Skilled wrestling, in some ways, is a love story. Generally, it’s a love story a few 6’6″ black otaku making good on a 9-year-old promise he made on a online game podcast to make skilled wrestling into an anime. AEW wrestler Mason Madden is a testomony to how the 2 seemingly very totally different types of leisure are literally fairly comparable, and the way harmonious adopting anime strikes and characters in skilled wrestling could be. To study extra concerning the fascinating crossover, Kotaku chatted with Madden through Discord to chronicle how his steely anime protagonist’s resolve helped him overcome being laid off from WWE to meet his dream.
Mason Madden, whose actual identify is Brennan Williams, received his begin in wrestling very similar to Roman Reigns and the Rock; he was a former soccer participant who felt a calling to sports activities leisure. Williams was additionally a jock who favored anime earlier than it was cool for athletes to confess as a lot, and he hoped to marry the 2 types of leisure contained in the squared circle. As destiny would have it, Williams would get his probability after making contact with fellow Texan and WWE Corridor of Famer Booker T in 2015.
“It form of occurred fairly shortly,” Williams mentioned. “I began coaching with Booker, I had a tryout with WWE lined up inside like a 12 months or so, and the remainder was historical past.” Williams formally joined WWE in August 2016 and had his first match within the developmental model, NXT, a month later.
Growing anime wrestling strikes with tenuous WWE gimmicks
Whereas coaching for the WWE, Williams declared that he would make wrestling extra like anime—a medium he already felt lent itself to Dragon Ball Z-style storytelling— by incorporating cultural touchstones into his moveset on the Rooster Enamel-networked Fortress Tremendous Beast podcast, previously often known as the Tremendous Finest Associates podcast. For instance, numerous strikes of his modified swinging neck breaker, Merciless Angel’s Thesis; his drifting soccer deal with, the Preliminary D spear; and his high-leg kick, D4C; are not-so-subtle references to Neon Genesis Evangelion, Preliminary D, and JoJo’s Weird Journey, respectively.
“Probably the most well-known one was the Nico Nico Knee,” Williams mentioned. Not like his different strikes, which he conceptualized after listening to a exceptional anime phrase, Williams credit the Nico Nico Knee to former SBFC member-turned-game developer Liam Allen-Miller. Throughout Williams’ first look on the podcast, Miller instructed the Love Dwell!– impressed identify on a lark. 9 years later, the Nico Nico Knee is now a signature transfer in Williams’ repertoire.
On paper, it will seem to be an extremely excessive hurdle to climb to get WWE officers to learn up on the trivialities of Williams’ anime strikes, however Williams says it was by no means a priority so long as the commentator was instructed what the transfer was known as forward of time. The one hurdle Williams struggled with was WWE administration’s want for artistic management over a wrestler’s on-screen character.
Outdoors of a transient on-screen scuffle with Brock Lesnar and a tumultuous run within the failed-upon-arrival “gimp” faction, Retribution, Williams by no means received a possibility to correctly exhibit his anime love within the ring. Nonetheless, he did make up for the time he had by integrating his influences in refined methods. Even when it meant he could be a jobber—the man who loses to well-established expertise—on display screen.
“In WWE, there’s a handful of those who get to be cool and get to win. That was by no means my job in WWE. I used to be normally given one thing, after which I needed to discover my fact and what resonated with me in that character,” Williams mentioned. ‘Retribution wasn’t cool, however one factor I usually received was, ‘Hey, you had been cool in Retribution,’ and that’s as a result of I used to be doing my finest tokusatsu villain.”
In layman’s phrases, Williams put his self-ascribed Nice Black Otaku moniker to the check by stamping every little thing he did together with his Retribution character, Mace, with components taken from visible kei Japanese steel bands like Dir en Gray. Within the course of, he gave his gimmick a tangible identification past Vince McMahon’s obscure musings.
Williams lastly received a possibility to be a cool anime wrestler within the twilight months of McMahon’s WWE period in July 2022 when he joined a tag crew with Mansoor because the Zoolander-esque duo Most Male Fashions. On this new secure, Williams took the metrosexual gimmick primarily performed for laughs as a possibility to be as camp as doable and embody a JoJo’s Weird Journey character “for actual.”
