Undisputed #1 and the world of Hack Halloway
A special look at a pro wrestling comic book series
This post is brought to you by Undisputed, a pro wrestling comic book by P.J. Curling. Available now from pjcurling.me.
Setting: Arena De Combate Nacional
Location: Quintana Roo, Mexico
The sold-out crowd gleefully counts in unison with each punch that Hack Halloway delivers on his opponent, who is slumped against the turnbuckles in one corner of the ring.
Hack is feeling the energy of the crowd and senses his opponent, Tigre Negro, is ripe for the pin. Hack whips Tigre across the ring and follows right after him at an urgent pace. When Tigre crashes into the opposite turnbuckle corner back first, Hack is right there near him and leaps forward to perfectly time a hard knee to the stomach.
“Hack is gonna kill you,” sings the crowd, repeating the line several times.
Tigre has a sudden surge of energy and comes at Hack. The two lock up, and Tigre gains brief control when he puts a wrist lock on Hack.
Hack immediately reverses the hold and in a smooth sequence pulls Tigre down to the mat for a two count.
They rise to their feet simultaneously and it is Tigre Negro who makes the first move, bouncing himself off the ropes and coming right at Hack.
However, Hack is ready, and he leap frogs Tigre before any intended offensive maneuver can be delivered. Tigre ducks Hack’s punch on the next rebound off the ropes and comes right back at Hack but is caught with a running knee to the face.
Hack turns away from his opponent and flexes his biceps for the crowd.
It’s a rare tactical mistake on his part.
Tigre pops and rolls Hack up from behind for the three count, bringing an abrupt feeling end to the fierce match.
The crowd falls silent. Hack Halloway has been pinned and has lost his title.
Tigre Negro is announced as new Consejo Deportivo Lucha Libre Campeonato Nacional champion.
The silence is broken by a singular fan who yells, ”Thank you, Hack”. It’s in appreciation of both this match and the quality of the collective matches Hack has delivered to the fans over the years.
Hack gazes out at the crowd with a weary look. Then he sits down in the middle of the ring.
The crowd somehow senses what is about to happen and so begins the chant, “Please don’t go.”
But there’s no stopping Hack’s next action.
Hack removes his wrestling boots and leaves them in the center of the ring.
It’s the symbolic gesture of a professional wrestler retiring and has been for decades. The crowd certainly didn’t see this coming as the ending when the match began.
As Hack Halloway leaves the ringside area, the last thing he hears before he walks behind the curtain are fans chanting, “We love you, Hack.”
.
Is this truly the end of Hack Halloway’s pro wrestling career?
Where can you “experience” this exciting match where Hack Halloway lost his title and dramatically removed his wrestling boots afterwards center ring?
The answers to both questions are in issue #1 of P.J. Curling’s pro wrestling comic book, Undisputed.
I first became aware of Undisputed right here on Substack via reading P.J.’s posts on Notes about his comic book. I was intrigued by the premise of the comic book and liked the artwork for it that P.J. showed. I subsequently subscribed to his publication P.J. Curling Makes Comics to keep updated on the completion and release of Undisputed #1.
P.J. also subscribed to my publication The Pro Wrestling Exuberant and commented on a few of the posts that I wrote about ‘80s pro wrestling stars.
Then after he read my very personal post on ‘80s star King Kong Bundy, King Kong Bundy Flashbacks, P.J. contacted me to discuss an idea he had to create an anthology with fiction pieces about the world of Hack Halloway and Undisputed. He intended to present the anthology in the stylistic format of pro wrestling newsletters as they were in the medium’s ‘80s heyday.
The anthology, P.J. explained, would be an extra for people who purchased the digital version of his comic, Undisputed #1.
He asked me if I would be interested in writing one of the pieces for the anthology and sent me a copy of the comic book script that he wrote for Undisputed #1 so I could get a better sense of the main character, Hack Halloway. I liked the script a lot and the character really came to life for me as I read the script because P.J. so skillfully crafted him with a lot of attention to detail.
For my contribution to the anthology we discussed several ideas, including a storyline that involved Hack in a real-life mid ‘80s wrestling promotion, but we ultimately settled on the idea of a piece about a pro wrestling magazine reporter following Hack around to a few matches he had on a territory circuit, as if it were the ‘80s. The piece would consist of the reporter writing journal entries about what he saw occur at the different venues, both in the locker-room and in the ring.
