UK Wrestler Mike Parrow Says His Career Is Better After Coming Out

In an interview with Good Morning Britain (via Wrestling Inc), Mike Parrow said that his career has improved since he made the decision to publicly come out as gay. He said that he’s always known he was attracted to the same sex, even though he tried to think otherwise. He said there weren’t any role models for athletes, “because athletes tend to come out after they retire because of fear of, maybe, rejection, fear of different pay, fear of people just not accepting them for who they are.”

He added: “I’ve had the opposite. My career got better since I’ve come out, because I’m now who I am. But, as a kid, I had no role models whatsoever to look up to. So, I was like, there’s no way that there’s people like me. I’m all by myself.”

He also said that he tried Gay Converstion Therapy and it didn’t work. He said: “I want to first say that it was my choice, and I can’t tell you whether it works or it doesn’t work. This is why it didn’t work for me and it’s my opinion and why I left. When I first started to come out, I had really negative experiences. Like it was a lot of rejection because I thought, oh, guys are going to love me. No, they did not love me whatsoever. First of all, I had no idea of how to talk to them, I had nothing idea about the community and the people that I was going after were going after me for a look rather than who I was. But I never understood that, because it’s never usually like that in the heterosexual world.”

It was his rejection from the community that led him to try therapy as “another option.” He said during therapy, he didn’t feel alone for the first time and he found there were others with the same feelings he had. He disagreed with the therapist that it was a choice and that helped him come out. He’s now engaged. He added that promoters Gabe Sapolsky and Court Bauer told him that he “is not going to be good unless you are who you are. We can’t have you not be you, because we can’t get the best of you.” His ultimate goal is to go to WWE and compete at Wrestlemania, so he can “represent his community in a positive way.”