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Pro wrestling can have the ability to truly reach all corners of the world.
In the U.S., any person could look to their left or their right and find a person who loves the sport. Let’s take Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse for example. Most may know him as one part of the notorious hip-hop group, but others may remember him for pro wrestling.
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The 54-year-old Michigan native in 1983 and started back up in the 1990s, appearing in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before starting Juggalo Championship Wrestling (JCW) in 1999.
Violent J told Fox News Digital that his pro wrestling fandom goes back to before he was a teenager.
“I’ve been a wrestling fan my entire life. I had it set as a goal in my life that I would be a wrestler. And if anything, I was learning in school didn’t pertain to being a wrestler, I didn’t listen. It was all about being a wrestler. And it wasn’t something I wanted or I hoped or I dreamed about. It was something I knew absolutely without a shadow of a doubt I was going to be a wrestler and Shaggy (2 Dope) too with no question about it,” he said. “But when I turned 19, or probably 17, hip-hop started to overtake that dream, that goal, like hip-hop started to overtake that love and we tried to fight it because for so long we had set our goals that we were going to be wrestlers and we knew we were going to be wrestlers. Failure wasn’t an option. But hip-hop started to overtake that love.
“So, we fought it for a long time. But once we decided the love for hip-hop was stronger, there was no turning back. Next thing you know, we knew without a shadow of a doubt we were going to be rappers. You know what I’m saying? But it’s funny because from the age of 12 to roughly 17 or 18, we had already applied all that karma toward being wrestlers. We had already applied all that. It manifested on its own.”
He said he and Shaggy 2 Dope received a call from the WWF to produce music from a tag team called The Oddities, but it turned into their own run in the company.
“So, when we were 26 and we had our first gold album, the WWF at the time called us and said, ‘Hey man, we want you guys to make the ring music for this team we have called the Oddities.’ And we were like, ‘Do you guys know that we wrestle? We were actually wrestling on the independent scene. And you know, me and Shaggy both were wrestling when we were like 18, 19, we were wrestling around the Midwest even though we knew we were going to be rappers, we were still had a love for it,” he said. “So, we were doing it kind of as fun. But when the WWF called all those years later, we were like, ‘Do you guys know that we wrestle?’ And they were like, ‘We had no idea.’
“So, they flew us out to Stanford, Connecticut, where we had the wrestling match. We wrestled each other. We wrestled Bruce Pritchard or was it Tom Pritchard, one of those guys. So, I mean, like next thing you know, we were debuting at SummerSlam at Madison Square Garden. But yeah, man, it’s like that dream came back and manifested itself because we had already applied all that positive energy toward it. It’s pretty crazy, man, how that worked.”
The love Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope had for pro wrestling manifested into their own promotion – Juggalo Championship Wrestling.
He recalled the first show the two put together and how fans were skeptical that they were going to be in the ring.
“After we went to WWE and we went to WCW, we decided to do it ourselves, too. So, we started our own promotion and actually we were I’m trying to remember if we were running show, we were running shows before we went to WWF,” he told Fox News Digital. “We were running our own shows in Detroit. ICP was. I’ll never forget the first time ICP wrestled in front of a crowd as Violent Jay and Shaggy. They didn’t know we had anything to do with wrestling. The fans didn’t know anything that we used to be wrestlers. They had no idea. Back then, there was no internet. They didn’t know we used to be wrestlers. They didn’t know anything about it.
“We put the flyer out and said, ‘It’s going to be Violent J and Shaggy Too Dope, Insane Clown Posse, versus the Chicken Boys,’ these two redneck guys with rebel flags, in a steel cage. And the show is going to be called Strangle Mania Live. Man, that venue sold out. People were like, ‘What are we gonna see? Are they actually gonna wrestle?’ Because they only knew us as musicians. You know what I’m saying? They were like, ‘Are they gonna wrestle? What is this?’ And sure enough, man, we wrestled our a– off, man. And I’ll never forget that show. That was one of the greatest nights of my life. But of course, after ICP stepped into the ring, it was over from there. You know what I mean? We had to go everywhere. We tried to go to every major promotion there was.”
The popularity of JCW has only grown from there.
The promotions runs a weekly Thursday night show on YouTube called “Lunacy.” It also runs a flagship event at the annual Juggalo carnival called Gathering of the Juggalos called Bloodymania.
Bloodymania 19 will take place on Aug. 20 and 21 at Mother Nature’s Riverfront Retreat in Macks Creek, Missouri.
“Man, the best our promotion can do. JCW, Juggalo Championship Wrestling,” he told Fox News Digital. “We’re on every Thursday. night at 7 o’clock Eastern on YouTube. We provide something for everybody. I guarantee you who you are, no matter where you’re from in life or who you are in life, you’re going to find something you like about JCW. That’s a fact. I challenge anybody to watch an entire episode of ‘Lunacy,’ the show is called ‘Lunacy,’ and see if there’s not something you enjoy greatly, not just something you kind of like. You’re going to find something you really like. No matter who you are, all walks of life. We aim to entertain them all.
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“And Bloody Mania takes place from The Gathering. It’s Bloody Mania 19. It’s our 19th time having Bloody Mania. And it’s like our WrestleMania obviously. It’s like our big deal. Happens at The Gathering of the Juggalos, which is our big fan festival every year. And it’s like we’re at home. We’re bringing the show right at home in the in the thick of things, in the heart of the Juggalo Nation. It’s cool. It’s a great feeling and you can feel it in the air. Even after 19 times, it’s still there. It’s thick. You could cut it.”
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