It’s time for Greater Palm Springs Pride, which means all sorts of events like live music, drag shows and … wrestling?
That’s right! On Saturday, Nov. 4, Oscar’s Palm Springs will convert from a live music venue into a wrestling arena for the first Pride of the Desert Wrestling Tournament. The event is being hosted by Pollo Del Mar, the drag/professional wrestling personality of Paul Pratt, of the National Wrestling Alliance, and will feature two hours of LGBTQ+ and drag wrestling. Four “Triple-Threat” matches will result in four winners facing off in a “Fatal 4-Way,” and the winner will take home the first Pride of the Desert Wrestling crown.
“I am really the only person who’s gone from the world of drag into the world of professional wrestling, and I’m the only person in the United States who really does the kind of character that I do, and that has offered me so many opportunities,” Pratt said during a recent phone interview. “I’ve worked all across the country doing LGBT-themed events, as well as mainstream professional wrestling. I work for the National Wrestling Alliance, which is the oldest existing and continuously promoting professional wrestling organization in the United States. It’s based and steeped in tradition, and I play something completely different in that programming.”
A previous collaboration with Oscar’s led Pratt to bring the event to Palm Springs.
“Having worked with all of these LGBTQ scenes, specifically shows, I really wanted the opportunity to utilize the platform I’ve been given over the last eight years in wrestling to bring something that had a flavor uniquely my own,” Pratt said. “Oscar’s presented me that opportunity. I worked with them a while back, and we did an event with the original members of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, and I was the host of that event. During the course of that, the management team of Oscar’s, specifically Dan Gore, and I talked about the prospect of doing wrestling at a future date—and here we are.”
Pratt is excited to be presenting the tournament during Greater Palm Springs Pride.
“Prior to working in the professional-wrestling industry, I have hosted pride events all over California,” said Pratt. “… One of the things I wanted to do is offer something that was unique and special and still focused toward the queer community, because we’re using LGBTQ+ professional wrestlers for this event. It’s not just another dance party—and I love dance parties. I love drag shows, obviously, but I know that on a weekend like a pride event, there’ll be so many of those options, and this gives people something they can see that’s different, but still focused on our community.”
Those who think that drag and wrestling don’t go together would be surprised to learn how much they have in common.
“The elements of professional wrestling that I love the most are the things I love most about drag, really. It’s the drama, the theatricality, the larger-than-life persona, the glamorous costuming and the outrageousness of it,” Pratt said. “There’s a tongue-in-cheek element of professional wrestling, and there is certainly that soap-opera element of it that makes everything so big. The love for wrestling came before I was even exposed to drag, so at a very young age of 19, I actually did my first pro-wrestling shows.”
However, Pratt’s feelings about his sexuality kept him from giving himself fully to the artform.
“It did not work out at that time, because I wasn’t comfortable with myself,” he said. “I was not comfortable being a gay man, and I hadn’t accepted that fact yet. I wasn’t open, and I was so fearful of being discovered in a world where I felt I wouldn’t be accepted that it really tainted my opportunities, and it tainted my ability to effectively play a character. It certainly limited the ability I had to connect with my colleagues and co-workers over the shared passion of wrestling.”
Once Pratt fully embraced his sexuality, he headed into the world of drag—which helped him rekindle a relationship with wrestling and create Pollo Del Mar.
“I held on to my dreams long enough that a lot of the world was able to catch up to me,” Pratt said. “Wrestling has changed—not as much as I would like it to, but it has changed; our fan base has changed; and one of the most challenging elements of doing professional wrestling is finding a character that’s unique and memorable and hasn’t been done to death. My character, in the world of professional wrestling, is a fresh take on something that’s pretty traditional, and it’s working. … This is a chance for me to really represent our community and do what I love, which is wrestling … and open the door hopefully to people down the road, who, growing up now, will have something available to them in terms of representation and visibility that I never had.”
Our conversation shifted to the topic of the drag bans that spread across the United States in 2023. Pratt said he was preparing for a pay-per-view event when he learned about Tennessee’s law aiming to restrict drag shows in public (which has since been blocked by the courts).
“The whole drag-ban thing really became oddly personal to me,” Pratt said. “The company I work for, the National Wrestling Alliance, our television tapings are in Nashville, which is centered in the whole heart of where the drag bans were originating from. It was very scary to me to think about while this lifelong dream was finally coming to fruition. I was in an extremely prominent storyline—a romantic storyline, believe it or not—and then this drag ban passed while I was on tour with them. We were getting ready for our pay-per-view event, and it impacted me so emotionally. … We were celebrating (the pay-per-view event) beforehand, and I ended up leaving that setting and going to my room and crying and praying. It sounds odd, but I was just like, ‘There’s nothing I can do about this.’ It was so impactful for me.”
Pratt has seen Pollo Del Mar receive an abundance of love from the wrestling world and beyond, he said, and he hopes to continue changing the perception of drag.
“I do not think that my portrayal is going to change the bigger picture,” he said. “One by one, there are fans I’m encountering who have had a set opinion of what it means to be drag, what it means to be LGBTQ, and what it means to have those things converge in the world of professional wrestling. They’re watching my work, and it’s changing their perception. They are shocked, in many cases, that they actually like my character, and they like my work. More specifically, they are shocked that somebody who they thought was brought in to be a token and window dressing is as knowledgeable and passionate about pro wrestling as I am. I think that on a small scale, I am making some headway with individuals.”
The Pride of the Desert Wrestling Tournament’s roster of wrestlers will be “fully representative across the spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community, so it’s going to be extremely racially diverse, ethnically diverse, and gender diverse,” Pratt said. “I’m working actively to make sure that we have a lot of representation there for people to hopefully see themselves in the ring. I think it’s really important that people have something that they can identify with.”
The Pride of the Desert Wrestling Tournament will take place at 3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 4, at Oscar’s Palm Springs, 125 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way. Tickets start at $20, with a food/drink minimum of $25, and attendees are asked to arrive by 2 p.m. For tickets or more information, visit oscarspalmsprings.com.
Very informative! Wish I could be there to see it, but I live in Texas. It’s amazing to know that it will be so diverse and inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. Not to mention Pollo Del Mar is a freakin’ rock star!!!!