AEW: The future is looking bright for the game-changing Sonny Kiss

AEW wrestler Sonny Kiss has what it takes to be a big star in this industry.

Sonny Kiss has been a fan of professional wrestling for up to two decades. Kiss then pursued his career in professional wrestling at age 17 back in 2011 and had his first match in late 2013. The Jersy City native dreamed big to become a professional wrestler as he wanted to make a name for himself.

From the mid-2010s until 2018, Sonny Kiss has been a mainstay at Warriors of Wrestling in Staten Island, NY. Sonny Kiss had high profile matches at the promotion with names such as Chris Steeler, Darius Carter, and Isaiah Wolf. He started to gain mainstream attention when he signed with Lucha Underground in 2017. But at the same time, Sonny Kiss captured both the Warriors of Wrestling Championship and the Warriors of Wrestling No Limits Championship.

During Sonny’s run on Lucha Underground, his stock rose as he had more opponents to add to his resume. Some of those opponents include Paul London and RJ City. Even when Sonny Kiss was on the independent circuit, he had a great match with WWE Legend Melina at A Matter Of Pride: Divamania. I recommend everyone to watch that match. These two have great chemistry together. Kiss and Melina went out there and had a very believable match that kept the audience engaged the entire time. If you have 15 minutes out of your day to spare to watch intergender wrestling, this particular match should be on your radar.

What makes Sonny Kiss interesting, is his unique personality. Sonny Kiss’s in-ring persona is a representation of himself outside of the ring. That is, a mixture of an athlete who is feminine, and a professional wrestler that can get dirty. Sonny Kiss is not the stereotype of the flashy characters of the past such as Goldust or Adrian Adonis as he can have a great match, and excite the crowd with his excellent character work and high-impact athleticism. He has given himself the nickname “The Concrete Rose” for the reason of him blending the two characteristics together and because he is a fan of Ashanti’s early 2000’s album of the same name.

That is showcased in and out of the ring and Sonny’s fanbase has grown. When Sonny Kiss signed with All Elite Wrestling in early 2019, it showed how much representation of the LGBTQ+ matters in the national scale of wrestling. This major signing gave fans hope that AEW is serious when it comes to inclusion.

This also brings up a point I would like to make. Representation matters, and it is great to see LGBTQ+ wrestlers all over the world that are getting more opportunities now to showcase their talent to a mainstream wrestling audience. Years from now, the signings of Sonny Kiss and Nyla Rose will be looked back on as important to the industry as a whole.

When I interviewed Sonny Kiss a few months ago, Sonny talked about the struggles of making a living as an independent wrestler. When I was part of the ring crew years ago at a few independent wrestling promotions in New York, Sonny Kiss was there and I also watched him training with other wrestlers and even his matches on the shows. It is great to see that Sonny Kiss has grown in the pursuit of his dreams and is in a major wrestling promotion.

Sonny Kiss has been able to prove the critics wrong about his wrestling style and persona. The fact that he had matches with Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship, and Chris Jericho in a tag team match in his career on AEW so far, is remarkable. His match with Cody Rhodes was definitely a memorable one, as it made a believer out of the fans who watched him. There were many times during that TNT Championship match that I personally thought that Sonny was going to defeat Cody. The storytelling of that match is a classic example of a great title match.

Sonny Kiss’ future is looking bright and his support is strong. Kiss recently graduated from college as he studied Kinesiology, Fitness Training, and Fitness Science. With him having a career in professional wrestling, and now a recent grad, the sky is the limit for Sonny Kiss and his path will grow as an AEW Superstar.