Why Would a Rapper Get within the Ring with a Professional-Wrestler? Ask Open Mike Eagle.

When rapper Open Mike Eagle advised his family and friends that he was going to Louisville, Kentucky to get within the ring with an expert wrestler, they had been greater than just a little involved.

“It’s not like an MMA combat — we’re not gonna go in there and truly attempt to hurt one another, essentially,” stated Open Mike Eagle about what it was prefer to combat Kentucky wrestler Shiloh Jonze. “However it’s a really harmful factor — folks have actually, severely harm themselves wrestling. Folks have died within the wrestling ring — like a carried out match, folks died. Each critical harm you possibly can consider has occurred. And I wasn’t capable of actually, totally practice, so I feel all people round me had a good quantity of very comprehensible concern about what it was I used to be about to do with my life.”

The rapper is not any stranger to taking dangers in his profession. When he went unbiased by releasing his 2018 EP, What Occurs After I Strive To Loosen up, on his personal report label, it was a raffle. However late final yr, when he determined to get within the ring with a really actual pro-wrestler, he wasn’t risking his streaming numbers — he was risking his well-being.

“It was most likely one of the nerve-wracking experiences of my life,” stated Eagle of what it was prefer to combat Jonze. “Numerous my reminiscence of it’s a blur. I feel the match complete was like 5 minutes, nevertheless it felt like an hour to me”

Clapback, a six-part documentary that’s accessible solely by means of his Patreon, paperwork Open Mike Eagle’s journey from rapper to wrestler, from the meat that began all of it to the full-on match that happened only a month later. And like most battles, rap or in any other case, It began on Twitter.

Right here’s the way it went down: final yr, Jonze, a pro-wrestler with a rap-shtick, posted a video of him difficult a bunch of precise rappers to a rap battle (the record included Eminem, a number of members of Wu-tang, Snoop Dogg and naturally, Open Mike Eagle).

However as an alternative of simply tweeting again at him, Eagle determined to fly all the best way to Davis Area in Louisville, Kentucky to confront Jonze in individual. Then, in the midst of a wrestling occasion that Jonze was preventing in, Eagle walked out ringside, grabbed a mic, and began spitting: “You aren’t avenue/ you have not seen the pictures spray/ you are only a jock carrying John Cena cosplay,” rapped Eagle to the cheers of the sector. And the remaining is regional wrestling historical past.

“It wasn’t essentially me being offended,” stated Eagle, who educated with former WWF wrestler and promoter Al Snow earlier than the combat. “It was me seeing someone trolling me and me trolling him again…his trolling appeared to be primarily based on, ‘no person’s truly going to reply to this.’ So I responded. His trolling was primarily based on, ‘I’ll make this video calling him out however there’s no means he’s truly going to indicate up,’ however I confirmed up. For me, it was about how far can I take this.”

The reply to that’s fairly rattling far.

However in 2019, you need to go far to get your music heard, and nobody is aware of that higher than Open Mike Eagle. Together with others like Killer Mike, and Danny Brown, Eagle helped pioneer the post-Napster, jack-of-all-trades rap persona that all of us count on from rappers right now. Outdoors of his day job as a recording and touring rapper, he’s co-hosted a number of podcasts, together with Dialog Parade, which is concerning the TV present Journey Time (he even performed a rapping gingerbread man on the precise cartoon). He is acquired his fingers within the comedy world too — he is a mainstay at Upright Residents Brigade in Los Angeles, and he co-hosts a sketch/showcase present on Comedy Central known as The New Negroes.

Now, you possibly can add wrestler to that record, although solely time will inform if he’ll get within the ring once more. Whereas Eagle had a good time — “it was actually a excessive level of my life” — his causes for carrying spandex and studying methods to get out of a suplex had been pragmatic, too. With dwindling report gross sales and a continuously evolving music trade, the reality is as painful as a piledriver: lately, a chilly 16 bars or an incredible album simply may not be sufficient for a rapper to outlive.

“The cash is completely different in music now,” stated Eagle on the present state of the rap trade. “I feel the extra attention-grabbing acts on the market are going to attempt to discover methods to get entangled in different issues which are enjoyable and entertaining that align with their personalities. It’s going to partially be what we have now to do as rappers, or any form of performers, to outlive.”

However as an alternative of wishing for the great outdated days of rap, the place you would tour on an album for years and make a residing, Eagle takes a glass half-full way of living as a contemporary rapper: sure, it may be a problem, nevertheless it’s additionally a possibility to strive new inventive initiatives and to precise himself by means of completely different mediums.

“I do attempt to do the issues which are most attention-grabbing to me, which generally tends to be, like, not essentially what’s anticipated,” stated Eagle. “Like, I’m not going to attempt to do a bungee leaping stunt…I’m not going to attempt to stroll a tightrope someplace. But when these attention-grabbing alternatives occur to coexist with my fields of curiosity, that’s very thrilling.”

When Eagle spoke to me about his crossover from hip-hop to wrestling, he did not converse like a advertising wizard or a businessman (although from the best way web went nuts about it, it is clear that he is aware of methods to pull at our heartstrings). He sounded extra like a fanboy than the rest, talking excitedly about his lifelong love of wrestling, Ric Aptitude, and The Rock. So on the finish of the day, even if he’d misplaced the match to Shiloh Jonze (he did not BTW), I get the sensation he’d nonetheless be over the moon.

“I felt prefer it was a very excessive level in my life to even be concerned in one thing like that, you recognize,” stated Eagle about his wrestling debut. “Simply actually exhilarating for me, and I do not know — it was tremendous thrilling, man.”