What follows is one of the many articles in the Mercury‘s 2026 Queer Issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.
Violence is never the answer.
Well, “never” is a strong word. Surely violence has some value in revolution, art, and myth? The world is a brutal and chaotic place—certainly a peaceful person can, once in a while, have a bit of violence as a treat? Professional wrestling is a collaborative, performance-based storytelling medium rooted in the spectacle of violence as sport. It’s also deeply and profoundly queer.
Fellow queers are forgiven if, presently, they have an image in their head of wrestling as the peak of toxic masculinity. And if there’s one thing queer people love, it’s selecting a niche corner of pop culture and extolling it as subtextually queer. One needs only to visit one of Portland’s many zine fairs to find a litany of essays with titles like “Queer Archetypes in Star Wars” or “Queering Quahog: Lionization of Othered Voices in Family Guy.” That’s not where we’re going here. I come to you today with wonderful news: wrestling is queer in a much more explicit way, no reaching, liberal-arts pedantry required. I am speaking of wrestling as queer text, no bullshit, subtext be damned. If you are queer and skeptical, read on.
Round one: Let’s address some preconceptions. “Wrestling is fake, right?” Yes… well sort of. “Why would I watch something that was fake?” I don’t know… why watch The Pitt? Why read Pride and Prejudice? Wrestling isn’t fake, it’s fixed. Yes, the outcome of any given match is predetermined. However, wrestlers take real hits, and those risks and beatings are authentic in the telling of their story. Think of it less as the least real form of sport and more as the most real form of fiction. No one watching believes it’s real and no one is trying to trick you.
The power of myth is more in the telling than the believing. New viewers may be put off by how hard both the performers and the audience are committing to the verisimilitude of the show. Some may even call it cringe (the bluntest cudgel of the contemporary bully and the easiest way to avoid engaging with a work of art on its own terms). Instead let us consider another C-word that should be quite familiar to queer audiences: Wrestling is camp. And as any seasoned drag performer will tell you, the only way to pull off camp is full commitment, hand on the throttle, don’t look down.
Pro tip: don’t let your thinking get pinned to the mat with stereotypes. Take the demographic that is the pro wrestling fan: Many people may have an image in their heads of a jeering, middle-aged straight man with bad body odor and worse politics. If this is where your mind went, you may have some internalized classism to examine. Wrestling is theater for the working class. It’s easy for an educated and urbane Portlander to think of the working and middle-class American as closed-minded and not able to fully understand nuanced art. As someone who grew up in the Midwest, I can tell you this simply isn’t the case. Wrestling fandom is one of the most inclusive and diverse spaces in both sports and entertainment. I’m taken, for example, by just how many trans people I see when I go to a wrestling show. (Big surprise that trans women flock to a subculture with body spectacle/body horror as a primary component.)
Fact: a major draw for queer people to wrestling is the sheer amount of representation.
Let’s look at All Elite Wrestling (AEW), the second biggest wrestling company in the world that sells out arenas worldwide and has major mainstream TV exposure. AEW has featured: several queer women champions, including Toni Storm (whose Gloria Swanson-inspired character would make even the most traditional Manhattan drag queen gag), nonbinary trios champion Speedball Mike Bailey (who shows feet on main if that’s your thing), plus a trans women’s champion, a gay men’s tag champion, and even a bisexual men’s world champion. I challenge you to show me a mainstream sport with that number of queer athletes—not just competing, but dominating at the top of their field. There are, in fact, so many queer wrestlers working today that Outsports puts out an annual ranking of the top 200 queer wrestlers of that year.
The history of
pro wrestling in America is a muscle-bound, greased-up reflection of the history of queer art
in the past century.
Wrestling is also drag. You heard me correctly, I didn’t say wrestling bears resemblance to drag, I didn’t say that drag and wrestling are comprised of similar material components, I said that wrestling IS drag. A physical performance of gender tropes and character using song, costume, choreography, and improv, the two art forms are at times indistinguishable. You could take any single wrestling performance and evaluate it as a drag performance, just as you could similarly take any drag performance and evaluate it as wrestling. You would be 100 percent valid in both cases.
The history of pro wrestling in America is a muscle-bound, greased-up reflection of the history of queer art in the past century. Art historian David Getsy once said, “Artists who identify their practices as queer today call forth utopian and dystopian alternatives to the ordinary, adopt outlaw stances, embrace criminality and opacity, and forge unprecedented kinships.” Wrestling as an art form was first practiced at carnivals, with outlaw mud shows under the same circus tent as freakshows and contortionists. In the 1920s, rough-neck carneys were laying the groundwork for what would become modern professional wrestling at the same time the “pansy craze” in the speakeasies of New York was giving rise to the first drag queens. Queer art has always fermented at the fringes of society. Wrestling was born in the same back alleys, basements, and abandoned buildings that have served as incubators and Petri dishes for dozens of queer art movements. And while most people today may only be familiar with its most polished, mainstream, and sanitized version (ahem, WWE), there are still hundreds of smaller wrestling companies around the country making cutting edge art in the grand fringe tradition of indie wrestling.
There are several such companies here in the Portland area, such as Oregon Pro Wrestling, Metalmania, POW, and Inclusion Pro Wrestling. However, few companies embody this outlaw spirit like DOA. Founded in Portland in 2008, DOA (Don’t Own Anyone) has always managed to keep storytelling in the forefront of their shows. With a rotating roster of up and coming local talent as well as national stars, DOA rewards its returning audience members with satisfying long term story arcs while still remaining accessible to first time fans. Not to mention they also have a TON of kick-ass queer talent. At the time of this writing, their current grand champion is a nonbinary pop punk, manic-pixie-dream babe, AKA the Weirdo Hero: Randy Myers. Randy blends the raw charisma and physical dynamism of James Brown in his prime with the wide-eyed childlike whimsy of Pee-wee Herman. Other queer standouts on the roster are local heavy hitter Amira and high-flying heart throb Zaye Perez.
Then there’s House of Danger. HOD is a “backyard fed,” a term often used pejoratively to describe a group of self-taught performers with no formal training. HOD features an entirely queer roster, and what it lacks in pedigree and experience, it makes up for in ambition and chaos. Less of a true wrestling event and more of an antagonistic alt-comedy variety show that features some wrestling, HOD strives to reconnect wrestling with its freak show carnie past. In addition to wrestling matches, one can expect to see drag, burlesque, music, magic, and the occasional demonic ritual. They’ve also hired a silver-tongued and distractingly attractive comedian named Riley McCarthy (yours truly) to be their ring announcer and play-by-play commentator (YES, I’m getting paid a bonus to write this).
With the multitude of entertainment options at our disposal as Portlanders, one can experience near-terminal levels of FOMO. With hundreds of events fighting for your attention, peace of mind can feel out of reach. And with Pride Month now at hand, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choices. It’s my hope that after reading this you might, if only just once, choose violence. Because when queers need a good time, sometimes violence is the answer.
The next DOA event is Come Out and Play on June 13 at the Jackson Armory. Information about all wrestling companies mentioned can be found on Instagram @doaprowrestling,
@houseofdangerwrestling, @oregon_pro_wrestling, @metalmaniapdx, @pow_pro_wrestling, @inclusionprowrestling
Riley McCarthy is an award-winning stand up comic, writer, and artist currently based in Portland. Their full schedule of stand up gigs can be found every month on Instagram @Rileycandunk.