editor’s note: Some content has been edited for brevity and clarity.
To anyone who needs to hear it right now..it all gets better. ✂️❤️
— Anthony Bowens (@Bowens_Official) September 27, 2022
The video you posted after the tag-title win was emotional, discussing the culmination of a lot of struggle. What stands out as some of the more difficult, challenging times?
I had a lot of tough times. There were times I questioned whether I’d be able to have a career in this business because of my sexuality. The fear of coming out was crippling, so there was a lot of fear and anxiety that I never would be able to do something like this and live my dreams. That’s where I was trying to be as authentic and honest as possible with that post-match promo. And then, just from a wrestling perspective, my career can be summed up just by having the rug pulled from underneath me every time I got close to something. So, it’s really nice to finally be able to push through that door, achieve my goals and do something really cool.
When my Nana passed in 2015 I promised her I’d be a success. Nana, I made it!
AEW’s first Gay Champion 🌈
Most tag team wins in AEW 🤼♂️
Most popular team in wrestling 😁EVERYONE LOVES THE ACCLAIMED.. your #ForeverChamps ✂️ ✂️✂️✂️✂️
— Anthony Bowens (@Bowens_Official) September 22, 2022
Your pinned tweet outlines promises you made to your grandmother. Was that part of the emotion in that moment, as well?
The honor of being one of AEW’s first openly gay champions, and also the promise that I made to my grandmother before she passed. She was one of my biggest supporters. When I was playing baseball, she used to call me her little Jackie Robinson, and then going into wrestling, she got to see me perform once. I always wanted her to see me on television. Didn’t get the chance to make that happen, so I made the promise that one day I would be successful in this business for her. So, I was very happy I was able to fulfill that.
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Do you have any advice for athletes considering coming out?
Take your time. Don’t let anybody influence you or force you to come out. You’ll know when the time is right. Just know there are athletes like myself who are trying to make the world a better place for you, more comfortable for you. And also from a different standpoint, coming out also helps so many other people. Just know your journey is going to affect other people’s lives and help them be more comfortable with themselves, which has been my goal since I came out. I get messages all the time from athletes thanking me for being an inspiration. Being on television every single week, living out, living proud. You’re making the world a better place and, at the same token, hopefully increasing your happiness. It’s the best decision I ever made, and I’ve never been happier.
When did you come out, and how did you know it was the right time?
I kind of came out in parts. I came out to my best friend in 2010, and then I kind of slowly filtered in the rest of my friends and then my parents. Then, I met my boyfriend Michael in 2016, and we dated secretly for six months. I guess the final push would be Michael; he’s always wanted to have a YouTube channel and at the time asked, “Hey, would you like to make this video with me?” Which (then), I said no. It was something called the laughing challenge, and basically, you fill your mouth with water and watch a funny video, and the first person to spit out the water from laughing loses. When I said no, I saw how sad he was, and it broke my heart. And then I was like, you don’t have that many subscribers, nobody’s going to see it … let’s make the video.
So, we made the video, and then a couple months later, I got a text from one of my buddies who happened to be a wrestler who said, “Dude, I saw the video, I wish you would have told me. Everyone has seen it, it doesn’t matter, we love you, respect you.” After I heard that, I came to the realization that my friends love and support me. My parents love and support me. I had this wonderful relationship, and now I know I still have the respect of my co-workers in professional wrestling. What more do I need? I don’t care about anything else. I have a great support system and foundation … it’s time. That night, we were at a couples game night, and for whatever reason, it just hit me in the moment that this was the time. I picked up my phone. I typed up a little message on Facebook. I sent Michael a relationship request, because I always said back then no relationship was official unless it was Facebook official. So I sent that, shut off my phone, put it away for 45 minutes, and then after a while, I told Michael to go check his phone. He picked it up and saw the relationship request. A huge smile came over his face. We sat there and read the comments together, and it was super positive and overwhelming. It was an absolute relief.
So, the YouTube channel was Michael’s idea. Is he the mind behind a lot of the skits?
That’s why I think The Acclaimed fits like a glove with me. It feels like Michael and I have a similar dynamic from a creative standpoint as Max and I do. The sense of humor, we’re both very creative. We bounce ideas off each other, so it felt very similar. It began with the video. For a while, we were doing vlogs, lifestyle vlogs being an LBGTQ couple on YouTube. Then when the pandemic hit, everything kind of started to slow (down), and we realized we needed a bit of a change in direction. One day Michael said there’s a TV show called “Love is Blind” on Netflix. He said, “Why don’t we do a parody of the show because it’s so ridiculous?” And Michael is good at impressions. He can impersonate mostly women, interestingly, but he’s so good at it. All of a sudden, the YouTube channel took off, and we went from like 20,000 subscribers to about 215,000 subs. We do everything from comedy skits to impersonations. Everything from things like “Love is Blind,” and we’re big with “90 Day Fiancé,” and the Kardashians. We write original sketches, a lot of stuff people really enjoy. It’s a fun time with him just to be creative, different outlets to let out our sense of humor.
What’s it like having “Platinum Max” with a live mic? Do you ever know what he’s going to say? There are times you appear to be reacting in real time.