Utilizing Twitch to navigate a post-WWE profession with international unbiased wrestling alternatives
Sadly, William’s long-awaited anime dream could be minimize quick in September 2023 when he and Mansoor had been part of WWE’s wave of mass layoffs. Whereas the information blindsided their fledgling fanbase, Williams mentioned he felt the writing was on the wall.
“The factor with WWE, and that is nothing in opposition to WWE or something like that, however each interval of quiet or the place you’re not doing something, you’re simply ready for the decision.” Williams mentioned. “There’s spring cleansing virtually yearly, and for some time, there wasn’t one, and also you had been simply dreading for it to return again. So by the point we had been let go from WWE, I used to be anticipating it. We began seeing the releases on Twitter, and I used to be like, ‘Oh, effectively, at present could be the day. After which I received the decision from a Connecticut quantity, and I used to be like, ‘Oh, that is it.’”
He continues: “In a manner, I used to be mentally prepared for it, and it form of made it simpler to only dive into the following factor, which is all the time what I’ve performed. Once I received harm taking part in soccer, I dove straight into wrestling. Once I received let go from WWE, we dove straight into, ‘Hey, what are we going to do throughout our 90 days? Are we going to stay collectively? Are we going to do that factor on the indies? What are our choices right here?’ As a result of now I’ve three daughters and so they all should be fed, so I don’t have loads of time to dwell.”
Fortuitously, the pair used the distinctive state of affairs of their layoff—being that they had been the one tag crew unceremoniously minimize from the corporate—to their benefit by mutually agreeing with their “shared mind cell” to deal with the indies collectively and proceed their run because the zesty male mannequin tag crew. Williams additionally strategically used his Twitch channel, InsideMxM, to take care of an internet presence and maintain followers engaged.
“We went on my Twitch stream, which has form of been repurposed into simply our Twitch stream, and it’s form of what saved us related, and that’s as a result of that’s what these 90 days are for, is to form of make individuals cool down and overlook about you whilst you’re ready to your time to return again up,” Williams mentioned. “It’s a really coordinated effort to make it possible for all people can nonetheless take note of us.”
Repackaged as MxM Assortment, the pair hit the bottom operating in what Williams likened to a Dragon Ball GT-esque grand tour internationally’s indie wrestling scene. The duo captivated audiences at Impasse Professional Wrestling within the U.S., Gleat in Japan, and Gentle Floor Wrestling in Uganda. Williams says the crew caught the attention of AEW president and CEO Tony Khan, who reached out to them with plans to carry them into AEW “as quickly as doable.”
The crew formally signed with AEW’s subsidiary wrestling firm, Ring of Honor, and have so far wrestled on a handful of AEW reveals. When Williams began his wrestling profession, it was onerous to examine making it at any firm exterior of WWE thanks in no small half to WWE’s monopolization of wrestling territories throughout the U.S.
“At that time in my life, I had already had one in all my three daughters, so I wanted to wrestle in a manner that would make me cash. Clearly, WWE was the one place the place you may do this on the time,” Williams mentioned. “And fortunately, that’s not the case.”
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“They’ve been very open to our concepts, permitting us to pitch stuff and making our concepts work, which is absolutely cool. It’s very gratifying to see your brainchild present up someplace, have individuals be capable to see it, after which have individuals react effectively to it, which is a totally international idea to us,” Williams mentioned.
“It’s a fantastic drawback to have individuals need to see you extra,” Williams continued. “Having a platform the place we are able to showcase our artwork in any capability that anyone can see wherever on the planet has been a fantastic boon to us as a result of I feel persons are actually beginning to have the ability to see what we are able to do.”
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Having fulfilled his lofty promise to make wrestling extra like anime, Williams desires his legacy in skilled wrestling to proceed the custom of performers unabashedly letting their nerdy freak flag fly, whether or not it’s by displaying their love for video video games and anime by means of ring gear cosplay of their favourite characters or by leaning into gimmicks.
“Our factor has all the time been to have enjoyable and be probably the most entertaining phase we could be. So if our legacy could be something, it’d be bringing enjoyable and pleasure to wrestling in some capability.”
If that enjoyable means going additional past by pitching bringing in Dragon Ball Z Abridged co-creator Takahata 101’s Vtuber persona as MxM Assortment’s supervisor in AEW (which Wiliams instructed throughout our chat), then so be it. All they’ll should do is determine scoot him and his digital bar round like fellow Twitch streamer Ironmouse.
