The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of The University of Scranton.
Ever since I was a little girl, I can remember World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) being on my TV. My dad grew up watching it with his own father back in the ’80s, so it only made sense that he’d watch it with his two daughters. My sister and I used to play with our wrestler action figures and our Barbies, creating wild storylines where glam met body slam. We would look forward to watching WWE every Monday and Thursday night and getting to stay up a little later when there was a pay-per-view on Sundays. My parents even surprised us by taking us to a live show.
While I genuinely loved watching wrestling as a little girl, I remember bringing it up at school and getting strange looks from the boys; they thought it was weird that I liked something they were into. So, as I grew older, I stopped watching it as much. As a middle schooler, I got really into RuPaul’s Drag Race. I loved learning about queer culture, seeing the amazing fashion, and enjoying the drama. Now, as a 20-year-old woman, I’ve gotten back into wrestling and am still watching Drag Race. When I tell people I’m obsessed with both professional wrestling and RuPaul’s Drag Race, I usually get raised eyebrows. The worlds of body slams and death drops have way more in common than you’d think. Underneath all the glam and grit, both are about performance, storytelling, and identity.
Whether you’re in the ring or on the runway, you’re playing a character. Wrestlers have their gimmicks (think John Cena’s hero or The Undertaker’s dark, gothic mystery). Drag queens? They’ve got names, alter egos, and entire aesthetics and concepts they’ve created. It’s all about commitment to the bit. In wrestling, there’s a concept called “kayfabe,” the idea that the storyline is “real” and must be upheld both on and off stage. That’s not far off from the way queens stay in character throughout challenges, confessionals, and interviews. In wrestling, you’re either a good guy or a bad guy, and I’d be lying if I said the same didn’t go for Drag Race. Both worlds rely on crafting a persona that audiences can fall in love with, or hate.
On top of that, both wrestling and drag are deeply physical art forms. Wrestlers train and put their bodies through so much; drag performers rehearse high-energy dance numbers and lip-sync battles. There’s choreography, risk, and a need to completely command the stage, or the ring. Think of a dramatic WrestleMania entrance and compare it to a fashion queen walking the runway in full neon realness. The energy is the same: bold, commanding, and unforgettable.
But what really ties these two worlds together is the drama, the storytelling that hooks fans and keeps them coming back. The best moments in wrestling and drag aren’t just about who wins. They’re about feuds, betrayals, and epic comebacks. Sasha Banks vs. Bayley? Alyssa Edwards vs. Coco Montrese? These rivalries are filled with tension and emotional stakes. We, as the audience, watch not just to be entertained, but to feel something.
At their core, both drag and wrestling are spaces where identity and power get pushed to the forefront. Wrestling often exaggerates traditional masculinity, turning it into a performance. Drag, meanwhile, reclaims and celebrates femininity and queerness. They might look like opposites, but both allow performers to explore, subvert, and play with societal norms. Both wrestling and drag, at their core, are great examples of gender performance. Both highlight gender not as something innate, but as something stylized and performed. They are living proof of what theorist Judith Butler argued: that gender is not something we are, it is something we do. Whether it’s a queen strutting the runway in full glam or a wrestler flexing in the ring, both are using costume, movement, and persona to tell a gendered story.
So, yeah, wrestling and drag might seem like opposites, but they’re just two sides of the same glittery, sweaty coin. You’d find more fans of both shows than you’d think. The wrestling-to-drag pipeline is quite common, and both are interests that fans can be deeply passionate about. Both take guts and a willingness to put yourself out there for an audience. And in the end, they both teach us how to fight: for a championship, a crown, or even representation.