Yep! I Like Wrestling (YILW) has been around since September of 2011. In the 15 years since they hit the scene, they\u2019ve evolved from a Facebook group into one of New York City\u2019s biggest wrestling communities.\u00a0 Tiny watch parties have become massive events in some of the city\u2019s biggest bars; parties with just a few people have turned into hotbeds for wrestling fans with appearances from MVP and Rikishi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Andre Rivera, known best as Sonny Sofrito, and Kervin Delgado are the tag team who run this ship. At locations such as the Chelsea Bell and the Continental Sports Lounge, they host watch parties for every AEW pay-per-view and WWE premium live event.\u00a0 This duo has created a community for New York City wrestling fans, and even though these parties have been happening for 15 years, even the newest attendee is treated like family. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time someone comes through, I treat it as, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re in my house, welcome.\u201d\u2019 Rivera said.\n<\/p>\n
Not only does Rivera strive to make everyone feel welcome, but he sees everyone who steps through his door as family.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in situations where you\u2019re always in a social atmosphere, it\u2019s like you\u2019re always accumulating new brothers and sisters.\u201d Rivera said, \u201cI come from a small family, but I have an extended family, which is the Yep! [I like Wrestling] family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delgado and Rivera specifically have grown incredibly close from this partnership, and it all started because they met at one of Rivera\u2019s events.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first started doing the discussion group, I asked him if he\u2019d help me out; I needed another administrator.\u201d Rivera said, \u201cHe\u2019s like my little brother; sometimes I want to strangle him to death, but I still want him to text me when he gets home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivera\u2019s background is in nightclub promotion, and some of those skills carry over to promoting for YILW. \u201cIf you name a spot in the early 2000s or late 90s, I definitely did at least one party or event. I\u2019m just naturally a host.\u201d<\/p>\n
YILW has had a viral moment: MVP and Shad Gaspard were at their WrestleMania 35 watch party and were caught on camera having an emotional reaction to Kofi Kingston winning the WWE championship. The clip has circulated for several years on many different social media platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Viral sensation or not, Rivera and Delgado have cultivated one of New York City\u2019s strongest wrestling communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yep! I Like Wrestling (YILW) has been around since September of 2011. In the 15 years since they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-371034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}