R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Denver Women's Wrestling Group to Put on Quarterly Show February 21

Wrestling organizer Nick Gossert grew up in Colorado watching pro wrestling, like many kids in the '80s and '90s. He describes it as loving the WWF and now WWE in a "fascinating super-hero weirdness way." Back in the halcyon days of early cable TV, Gossert and his friends would perform clothesline drops on each other in the backyard. "We thought wrestling was real," he laughs. "We were moron children."

But Gossert remained a fan of both the spectacle of wrestling as well as the physicality of it, eventually getting into the amateur side of two lines of entertainment he suggests are effectively miscible: Mixed Martial Arts and stand-up comedy. "You put MMA and stand-up together, and you get pro wrestling," he says with a grin.

Gossert, who graduated from Skyline High in Longmont, moved to Mexico with a friend when he was n his early twenties — and it was there that he fell in love with Lucha Libre. When he returned to Denver, he found a Lucha Libre circuit right here at home and kept attending those events, building relationships with others in the culture. That led to him becoming a referee, which in turn led to work in promotion.

Gossert, who by 2019 was running an ongoing wrestling show called Lucha Libre & Laughs at the Oriental Theater, says he recognized that there was a lot of female wrestling talent in Colorado going unrecognized and underutilized. At best, he says, these promotions were doing ladies' matches as undercard bouts. Novelty acts.

Now Respect Women's Wrestling is changing all that, and will present its next quarterly show on Friday, February 21, at the Embassy Suites at 4444 Havana Street.
Gossert promises that this show will be special. The main event is former Lucha Libre & Laughs champion Heidi Howitzer versus Emi Sakura, both notable figures in the world of women's wrestling who have made names for themselves in Joshi, the name for female pro wrestling in Japan. "Emi Sakura is a legend in Japan," Gossert boasts. "She does very few independent shows in the U.S., so it's really a treat for us here in Denver to see an absolute superstar. It'll be a banger of a main event."

The undercard of the show is also a draw, Gossert says, since it's made up of some of the best up-and-coming local talent, including Bryn Thorne, Stormi Renee, Lilith Grimm and other fan favorites.

Women's wrestling might seem like an innovation, but Gossert says that it dates pretty far back: "A lot of people — even fans — don't realize that shows like these were huge back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Women like Minerva and Cora Livingston were early champions and top-billed stars. Again in World War II, when the men were away, women's wrestling became immensely popular in the United States with women like Mae Young and Mildred Burke."

Respect Women's Wrestling actually started back in 2019, but like a lot of entertainment ventures worldwide, it was derailed by the pandemic. "At first we were hosted at Herman's Hideaway," says Gossert. "It was fantastic — it was a grimy, rough little bar that had a ton of charm." But by the time RWW was ready for a comeback in 2024, the legendary venue on South Broadway was closing after 62 remarkable years.

"Herman's Hideaway was awesome for a place for RWW to start," Gossert says, "but because it was Herman's, we could only do 21+ shows. Now we're at the Embassy Suites on Havana, which to borrow from Hemingway, is a much more 'clean and well-lighted' place. Most important, we can now invite families to come out and enjoy the shows — something that we saw a lot of demand for even back in 2019. It's great that we get to be more inclusive now."

Inclusivity is a big part of Gossert's vision for RWW. "A lot of people think of wrestling as a couple of big, beefy white guys pretend-fighting," he says. "But modern wrestling is an amazingly diverse experience, especially on the independent scene. Now, no matter who you are, you can find representation in the ring. It's one of the things I love about the shows we're able to put together. RWW is a pro-women show, and a pro-queer show, and a trans-inclusive show. It's so important for fans to be able to show up and see heroes that reflect them in the ring. It makes them feel joy, and also empowered. And that's exactly the sort of party we like to bring."

Respect Women's Wrestling, Friday, February 21, Embassy Suites, 4444 Havana Street. For tickets, starting at $25, and more information, see the RWW ticketing website.