Violent J of Insane Clown Posse on his WWE and JCW wrestling career

Professional wrestling may truly have the ability to reach every corner of the world.

In the United States, anyone can look to their left or right and find someone who loves sports. Take Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J as an example. Most people may know him as part of the infamous hip-hop group, but others may remember him for professional wrestling.

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The 54-year-old Michigan native was born in 1983, appearing in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) throughout the 1990s, before starting Juggalo Championship Wrestling (JCW) in 1999.

Violent J told Fox News Digital that his professional wrestling fandom dates back to his teenage years.

“I’ve been a wrestling fan my whole life. I’ve set a goal for myself my whole life to be a wrestler. And if there’s one thing I learned in school, it wasn’t about being a wrestler, I didn’t listen. It was all about being a wrestler. And it wasn’t something I wanted or hoped or dreamed of. Being a wrestler was something I knew for sure, and Shaggy (2 Dope) And there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “But when I turned 19 or probably 17, hip-hop started to leave that dream behind, this goal, just like hip-hop started leaving that love behind, and we tried to fight it because for so long we had set our goals around being wrestlers and we knew we were going to be wrestlers. Failure wasn’t an option. But hip-hop started leaving that love behind.”

“So, we struggled with that for a long time. But once we decided that the love for hip-hop was stronger, there was no turning back. We knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were going to become rappers later on. You know what I’m saying? But it’s funny because from age 12 to roughly 17 or 18, we had already applied all that karma to being a wrestler. We had already applied all that. It just came out on its own.”

He said that he and Shaggy 2 Dope received a call from the WWF to produce music for a tag team called The Oddities, but it became their own work with the company.

“When we were 26 years old and released our first gold album, the then-WWF called us and said: ‘Hey man, we want you to do the ring music for this team we call the Oddities.’ We said, ‘Do you know that we wrestle? We were actually wrestling on the independent scene. And, you know, me and Shaggy were wrestling when we were 18, 19, even though we knew we were going to be rappers, we were wrestling in the Midwest, we were still in love with it,” he said. “So we were doing it in a fun way. But years later, when the WWF called, they said, ‘Do you know we wrestle?’ we said. And they said, ‘We had no idea.’

Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J attends the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards at the UBS Arena in Elmont, NY (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for MTV)

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“So they flew us out to Stanford, Connecticut, where we had a wrestling match. We wrestled each other. Did we wrestle Bruce Pritchard, or was Tom Pritchard one of those guys? So, you know, like the next thing, we were making our debut at SummerSlam in Madison Square Garden. But yeah, man, it was like that dream came back and manifested itself because we had already put all that positive energy towards it. It’s pretty crazy, man, it worked.”

Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s love for professional wrestling manifested itself in their own promotion, Juggalo Championship Wrestling.

He recalled the first show the two put together and how skeptical the fans were about them stepping into the ring.

“After we went to WWE and WCW, we also decided to do it ourselves. So we started our own promotion and we were trying to remember if we were actually doing shows, we were doing shows before we went to WWF,” he told Fox News Digital. “We were doing our own shows in Detroit. That’s what 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 about us being wrestlers. They had no idea. There was no internet back then. They didn’t know we used to be wrestlers. They didn’t know anything about it.”

“We pulled out the banner and said, ‘It’s going to be Violent J and Shaggy Too Dope against the Insane Clown Posse, the Chicken Boys,’ these two redneck guys in a steel cage with a rebel flag. And the show’s going to be called Strangle Mania Live. Man, that venue is sold out. People were like, ‘What are we going to see? Are they actually going to wrestle?’ they asked. Because they only knew us as musicians. Do you know what I’m saying? ‘Are they going to wrestle? What is this?’ And of course, man, we wrestled too, man. And I will never forget that show. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. But of course, once ICP stepped into the ring, it was all over. Do you see what I mean? We had to go everywhere. We tried to go to every major promotion out there.”

JCW’s popularity only grew from there.

Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope of Insane Clown Posse attend the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena on September 11, 2024 in Elmont, New York. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

The promotions runs a weekly Thursday night show called “Lunacy” on YouTube. It also runs a major event at the annual Juggalo carnival called Bloodymania, the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Bloodymania will take place on August 19, 20 and 21 at Mother Nature’s Riverfront Retreat in Macks Creek, Missouri.

“Man, it’s the best thing our promotion can do. JCW is Juggalo Championship Wrestling,” he told Fox News Digital. “We’re on YouTube every Thursday night at 7pm Eastern. We provide something for everyone. I guarantee you, no matter who you are, no matter where you are from in life, you’ll find something you like about JCW. That’s a fact. I challenge everyone to watch an entire episode of ‘Lunacy,’ ‘Lunacy,’ as the show is called, and see if it’s not just something you like, but something you enjoy a lot. No matter who you are, from all walks of life, to find something you really like.”

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“And Bloody Mania goes through The Gathering. This is Bloody Mania 19. This is our 19th Bloody Mania. And obviously it’s like our WrestleMania. It’s a big deal for us. It happens every year at The Gathering of the Juggalos, which is our big fan festival. And it’s like we’re at home. We’re bringing the show right home, in the middle of it all, right in the heart of it. Juggalo Nation. It’s a great feeling and we’re doing it 19.” “Even after so many times you can feel it, you can cut it.”