Platinum Max is unpredictable. The Acclaimed, in general, is unpredictable. You never what we’re going to say; you never know what we’re going to do. That’s what makes us such must-watch television every single week. As far as knowing stuff, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I like to go out there and just see what he says, and most of the time when that happens, I’m bursting out in laughter because I can’t hold it in. Other times I’ll do some research on what’s going on, trending, and send it over to him, and he goes and does his thing creatively with the music and the rap. It kind of depends on the week and what I’m feeling, but its always a pleasure. It’s always fun going out there with a live microphone and seeing what he has to say.
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Who is your favorite rapper?
I listen to all kinds of music. I’m the definition of a well-rounded music lover, so I don’t particularly have anybody specific. I really listen to everything. I know that’s kind of a cop-out answer, but at any point in time, there could be any musical genre on.
I thought you were going to say Max!
Oh I could have said Platinum Max, I guess. (laughs)
Where did scissoring and The Acclaimed come from?
Oh my goodness. That is a mixture of Max and I. Actually, I was talking with him (last week) about this. One of my favorite things about being in The Acclaimed and having him as my tag-team partner is, one, both of us are so creative, and we’re both open to each other’s ideas. And (tw0), we’re very good at building off each other’s ideas. Our current success is like 50/50 with us putting the stuff together.
Max played a joke on me once when I did The Acclaimed hand signal. He came from behind and scissored me, and that kind of started there. So, that was his idea, and we’d come up with catch phrases. I guess I furthered the scissoring thing, went on live television and yelled, “Scissor me, Daddy Ass!” to their manager Billy Gunn, and that took off. Even with National Scissoring Day, it was something that I said almost jokingly, and then he loved the idea. We talked about it, and he expanded on it, and then you guys got what you got (last week), which I think is one of the best segments in professional wrestling history We’re very good at feeding off each other, and I’m extremely happy to have somebody who is extremely gung-ho with just about everything. So, a lot of things end up being, “Hey wouldn’t it be funny if we did this?” and the other goes, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
Did you ever imagine you’d have a National Scissoring Day and it would become so big?
Truthfully, no. We had no idea. We were originally asked to not do it at a point, but for whatever reason, we just started doing it again. There was this one time I was on the floor, and I looked up and fans — all of them — had their hands out with the scissor gesture yelling for me to scissor them. So, we knew we had something after that. I think it’s turned into the biggest thing in professional wrestling right now. People can’t get enough of the scissoring. We’ll do meet-and-greets and other stuff, and for hours, every single person will come up and say, “Can we scissor you?” It’s fantastic.
What’s it like working with Billy Gunn, someone whose career in tag-team wrestling is legendary?
It’s been huge. He was part of one of the best tag teams in professional wrestling back in the day. So much knowledge, so smart. To be able to pick his brain and figure out a strategy for how we’re going to attack our opponents. He’s been an absolutely incredible resource, and he’s a legend. You can tell how much fun he’s having, and it’s fun to see.
What do you think about the MLB playoffs?
I’m a huge San Francisco Giants fan. To be short, I am not rooting for the Dodgers. I was a huge Giants, Barry Bonds fan. The only other player I was hugely influenced by as a former baseball player myself was Albert Pujols. I modeled my swing after him, so it was really cool to see him have the stretch that he had and get to 700 home runs.
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Is the pink and black attire of The Acclaimed a nod to the Hart Foundation?
A little bit, and also Max loves the color pink. We originally started with black and gold because we wanted to show AEW was our company, so we chose those colors. But after a while, Max convinced me to go over to pink. We both love Bret Hart. that was an easy decision for me.
You mentioned your baseball influences. Who were some of your wrestling influences?
Sting was the first person who drew me into wrestling. It was 1997, the Starrcade pay per view, and I saw the vignettes leading into the pay per view. They were of Sting; they were in this warehouse, and I was like who is this mysterious guy? He just hooked me into pro wrestling. I always looked up to him, and I’m very honored to call him a co-worker and main event with him on Dynamite. That was a very cool moment.
Who is your dream opponent?
Unfortunately it could never happen, but Eddie Guerrero would be one. Eddie was one of my favorites I grew up watching and I love to study, as well. And there’s one in New Japan (Pro-Wrestling), Naito.
You guys didn’t even have a tag-team name when you debuted in 2020. When you look back at that, then fast-forward to celebrating National Scissoring Day, how grateful are you for where you started and becoming arguably the most popular tag team in the world?
I won’t argue with that; it’s the truth. Everyone loves The Acclaimed. I’m beyond grateful and mostly proud to get where we’re at now. That match was about an hour or two after we had a meeting with Tony Khan, and he said, “Hey, you guys are going to be The Acclaimed.” We had no idea what it was. We just knew Max rapped, and I was going to be somewhat of the hype man. I didn’t know what I was doing. He didn’t know what he was doing, really. We had nothing set. We didn’t have matching gear. There was no music for him to rap on, so he had to do it a cappella. I was standing there clueless. I’ll probably never watch any of this again.
To go from that to what you described of looking into the stands and seeing so many people taking the time to make custom scissors and making all these signs and have the No. 1 selling T-shirt of 2022, to be the tag-team champions … it’s absolutely insane. And it’s a testament to two people who are motivated and have the passion for professional wrestling who are motivated to create something special and, most of all, never taking no for an answer. We’ve had some obstacles since we’ve been here, and I think we’ve burst through all of them. I’m extremely proud and excited to continue this journey with The Acclaimed because it’s just beginning, and it’s going to be a fun ride.
(Top photo: Frank Jansky / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
