Wrestlefest History
The first Wrestlefest as we know it took place in 2005. That February, a handful of participants, including Brawlmart, JackBouvier and a few other guys from around the Northeast got rooms at the Pennsylvania Hotel in midtown Manhattan in order to beat the crap out of each other for a weekend. In the following years, they kept meeting up in NYC in February for a three-day weekend of wrestling.
Guys around the world heard about the fest through wrestling buddies, wrestling newsletters like those from the New York Wrestling Club, and through online wrestling chat rooms. The roster of attendees became a way to organize folks, and the task was taken on by guys in the community like Hashbock & Vocaljock on forums like Vangar, Globalfight, and Meetfighters.com.
Many of the first NYC Wrestlefest participants from 20 years ago continue to wrestle and return to the fest every year.
2023 was the first year that a public event was held in conjunction with the fest. Scooter gathered dozens of wrestlers in their wrestling gear for the Sunday Beer Blast at the Eagle NYC. The event marked the revival of a partnership between the gay wrestling/fighting community and the Eagle NYC which has supported us since the 1970s. Proof of this partnership is in the pages of the old New York Wrestling Club newsletters shown below be ad space purchased by the Eagle NYC.
2023 also marked record attendance at Wrestlefest, with over 125 participants.
Wrestlefest NYC 2024 saw lots of new aspects to the fest. Most significantly, we created partnerships with MeetFighters.com, WatchFighters.com, and BGEast.com who joined on that year as our first sponsors. Through their financial support, we were able to do things like have our first ever "open mats" sessions open to all attendees for free, to have signage at all of our events making our presence known in NYC, and to have custom wristbands for the first time, courtesy of BGEast.
We held a kickoff party at the Stonewall Inn. Promoters asked to work with us and produced a live oil wrestling party where BGEast filmed "Oil Wrestling Live" and promoter Ruffhouse held a singlet night open to the whole city. The Eagle NYC once again celebrated us at their Sunday Beer Blast, and even played wrestling videos chosen by us all night. Drake Marcos was proud to see himself wrestling on the screens above the crowd of NYC revelers. Mickey Knoxx updated our logo for the 21st century. Mcic took over managing the attendee roster.
MeetFighters also worked with us to make changes to their events system to allow for greater participation from the community. Being able to connect personal profiles to attendees of an event contributes to all of our safety and we're grateful to them for the changes and suggestions they've made for us.
We set another record for attendance with over 300 participants.
BGEast Panel at Wrestlefest NYC 2024
The "History of Gay Wrestling" was a panel put on by BG East at the LGBT Center in NYC's West Village. The panel discussed the history of gay wrestling from the perspective of Kid Leopard, founder of BG East Wrestling. Kid Leopard was joined by the legend Kid Vicious for the panel moderated by Bard of the blog Sidelineland. A silent auction was organized by Shane McCall with items donated by Bob Wood and others and the event was staffed by BGEast wrestlers.
Read about it from moderator Bard's perspective on his blog Sidelineland.com.
A recording of the panel can be purchased on BGEast.com.
Please note that the opinions shared by Kid Leopard and those on the panel do not reflect those of Wrestlefest NYC.
2025 saw attendance at the fest grow to more than 500 fighters. The details of the events can still be seen here. A historical writeup is coming soon. Let's just say. It was lit.
Partnership with the Eagle NYC
The Eagle NYC is a partner to WrestleFest NYC has supported and been a part of our community for over 50 years. In some of our New York Wrestling Club newsletters, there are mentions of wrestler happy hours at the Eagle, live wrestling at the Eagle, and we have paid advertisements in print.
Since 2022, we've had annual parties at the Eagle in conjunction with WrestleFest NYC. In 2025, the Eagle sponsored our first ever pro wrestling title belt. We thank the Eagle NYC for their support and look forward to many more years of partnership to come.
Visit their website for more info.
Wrestlefest Canada
Since the summer of 2023, Wrestlefest Canada has been held in Toronto. “Canada's largest LGBTQIA+ social gathering of people interested in all things wrestling,” Wrestlefest Canada (now Wrestlefest Toronto) has welcomed hundreds of participants from across Canada and around the world.
Visit their website for more info.
Wrestlefest Europe
May 2025 was the first ever Wrestlefest Europe, held in Berlin, Germany. SlovakLeo organized a weekend of wrestling, events, and bonding that reflected in Europe, the same experience we enjoy at our fest in NYC.
Visit their website for more info.
Wrestlefest Chicago
Starting October 2025, the Windy City is joining our brotherhood of Wrestlefests around the world. We can't wait see what they come up with.
Visit their website for more info.
Hillside Wrestling Weekend
Annual Wrestling Meetups
In the United States, there were a series of annual meetups like Wrestlefest and Hillside. Some of those include the Okie Rumble, the Atlanta Clash. Many of the participants also participated in the Gay Games, and other regional sport-based tournaments.
These took place in the 1980s-90s-00s, but the traditions fell off as the original guys planning those events were no longer around, or no longer motivated to carry them on. Some of this loss of tradition in the community was because of the AIDS epidemic which ravaged an entire generation of gay men. We are happy to be reviving the traditions of the men who came before us, meeting up with each other to share our interest, learn from each other, and bond with others like us.
We are looking for member directories from the wrestling clubs like the New Orleans Wrestling Club, Windy City Wrestling Club, the Gillespie Newsletter, wrestling stories from Drummer Magazine by Hank Trout, etc. If you have these or other items from our gay wrestling history, please get in touch to discuss how we can host and share them.
Even before Wrestlefest, NYC has been a gathering place for wrestlers for decades. The New York Wrestling Club (NYWC) was one of several wrestling clubs across the US and the world that brought together wrestlers since the 1970s. The clubs offered wrestlers the opportunity to meet up for group matches, and to schedule private matches independently.
They kept their members connected by newsletters, which provided updates and photos (see sample newsletters below), and through directories with pictures and contact info. Some of the major gay magazines like Drummer, ran personals sections where wrestling ads were frequent. Men would exchange letters with pictures, then phone calls, and finally an in-person visit.
Pre-Internet NYC Wrestling
Enjoy these pictures scanned from original copies of NYWC newsletters ranging from 1979 - 1986.
And here are two entire newsletters from 1979 and 1985.
Materials and info collected from Hashbock, Sayrob, JackBouvier, NickZ, Scooter, Manhattan Mauler, Kid Leopard wBard, Hardonthemat, WrestlerVic, JasonFL and others. Submit materials to wrestlefestnyc@gmail.com
Wrestlefest - The Arcade Game
