Wrestling for trans lives in a Philadelphia ring

In April 2024, WWE will hold its annual WrestleMania event at Lincoln Financial Field, the first WrestleMania in the city since 1999.

Philly’s love for wrestling, however, is not new. Back in the 1990s, all eyes of the wrestling world were on South Philly-based Extreme Championship Wrestling), a promotion that was hugely influential on the wrestling boom that followed.

“There are not as many independent wrestling companies running in Philadelphia” as there once were, acknowledged Anthony Perillo, who wrestled under the name “Brave” Billy Avery. In 2019, he founded Labor of Love, an indie wrestling promotion based in Philadelphia. When not putting together wrestling cards, Perillo works as a school counselor for the School District of Philadelphia.

“The idea is to give my friends who are wrestlers a platform,” Perillo said. “I really like exposing wrestling to non-fans, especially independent wrestling, because it can be so intimate and really special.”

In recent years, the days before WrestleMania have begun to resemble Super Bowl Week, including an expansive schedule of conventions, parties, and wrestling events held by independent promotions in the host city, with the entire wrestling world together at the same time. Perillo hopes to put on a Labor of Love show as part of next year’s WWE festivities.

But before that, on Sunday, Labor of Love will hold a rather nontraditional wrestling show, one that is also a book launch at PhilaMOCA. Abraham Josephine Riesman’s Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America is a biography of the most powerful man in pro wrestling, longtime WWE head Vince McMahon.

“I had grown up and spent a formative set of years watching Vince McMahon on television, and I couldn’t get away from the fact that he had made such a huge impression on me,” Riesman told The Inquirer. “Once that idea was in my head, I was like, I would kill for the opportunity to revisit this figure who is so important to me and try to understand him as an adult.”

Ringmaster uncovers details about McMahon’s early life, and the many stories and scandals throughout WWE history. There is also exploration of McMahon’s long friendship with Donald Trump, as well as the ways that McMahon-style pro wrestling has informed 21st-century American politics.

“We’re all living in nostalgia, right, this is just the modern condition,” she added. “I try to weaponize that, where the things that I’m nostalgic about, I try to pick them apart and try to understand what the hell they are.”

The wrestling portion of Sunday’s event will feature Killian McMurphy against Philadelphia native Edith Surreal, who is trans.

“That’s a big priority for me right now, which is using the platform that I’ve been given to speak out about the horrific, genocidal policies that are being lobbied against trans people right now,” said Riesman, who came out as transgender last year. Proceeds from the event will be donated to a local charity that assists transgender people.

“Ringmaster: Philly Book Release,” May 14, 2 p.m., PhilaMOCA, 531 N. 12th St., Phila., shorturl.at/fgEJN