The Insurgent
Jonathan Bacchus
LEGAL NAME
Jonathan Parker Backus
NICKNAME(S)
Johnny, “The Clown Prince of Toon World”, The Rascal King
HEIGHT/WEIGHT
5’11”/205 lbs
BILLED FROM
Oakland, CA
D.O.B
04/01/1998
HOMETOWN
Orinda, CA
PIC BASE
Gerard Way/Noah Sebastian (Occasionally)
ALIGNMENT
Tweener
MANAGER(S)
Occasionally Grace Leary. Occasionally.
AFFILIATION(S)
V.L.I. (aka Insurgentsia) – A tag team consisting of himself and Ashley Blake Grace Leary, occasionally managed by Olive Adler.
Ruby Goldhirsch – His offscreen manager on behalf of DISRUPT Sports Management and current paramour.
PAST AFFILIATION(S)
Lissie Hope – The former girlfriend.
Triumvirate – TRIAD Strength Trials teammates
PERSONALITY
To call Johnny Bacchus a polarizing figure is an understatement. His supporters would tell you he’s a passionate, loyal, and brilliant young man who’s willing to say inconvenient truths – his detractors would call him an insufferably smug little twerp with a mouth that’s going to get him killed. But Johnny has the track record in the ring to back up his talk on the mic. And boy does he like to talk.
To an older generation, Johnny practically encapsulates everything they loathe about Gen Z. He talks in a rattle of memes, pop culture references, lyric quotations, and absurdist imagery – he wears his radical politics on his sleeve – he’s irreverent, disrespectful, and petulant. Yet, it’s difficult to deny his heart seems to be in the right place. He’ll make a principled stand even if unpopular, and he’ll double down in the face of criticism. The real question is how much scrutiny and adversity can he endure before he buckles under it.
CURRENT ACCOLADE(S)
Fight! Empire Champion
ENTRANCE THEME
"The Gnashing” by Deafheaven
ENTRANCE DESCRIPTION
The camera focuses on the stage as the lights cut and “The Gnashing” by Deafheaven begins to play over the P.A. The guitar seems to shimmer over the crowd as muffled as white lights flash like sparks around the floor. A name appears on the tron: Jonathan Bacchus.
Buried secrets, mythic meanings
In a tender ocean spilling
The crowd gives an appreciative pop as the out from behind the curtain walks Jonathan Bacchus, dressed in all black with a peacoat over a turtleneck and combat pants bloused into his Louboutin sneakers. He wears a white Thalia mask over his face, his hair hanging down over the top.
A leaking thimble flowing fragile
Oozing tension into blue
He marches down deliberately, his eyes on the ring. On the ramp, he removes the Thalia mask and flicks it casually over his shoulder into the crowd. Stitches can be seen on his face – under his chin and across his hairline – as the remnants of his ugly Tai-Pei Deathmatch at the beginning of the month.
ANNOUNCER: Making his way to the ring, from Oakland, California and weighing in at 205 lbs… he is “The Insurgent” – JONATHAN! BACCHUS!
Hear these howls hurling our present
I know what this costs us
At the base of the ring, Bacchus turns to the stairs and climbs them to the turnbuckle. With a single clean vault, he launches himself over the top rope and turns to land on the middle rope inside the ring, his peacoat seeming not to hamper his movement. As his theme song explodes into the chorus, he throws his head back and arms out, the lights flashing bright white and the audience roaring appreciatively!
Hear these howls, embrace the Gnashing
A small smirk creeps over his face as he looks around at them – yet an intensity remains in his eyes. He takes a moment to blow a few kisses to nobody in particular.
I know what this costs us
I know it’s exhausting you
He removes his peacoat and drops it to the outside before pulling his turtleneck over his head. He whips this into the crowd before dropping down to the mat, circling the ring before taking back to his corner and reclining in it.
WRESTLING STYLE
An intelligent striker with pragmatic grappling/submission chops and an uncanny Ring IQ.
STRENGTHS
-Intelligence and cunning. You don’t get into UC Berkeley straight out of high school being of average intellect. Johnny has a natural ring IQ, and he delights in mind games and little tricks to keep opponents frustrated and flustered. He’s a deliberate strategist in grinding down an opponent’s head and neck before going in for the kill.
-Speed. Johnny's very quick and very nimble. He doesn't work like a Cruiserweight, but his honed athleticism suggests this is more preference than ability.
-Excellent striker. Training while he was gone, Johnny honed his street fighter grit and know-how with technical abilities. He's got a left hand like a pistol and a kick like a shotgun.
WEAKNESSES
-Average/subaverage build for the business. While not as scrawny as he once was, Johnny’s still only 5’11 and 205 lbs. He can’t powerbomb J.J. Slayer and would probably even struggle to suplex him. If a bigger guy gets his hands on Johnny, he could easily be ragdolled.
