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Professional wrestling and comic books have always been cut from the same cloth.
Larger-than-life characters.
Bold visuals.
Long-term storytelling built on rivalries, betrayals, and emotional payoffs.
And yet, not every comic that dips its toes into wrestling actually understands why the medium works. Too often, wrestling is treated as a novelty a gimmick layered on top of a story that doesn’t respect the craft, the culture, or the psychology behind it.
That’s where this guide comes in.
In this edition of Nerdin’ Out with Chip Hazard, we’re breaking down 15 wrestling-themed comic books that truly understand the business. These aren’t rankings, and they’re not nostalgia bait. They’re comics that grasp wrestling as storytelling whether through mythic spectacle, brutal realism, backstage drama, or cultural identity.
If you’re a wrestling fan curious about comics, a comic reader fascinated by wrestling culture, or just someone who believes wrestling is more than “fake fighting,” this list is for you.
Let’s dive in.
Do a Powerbomb
If there’s one comic that feels like it was written by someone who loves wrestling with their whole heart, it’s Do a Powerbomb by Daniel Warren Johnson.
This book doesn’t waste time explaining wrestling to the reader. It assumes you already understand the language that a move isn’t just a move, it’s a sentence in a story. A powerbomb isn’t a slam. It’s emphasis. It’s punctuation.
At its core, this is a story about grief, legacy, and choosing to keep fighting even when everything hurts. Wrestling becomes ritual here a way to process loss through motion, impact, and performance.
For many fans, Do a Powerbomb isn’t just a great wrestling comic. It’s the wrestling comic.
Ringside
Where Do a Powerbomb focuses on the emotional highs of the ring, Ringside looks at what happens when the lights go down.
This series is about wrestlers on the margins veterans clinging to relevance, newcomers desperate for opportunity, and people who have built their entire identity around an industry that doesn’t always give back.
Ringside understands a painful truth about professional wrestling: the performance might be scripted, but the consequences are not.
It’s a quieter, more grounded series, but that honesty is what makes it hit so hard. If you’ve ever followed a wrestler’s career past their prime or watched someone fade from the spotlight, this book feels uncomfortably real.
Headlocked
Headlocked treats professional wrestling exactly as it should be treated: as modern mythology.
Created with direct input from wrestlers, this series understands the importance of promos, long-term rivalries, and character alignment. Heroes rise. Heels fall. Legends are built through conflict and performance.
What makes Headlocked stand out is its respect for wrestling psychology. Wins and losses matter, but the story matters more. The ring becomes a battlefield, and each feud feels like an epic in progress.
For fans who love the storytelling side of wrestling as much as the matches, this is essential reading.
The Gimmick
Wrestling gimmicks are often misunderstood by outsiders. The Gimmick knows better.
This comic leans into satire and exaggeration, but beneath the absurd characters and over-the-top personas is a sharp understanding of wrestling survival. In this business, being remembered is everything. If the crowd forgets you, you’re done.
The Gimmick laughs with wrestling, not at it, exploring how personas are created, discarded, and reinvented in the fight for relevance. It’s funny, self-aware, and far smarter than it initially appears.
The Crimson Cage
The Crimson Cage is professional wrestling filtered through Shakespearean tragedy.
A reimagining of Macbeth set in the wrestling world, this comic explores ambition, paranoia, and the destructive pursuit of being “the top guy.” The parallels feel almost too perfect wrestling has always been fertile ground for stories about ego and obsession.
This book understands that the ring doesn’t change who you are. It reveals it. And when ambition outweighs self-awareness, the fall is inevitable.
For readers who enjoy wrestling’s darker psychological edges, The Crimson Cage is a standout.
Hell Is a Squared Circle
If The Crimson Cage is tragedy, Hell Is a Squared Circle is existential horror.
This comic treats wrestling like purgatory an endless cycle of punishment, performance, and validation-seeking. Careers stagnate. Bodies break down. Characters become trapped by the personas they created.
It’s bleak by design, and that discomfort is the point. Wrestling stories aren’t always heroic, and this book refuses to romanticize the cost of staying in the game too long.
Not an easy read but an honest one.
Super Pro K.O.
