Daniel was wrongfully and intentionally injured during the T boy Wrestling event in Portland, OR that took place Oct 10th and is sustaining long term injuries and trauma that is affecting his overall quality of life. His opponent, the judges, the ref and those running the socials of TBWLA have been dismissive and negligent of the situation before, during and after the incident took place. Including poor sportsman ship from his opponent, gaslighting from the judges and those affiliated with TBWLA, deleting video evidence such as the twitch stream of the night (screen shot of the moment is shown in photos) and arguing about Daniel’s traumatic experience to the point of sending threatening messages to those advocating for him and deleting comments. Here is Daniel’s story:

My name is Daniel (he/they). I am a PDX native who works as a sped educator to support our minority student population. I participated as a wrestler for Tboy wrestling with the hopes of making fun memories, but was left physically disabled with medical bills piling up and having no choice but to take time off work and use all of my PTO on recovery- which I’ve now run out of; any time off is eating into my pay checks and I’m realizing the road to recovery is going to be long and overwhelmingly expensive. I’ve also realized what happened to me was traumatic in multiple ways and continues to be as TBW further dismisses my story, which is unbelievably overwhelming and harmful to process.

Despite being unfamiliar with TBW or transdudesofla- they were presenting themselves to be a safe, inclusive and fun space/sporting event for my community to participate in. After being accepted via DM and matched with a wrestling partner, things seemed to be looking great, and I thought I was going to have a once in a lifetime positive experience. Sadly what took place not only during the event but in the weeks after would reveal the amount of unethical and negligent practices that were going on.

Oct. 10th, I showed up and made my way up to the green room, not knowing I was going to have my life changed for the worse in a few hours. I met my opponent in the green room, and I was met with a somewhat cold shoulder. In fact the entire event, my opponent avoided me, side eyed me, and made zero effort to plan out how our match was going to be other than the fact that he wanted a mix of traditional and performance style despite my efforts to get clarity. I felt nervous about this. Eventually the time for my match was coming up, so I made sure to once again try communicating my boundaries and limits to my opponent, I was met again with dull unclear responses.

When I was wrestling my opponent, I pinned them down for over 10 seconds which should’ve been a take down. However, for some unknown reason, the ref didn’t count that. During the second round, I realized my opponent was being extremely rough and I was caught off guard when, out of nowhere, my opponent grabbed my neck and threw me to the side. I remember hearing the loud clear pop and crunch of my knee, seeing my leg bent sideways and outwards and my tibia out of its socket. I immediately hit the ground while my opponent was still on top of me- I had to tell my opponent multiple times to get off of me while I was feeling excruciating pain. I had to yell at the ref that my leg was broken, and it took what felt like forever for them to call the EMT up to the ring because the MC proceeded to announce my opponent as “undefeated champion” and celebrate them while I was on the ground curled up in pain screaming for help.

The whole time I was unable to bend my toes, my knee, and I was fighting so hard not to vomit from the pain and black out. My partner and friend both ran up to the ring trying to check on me, and were immediately shooed away by the runners and telling them that they were making it worse and “causing a scene”. After they were pushed away, I heard them grumbling about how much of an “inconvenience this is”, that they ‘can’t have this going on’ and to ‘just call an ambulance and get (me) out of here.’ Even though I was filled with pain, I still was conscious and heard everything people were saying.

My opponent messaged me on instagram while I was in the ER; not to apologize but to have me comfort him about breaking my leg. I was in shock from the injury and overall incident- it took me a moment to process how messed up that was. Why was I responsible for smoothing things over and absolving his guilt?

I then came across a TikTok posted by my opponent shortly after our conversation absolved him of guilt- it was a clip of our match in which he specifically zoomed in on me sprawled out with my injury blatantly bragging about how he took me down. I was not the only match he won against, he had the option of posting any other clip from the night. I brought it to the attention of Tboy wrestling and was told that they’d talk with him, but was never kept in contact with nor received any follow up on that.

It has taken weeks and multiple doctors visits to get an MRI scheduled, I am currently in the process of being determined if I need knee surgery. These first weeks after the injury have been torture…being unable to shower independently, relying on crutches, being awake all night in pain, and missing a-lot of work or showing up to work in intense pain.

Tboy wrestling only checked on me once just to say they feel bad and that’s it. I wasn’t offered any form of support by them, and I was completely brushed off as if nothing happened. I later discovered that the stream of night 1 was on twitch, and my injury was broadcasted on there with the camera on me while I was curled up for a good minute, no announcement or acknowledgement of the injury was made and the moment was instead used to boost someone’s top surgery fund in order to distract from my injury in the moment. I realized the way I was being treated wasn’t okay, but I didn’t have the voice or mental capacity to speak up about it at the moment due to the amount of pain I was in. TDLA continues to cover their tracks and remove any evidence of my injury. They have since deleted the October 10th stream that has my injury recorded from their twitch and have been deleting any comments of concern regarding it.

To this day, TDLA has NOT reached out to me, or made any effort to fix any of the wrongs they’ve committed not just towards me, but to countless others. Instead, the only response I have received is one of the judges dismissing and being extremely hostile towards me and other people who’ve expressed that I deserve compensation and empathy. Threatening people who inquire about the incident with physical harm. My trauma has been dismissed by saying things such as “that’s just wrestling” or bringing up the waiver that was signed- Regarding said waiver, I have never been provided a copy of the waiver, and no terms were ever disclosed to me.

Trans dudes of LA posted on instagram about the embezzlement scandal and felonies committed by Mich. Claiming that they will be more accountable and equitable as an organization and that they were some- how completely unaware this illegal activity was taking place. I finally got the courage to speak up in their comment section about my incident and how it was handled; My life has changed for the worse, and I am stuck limping in pain while getting hit with medical expenses and falling behind on bills due to lost wages. Meanwhile, Mich and potentially others were stealing from the trans community, taking advantage of people of color such as myself, not paying those who helped the event happen and much more. I and others spoke up for my injury and stated that I deserve at least some sort of compensation.

This kind of behavior is completely unacceptable, and needs to be corrected. If TDLA was legitimate about wanting to fix all their wrongdoing, they would recognize the malpractice that took place and be communicating with me with empathy and accountability.

I am reaching out to my community for urgent aid in my recovery as this is quickly destabilizing my sense of safety and security. Navigating an injury that is disabling me for the foreseeable future is affecting my quality of life and ability to financially sustain myself. All donations contribute towards my medical care and expenses including supplies, surgery and follow up physical therapy/doctor’s appointments, meal planning for accessible food while I’m recovering, lost wages due to having to take so much time off work and to provide the ability to continue to take time off to properly heal after surgery.

-Daniel AKA RIG0R M0RTIS