-Petulance. Johnny’s the type that would respond to getting pummeled by blowing a raspberry, earning himself an even uglier pummeling.
-Loyalty/Messiah Complex. In a team situation, he’s willing to tag himself in, even when he’s on his last legs, to protect a teammate. He’s been the one to take the bullet in several matches.
BASIC MOVES
-Dodge
-Duck
-Dip
-Dive
-Dodge
-Punch and Kick combos
-Muay Thai elbows and knees.
-Chopblock
-Headlock takedown
-Triangle Choke
-German Suplex (and it’s pretty – Trey Bouchet taught me)
-Tornado DDT
-Jumping neck breaker
-Leg kicks
-Enziguri
-Running crossbody
-Jumping Chest Stomp
-Flapjack
-Spinebuster
-Dragon Screw
-Bulldog (occasionally off a springboard or diving)
-Armdrag
-Shotgun dropkick
-Curb Stomp (used to set up the King’s Dead)
-Sparta Kick (momentum shifter)
SIGNATURE MOVE(S)
-The Great Leap Forward – Coast 2 Coast
-Fetch The Guillotine – A slingblade variation; while catching the opponent around the neck, he wraps his arms in a Sleeper Choke as he brings the opponent to the ground. Normally he just brings them to the ground like a neckbreaker, but if Johnny is for any reason unable to hit the Tragedy at Buffalo, he’ll apply a grapevine and cinch in the Sleeper as a submission finisher.
-The Bottom of Everything – Running V-Trigger to an opponent down in the corner.
-King’s Dead – Trouble in Paradise spike kick to an opponent on all fours.
-Stealing an opponent’s finisher or signature – This is really only reserved for someone he particularly loathes or wants to disrespect/humiliate.
FINISHING MOVE(S)
-The Tragedy at Buffalo – Gutwrench Piledriver. He can deliver this to a super heavyweight at great effort and in a highly uncontrolled manner.
-Star Platinum: The World – ????
WEAPONS
A rainbow painted baseball bat.
CURRENT ACCOLADES
Fight! Empire Champion
PAST ACCOLADES
AW Pure Champion x 1
AW Hardcore Champion x 1
AW Tag Team Champion (/w Insurgentsia) x 1
CU:LT Double Homicide Champion x 2
2023 CU:LT Killdozer Cup Winner
The SPLAT! Network Calamity Chamber Top 10
CU:LT New World Champion x 1
Blood Money 3: Arcadia Winner
NOTABLE FEUDS
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Casanova English
vs. Lissie Hope
vs. Ash Blake/Philidor Holdings LLC.
NOTABLE MATCHES
vs. Max Daemon
vs. Ash Blake
vs. Philidor Holdings
vs. Lissie Hope
vs. Matt Knox
vs. The Heart Killers
BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Backus was born and raised in the sleepy East Bay suburb of Orinda, disaffectionately called “Borinda” by its few youthful residents. Growing up, Johnny excelled in school – while never terribly athletic, he was creative and intelligent, consistently scoring in the top percentiles of his class. Of course, this was also suburbia; Johnny spent just as much time growing up in curating his natural talents as he did suppressing them to avoid being shoved in a locker and called a slur. On his weekends, he’d often take the BART train with his friends past the Oakland Hills and into Berkeley, where Johnny steeped himself in Radical Left politics and the local Punk culture during his formative teenage years. When he turned 16-years-old, he formally came out as Queer.
But suburbia eats its young, even in the nominally progressive Bay Area of California. Upon their coming out, Johnny’s first boyfriend, Cookie, was sent away by his deeply religious parents. When he returned for Christmas break, Cookie opted to become a runaway rather than return. Now a largely strung-out vagrant living on the streets of Berkeley, Cookie’s fate haunts Johnny like a specter. Nonetheless, he carried on and accepted a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley directly out of high school.
In college, Johnny majored in journalism and found himself writing for the student newspaper, the Daily Californian. He roomed with six other roommates, including his childhood friend Jenn, in an apartment over in Rockridge before deciding he didn’t care for the rigors of academic life and dropping out in his Junior year.
In the meanwhile, Johnny floated between odd jobs, never holding any for too long, and slept on the couch in the apartment living room. His radical militancy grew, and as civil disturbances rocked the city, Johnny found himself increasingly black bloc’ing alongside fellow radicals and socialist groups. During this time, he began attending local wrestling shows with his roommate “Fritterz” and soon began regularly watching wrestling on television.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Johnny did what everyone else did: begin collecting unemployment. One night, on a whim, he filled out an application for Action Wrestling so he could claim work search history – he didn’t expect to receive a call back, let alone one telling him he’d be booked and paid on a per-appearance basis. But reveling in the absurdity, Johnny bought himself a pair of wrestling boots and made his debut, even earning himself a win. He didn’t expect it to be the start of a fruitful career.