After some heavy material, Super Pro K.O. brings the energy back up.
This comic is wrestling turned into pure spectacle bright colors, exaggerated heroes, and chaotic action that feels ripped straight from a Saturday morning cartoon. Logic takes a back seat to momentum, and that’s exactly why it works.
Super Pro K.O. captures the joy of discovering wrestling as a kid, when everything felt larger than life and reality didn’t matter nearly as much as excitement.
Sometimes wrestling comics don’t need to be deep. They just need to be fun.
The Nail
The Nail is one of the most grounded wrestling comics on this list.
It explores the physical and emotional toll of the business injuries, desperation, and the creeping fear of being replaced. This is wrestling as labor, not fantasy.
If you’ve followed indie wrestling or paid attention to the careers that never quite broke through, The Nail feels authentic in a way that’s hard to ignore.
This book doesn’t judge its characters. It observes them. And that honesty makes it powerful.
Over the Ropes
Wrestling doesn’t just happen in the ring. Over the Ropes understands that.
This comic focuses on the spaces between matches locker rooms, long drives, quiet conversations, and strained relationships. It’s about the life that surrounds the spectacle.
Fans who love wrestling documentaries and behind-the-scenes stories will feel right at home here. Some of the most important wrestling moments don’t happen in front of a crowd, and this book captures that truth beautifully.
GLOW
The story of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) is about far more than wrestling.
It’s about visibility.
Representation.
Carving out space in an industry that wasn’t built to accommodate you.
GLOW’s legacy matters not just in wrestling history, but in pop culture as a whole. The comics and adaptations connected to it understand that wrestling is as much about who gets to be seen as who wins the match.
This is an essential read for understanding wrestling’s cultural impact.
The Masked Macher
Few symbols in wrestling are as powerful as the mask.
The Masked Macher explores identity through that lens, examining who we are in performance versus who we are privately. In wrestling, the mask doesn’t hide the truth it sharpens it.
This comic understands why masked wrestlers resonate so deeply with fans. The mask isn’t an escape. It’s a focus point.
Big Daddy Danger
Big Daddy Danger is unapologetically loud.
This comic embraces excess big personalities, big violence, and big moments and never tries to tone itself down. Wrestling has always thrived on controlled chaos, and this book leans into that energy fully.
Not every wrestling story needs subtlety. Some are meant to hit like a steel chair.
Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain
Love him or hate him, Jim Cornette knows wrestling.
Behind the Curtain dives into the business side of the industry backstage politics, power struggles, and the decisions that fans argue about endlessly. This is wrestling as industry rather than fantasy.
For readers fascinated by booking, creative control, and behind-the-scenes drama, this comic offers a perspective rarely explored in depth.
Love & Rockets
Love & Rockets isn’t a wrestling comic but wrestling runs through it like a heartbeat.
Lucha libre exists here as culture, not spectacle. It’s background noise, identity, and shared language. This is how wrestling lives in the real world not always front and center, but always present.
Few comics have captured wrestling’s place in everyday life as honestly as this one.
Whoa, Nellie!
Rounding out the list is Whoa, Nellie!, a comic that celebrates wrestling’s absurdity without mocking it.
Big characters.
Melodrama.
Theatrical excess.
This book understands that wrestling shines brightest when it commits fully to what it is, ridiculous, emotional, and unforgettable.
Final Thoughts
What ties these wrestling comics together isn’t genre or tone.
It’s respect.
They respect wrestling as storytelling.
They respect the audience’s emotional investment.
They understand that wrestling isn’t about realism, it’s about meaning.
A punch matters because of who throws it.
A betrayal hurts because of history.
A comeback works because we waited.
Different medium.
Same soul.
If you’re looking to explore professional wrestling beyond the ring, these 15 comics are a perfect place to start.
And if you want deeper discussion, personal commentary, and a fan-first breakdown of why these stories hit so hard, this episode has a companion video on Nerdin’ Out with Chip Hazard that dives even further into the crossover between wrestling and comics.
Now I want to hear from you.
Which wrestling-themed comic is your favorite?
And which wrestler deserves their own comic series next?
For more comic book breakdowns, countdowns, and deep dives, keep nerdin’ out with Chip Hazard.
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