Wrestling and Comics: My Little Pony

Not a hoax, not an imaginary story! It's My Little Pony's EWE (Equestria Wrestling Entertainment)'s Championship Main Event!

You don't know My Little Pony? Welcome to my age group! A friend sent me the following scans from a comic book he bought for his daughter:

I was quite excited to find something that I never figured would exist: My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic #29.

MLP is a Hasbro toy line of diminutive Equus Caballus with colorful manes and distinctive tattoos (or "cutie marks").

Similar to He-Man, the toy line franchise was promoted with TV series, movies and comic books and according to Wikipedia was "moderately successful until the beginning of the 2010s when its popularity drastically exploded into previously undreamed of demographic groups such as teenage boys and adult men and women".

Adult men and women? Get a life! Why don't you start watching pro wrestling instead?

Anyhoo, this particular comic book series has been published by IWD Publishing since 2012.

I don't know much about the content of the stories, it's probably about little ponies doing what they do best, whatever that is.

Which brings us to the MLP/Wrestling crossover.

"Cherilee gets a visit from her sister who happens to be one of the most famous wrestlers in Equestria! A long-simmering grudge between the siblings threatens to explode unless Rarity and friends can figure out a way for the two to mend hurt feelings."

Not to spoil too much, but apparently, they do manage to figure out a way for the two sisters to get along again and win the championship along the way.

It's a sweet story, has really cute drawings, but if I hadn't read the title, I would have thought they were cats...

Still, really fun, if only for novelty value.

Wrestling and Cartoons: Wrestling Mishmash

This is a really cool idea. The history of (modern) wrestling on one poster!

Alex Bennett, who also created a great poster about the history of football (soccer), managed to create a poster featuring over 530 incidents and 700 characters.

The poster measures at 69cm (h) x 99cm (w), which is 27¹¹⁄₆₄in x 38³¹⁄₃₂in (thanks to www.metric-conversions.org) and you can get it signed by the artist.

I think it is a really great piece of cartooning and you can get it here: www.wrestlingmishmash.com .

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Wrestling Cartoon: The Rasslin' Match - 1934

This is the oldest wrestling cartoon I have found so far. Everything I have learned about it comes from Wikipedia, so here is the gist of it: The Rasslin' Match is a 1934 animated short film produced by the Van Beuren Studios and directed by Vernon Stallings and starring Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden as the voices of their popular radio characters, Amos 'n' Andy.


It even has an IMDB entry, but there's not much more information to be found there, either.

Of course it is racially insensitive with lots of clichés, but it is quite funny in parts and at least shows a black guy as champion decades before Bobo Brazil, Ernie Ladd, JYD, Booker T, The Rock, etc.

Let me know what you think about it!

Wrestling Comics: Superman vs Antonino Rocca

This comic really confused me. I found it at a flea market in the mid-80s and since I had been purely brought up on Vince McMahon, Jr.'s WWF (read: HulkaMania era), I had no clue who this Antonino Rocca guy was.

Rocca as a singles wrestler and in his team with Miguel Perez, of course was a top, if not THE top star of the Capital Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

His heyday was in the 50s and he actually was involved with the New York office until his death in 1977.

The comic was published in 1962, so Rocca was probably still the top guy in the eyes of the writer, as Bruno Sammartino had not yet gained his massive popularity as WWWF Champion and NWA Champ Lou Thesz was not that visible in New York.

As so many Silver Age stories, "The Downfall of Superman" is quite silly and convoluted.

In order to trick a small time criminal to reveal where he stashed some loot, Superman enlists Rocca, Krypto and several members of the Legion of Superheroes in one of the most complicated schemes ever. The crook is a big wrestling fan and when he sees that Rocca is stronger than Superman (explained at first by Mr. Mxyzptlk using magic to enhance his strength), he hires Rocca to move a boulder that had blocked the entrance to the cave where he had hidden his loot.

Turns out it wasn't really Mr. Mxyzptlk, but Krypto in disguise with his voice provided by Superman's super-ventriloquism. The two guys Rocca is juggling around are mythic strongmen Samson and Hercules, played by adult versions of Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy. And to top it all off, Rocca wasn't really stronger than Superman, because they had simply switched identities.

It won't win an Eisner Award, but it is one of the first instances combining wrestling and comic books.

The whole story can be found here.

Wrestling Cartoons and Comics

I have always been a massive fan of professional wrestling, starting to watch shortly before WrestleMania 1 and have been an even bigger fan of comic books, newspaper strips and cartoons for even longer.

I thought it would be cool to collect the instances where wrestling and comics/cartoons overlap and I will post pictures or videos, along with more in-depth explanations (where available).

The main focus will be on published work, as even though there are some fantastic examples of fan art combining comics and wrestling, quite a few are strongly in the gay bondage section (not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you find other instances of comics/cartoons/newspaper strips depicting wrestling scenes, wrestlers, or the business, please let me know.

All images are property and © their respective owners and license holders.