With Pride month in the books, a number of notable LGBTQ pro wrestlers are walking around with added hardware in the form of championship titles.

Out grapplers Keita, Dark Sheik and Brittany Wonder all ended the weekend hoisting championship gold as inclusive pro wrestling took the San Francisco Bay Area by storm.

The first domino fell when Dark Sheik captured pro wrestling promotion Hoodslam’s top singles prize, the Golden Gig, by defeating longtime champion El Chupacabra on Friday evening.

Flanked by the “Manager of Champions” Pollo Del Mar, Sheik captured the championship after literally rewriting the show after multiple losses to the now former champion. The means may have been nefarious, but the mother and writer of Hoodslam is now champion of more than just all the sharks.

One night later, “Ultragirl” Brittany Wonder defeated PrideStyle Pro standout Sandra Moone to win the vacant GLAMpionship at Hoodslam sister promotion GLAM’s first event since March 2020.

GLAMpion Brittany Wonder

Wonder secured the win after an intense battle that saw the two out wrestlers exchange increasingly hard strikes before Wonder finished off Moone with her trademark corner hip check.

The Bay Area capped off the weekend with the crowning of a new Princex of Pride champion at Full Queer 2022. Keita added the newly redesigned title to his growing collection of championships after defeating inaugural champion Da Shade and Jai Vidal in a steel cage match.

Keita’s win ended Da Shade’s nearly one-year title reign just days before both are set to appear at Pro Wrestling VIBE’s “Pride & VIBE Weekend.” He now holds the Princex of Pride title, Without A Cause Heavyweight title and Relentless Heavyweight title.

Across the pond, “Queen of the Ring” Priscilla captured the Preston City Wrestling championship at PCW “Pride of the Ring,” one of the first LGBTQ Pride shows in the history of British pro wrestling.

According to Priscilla, the win was “20 years-worth of validation.” Mixing drag and pro wrestling for the better part of two decades, Priscilla was already recognized as a trailblazer for LGBTQ populations in British pro wrestling, and the title win is the perfect exclamation point on the Queen’s place in pro wrestling history.

Back stateside, Papa Jace completed the two-step title chase at Big Valley Wrestling’s “Loud & Proud” to become the new Las Vegas champion. The Sin City staple successfully defended his BVW Fighting championship against GCW Tag Team champion Allie Katch, earning him a shot at any BVW title.

Jace chose to challenge Las Vegas champion and fellow out wrestler Da Shade, defeating him in 18 seconds after a low blow. The win makes Jace the first Grand Slam champion in BVW history.

“The Protagonist of Pro Wrestling” Kidd Bandit celebrated their near one-year wrestleversary by securing the Pandemonium Pro .TV championship at PPW “Wrestlenova.”

Bandit’s placement in the California promotion greatly increased after their 30-minute draw with New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Yuya Uemura, and the title win is simply the next step up the ladder for one of the internet’s most beloved trans non-binary genderfluid figures in pro wrestling.

The title wins extended to tag teams as well with a number of out tag team specialists securing straps. Pittsburgh standouts Calvin Couture and Tyler Klein, collectively known as The Runway, won the RYSE Tag Team titles in a gauntlet match that also featured out wrestler Keith Haught.

They’ll now carry those titles into fellow Pittsburgh-area promotion Enjoy Wrestling as they enter the Enjoy Cup tournament on July 2.

Out wrestler and Full Queer co-founder Marco Mayur claimed another set of tag titles alongside tag partner Fabulous Fabricio, winning the Gold Rush Pro Wrestling tag team titles. The win expands the duo’s already large tag team trophy case in Northern and Central California.

Known collectively as Money Power Respect, Marco and Fabricio look well on their way to repeating as Northern California’s tag team of the year. They further added to their resume on June 25 by claiming the Pride Championship Wrestling Tag Team titles during San Antonio Pride.

Heading to New England, out wrestler Denim Kovic and tag partner Adam Stone won the Truly Independent Wrestling Tag Team titles at TIW’s annual “End of the Road” event.

The win makes Kovic the first out champion in the promotion’s five-plus year history.

Wednesday’s season finale of Paradigm Pro Wrestling’s UWFI Contenders Series saw out wrestler “Mad Dog” Austin Connelly become the new PPW Heavy Hitters champion, defeating Major League Wrestling’s Alex Kane in the main event.

After falling to Kane earlier this year, Connelly weathered two early Mark of Kane suplexes, Kane’s signature move that ended Connelly’s night in their previous encounter, and took Kane down with a Rainmaker short-arm lariat. Connelly got the mount and rained down strikes until the match was called via referee stoppage. Connelly now carries the title into his scheduled match with fellow out wrestler Max The Impaler at PPW’s “Terminal Combat Part II” event on July 15.

On June 24, LGBTQ-led Las Vegas-based promotion PrideStyle Pro Wrestling crowned its first champion as Sandra Moone defeated Papa Jace. Both Moone and Jace entered Friday’s main event as the two most successful competitors in PrideStyle since the promotion started earlier this year.

The fight, one of the best the Las Vegas pro wrestling scene has seen this year, spilled all around Versus Pro Studio, but Moone was able to hit Jace with her Moone’s Landing finisher before submitting Jace. The match was also notable for Moone becoming the first wrestler to ever kick out of Jace’s devastating Chastiknee finisher. As the inaugural PrideStyle champion celebrated the win, emotion overcame Jace and the two rivals shared an embrace in the ring.

History was made on June 26 as Portland, Ore.’s DOA Pro Wrestling crowned its first out singles champion in its near 14-year history. Out wrestler Jaiden defeated DOA regular Big Ugly to become DOA Pure champion for a second time, and the first time since he came out as bisexual in 2021.

Jaiden was originally scheduled to face Daniel Makabe, the man that beat him for the DOA Pure title in Feb. 2020, but Makabe was forced to pull out of the match and vacate the title due to injury. Big Ugly emerged as Jaiden’s mystery opponent, but “The Savior of Rose City” overcame the odds and reigned supreme. Jaiden now joins current DOA Tag Team champion Dave Turner as the only out LGBTQ wrestlers to hold DOA gold.

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