Within a few weeks of his debut, Johnny found himself in a match for the AW Pure Championship Title, a division built on MMA-style rules and combat. Though utterly untrained and inexperience, a combination of tenacity and cunning allowed him to pick up the belt, and he spent most of the year zealously defending it by hook or crook. At Evolution IV, he faced off with then AW Hardcore Champion, CJ Phoenix, in a Champion vs. Champion match and found himself uniting the titles. As a consecutive reign, Johnny found himself the third longest reigning AW singles champion of all time.
His reign came to an end at the hands of Philidor Holdings, a sinister financial conglomerate who’d sponsored several wrestlers in AW and had constricting the company with their tendrils for over the past year. Involved in a bitter and emotional fight with his former idol, Lissie Hope, Johnny was soon forced to face off against the team leader of Philidor herself, Ashley Blake. Though Johnny battered and even crippled his foe, the numbers game of Philidor and its seemingly inhuman overseer, Samson Saltair, beat Johnny into submission, dragging Ash bleeding and beaten over his near lifeless body. For some, the story would end there, for Johnny, it was the beginning.
In spite of his injuries, Johnny led an assault on Philidor later that very night. And over the next weeks, he’d assemble a small phalanx of fellow wrestlers to directly confront the group and bring the fight to them. He may have lost his title, but at Hellimination, Johnny’s team swept the Philidor team and drove them into disarray, splintering the group. To protect him from Philidor retaliation, Lissie Hope willingly turned on the group and dragged Johnny to safety. The rest went into hiding or found themselves people without a country.
Johnny suffered an ankle sprain that robbed him of the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. He returned to compete unsuccessfully in a ladder match to crown the number one contender, coming within a fingertip of securing the briefcase before being felled by the match’s ultimate winner, Corey Black. He soon turned his sights towards a war of attrition against Regan Voorhees, bringing himself into the ire of her team, Affluenza. With the odds and numbers against him, Johnny revealed a trick up his sleeve:
A shocking alliance formed with the former spokesperson of Philidor Holdings, Ash Blake.
Johnny’s seeming deal with the devil sent shockwaves through Action Wrestling, with many accusing him of gross moral compromise, hypocrisy, and perhaps outright deceit. Though his reputation as an unambiguously good champion of the company was seemingly stained, he refused to explain or dismiss the collaboration. At Evolution V, the duo revealed their united title of Insurgentsia and went to war for the AW Tag Team Championships, where once more Johnny found himself a fingertip away from victory before being felled from the ladder by the match’s ultimate winners, The Swallowing.
Johnny’s motivations and agenda remain a mystery. The dourness he’d begun to cultivate in AW seems to have dissipated in favor of a darker spin on the impish trickster persona he wore earlier in his career. But this wouldn’t be out of character for Johnny – if there’s one thing the self-proclaimed Rascal King and Insurgent has always been, it’s unpredictable.
WHAT THE KIDS ARE SAYING
-“Way bigger than I expected! Pleasantly surprised!” – Vhodka Black
-”You’re like the weird eccentric big brother I’ve never had.” – Serenity Holmes
-"Punk motherfucker can't even deadlift Odin Balfore like I did." – Alice Gemini
-“I THOUGHT HE WAS SHORTER” – Vhodka Black
-“Johnny’s got the talent and drive to change wrestling.” – Trey Bouchet
-"Absolute piece of shit human being who is ten times the person I will ever be." – Max Daemon
-“He has the softest hands of anyone I’ve ever met.” – Ruby Goldhirsch
-“He’s a scrappy little f*cker, but he’s aight.” – Buster Gloves
-"If he put as much time into his craft as he does his hair, he'd be unstoppable." – Tatiana Jolee
-“He's a royal pain in the ass, but if I was in a dark alley with any of my enemies, I'd trust him to have my back.” – Alexandra Calloway
-“You’re a little shit…” – Fred Debonair
-“Slut.” – Jacklyn Pierrot
-“Johnny Bacchus is the type of guy who wants people to send him pasta through USPS. That’s just the kind of guy he is.” – Datura
-"He's verbose and obnoxious in a way that makes me nostalgic for my early career days. Similarly, too, he backs it up. More titles will not escape this asshole with a cause." – Larry Tact
-“Many have tried to shut him up. Tried. And failed.” – Dionysus
-“Can’t even beat S.E.B. one-on-one? What a shame.” – JJ Slayer
- “One of the most talented, annoying, intense, rude, fighting, petty, incredible arse holes I have ever faced. Fuck you." – Sebastian Everett-Bryce
- “blegh.” – Corey Black