I had a blast writing this first-person narrative fiction piece, as it was the first work of fiction I wrote in over a decade. It was creatively fulfilling weaving into the story things I had witnessed as a pro wrestling referee three decades ago, as much of the backstage drama portions of the piece were based on real events. I just changed a few details, like the names of the wrestlers, and inserted Hack into the main conflicts.
When I was in the early process of writing the fiction piece, P.J. sent me a copy of the finished digital version of Undisputed.
The comic was very enjoyable to me as a longtime pro wrestling fan, not just the art, which is fantastic, but also the written narrative for the story itself and how Hack and the other characters are introduced and developed in that first issue.
I was able to capture Hack's persona in my fiction piece precisely because of how richly he was developed in issue #1 of the comic.
The anthology can currently be downloaded from the QR code on the inside cover of Undisputed #1. My contribution is titled, '“On the Road with Hack Holloway”.
The inspiration behind Undisputed
The inspiration for Undisputed came from a common ‘80s action movie storyline. For P.J. as the writer, it was the idea for the general story concept that came first conceptually before he created the main character of Hack Halloway.
He explains, “I wanted to do my version of the 80s action movie plot of grizzled good guy fighter who wants to get out of the game and an evil promoter brings him back in for one more fight.
I think people will know the story pretty much right away. It's about how far is this promoter willing to push, and how far is this good guy willing to get pushed before he fights back. It's a pretty common story arc, but I've never seen it told through the filter of lucha libre and pro wrestling.”
While there are several pro wrestling themed comics that have been created in recent years, P.J. sought to do something a little different with the genre.
“I think Undisputed is the first pro wrestling themed comic to incorporate kayfabe into the wrestling universe the story exists in. We allude to fights being worked, and "doing business" and kayfabe, but we try to raise the "real world" stakes suitably so that there is real drama going into the blow-off match of the story,” said P.J.
He describes the premise of Undisputed as a blend of Lucha Underground and Heels.
Lucha Underground was a unique mid to late 2010s pro wrestling promotion that blended slick camerawork, matches with colorful characters, frequent supernatural story themes and intricate “backstage” scenes that flowed into the in-ring action.
It had the feel and production values of a dramatic TV show in a wrestling setting, with all of the in-ring action taking place at singular studio “arena”, in front of a relatively small, but rapid, crowd. The venue was designed to look like a grungy club.
The TV show Heels was a drama about pro wrestling that aired on Starz for two seasons from 2021 through 2023. The premise centered around two brothers who were pro wrestlers and sought control of their father’s wrestling promotion.
“The storyline of Undisputed is very much an angle that you could have seen on Lucha Underground, but with a little glimpse of the backstage, behind the kayfabe of it all.”
The creative process
P.J., a longtime pro wrestling fan himself, strived to give the in-ring wrestling elements of the comic book an authentic feel, He wanted to make sure the match sequences resonated for fans as if they were seeing a comic book depiction of an actual match.
“For pro wrestling fans, specifically, I took great care to make the wrestling feel real to life. Maven Bentley, former president of Combat Zone Wrestling, is our technical wrestling advisor for this comic book. We got the wrestling correct.”
Indeed, the artwork of Undisputed wonderfully complements the captivating story, and the selection of the artists themselves was very specific for P.J.
“We have two art styles in the book.
Wedersom Arantes has a bright, celebratory style, and he's doing all the in-ring/in-arena pages, to highlight pro wrestling being bigger and brighter than real life. And those pages contrast beautifully against Francesco Iaquinta's earth tone palette, with its muddy colors showing the real world as being a little dirty & grimy.
It was a huge gamble, especially because Wedersom works analog. He's a paint on paper guy, which takes longer than usual because most artists have transitioned to digital at this point. But it's a gamble that I think pays off spectacularly.”
Hack Halloway and the element of realism
As a reader, the primary element that drew me into the comic book is the character development of Hack Halloway.
The comic book narrative voice works well with its suspension of disbelief approach that takes the same tone as if you’re watching pro wrestling on TV.
I like the element of realism to Hack, both the man and the wrestler, and he seemed as if he could have been an actual pro wrestler that I had seen on TV at some point. To that end, I suspected he was a composite of several real pro wrestlers.
“Tommy Dreamer, Sandman, Mike Quackenbush, and Brian Cage were my influences when creating Hack,” said P.J.
Sandman's nickname is Hack, and he owns a bar, Hack owns a bar.
Tommy Dreamer is the Innovator of Violence; Hack is the Purveyor of Pain.
Hack has got a huge, internationally influenced move set like Quack.
He's an American that's known for being able to work really well with luchadors like Cage.
Hack is kind of, to me, the total package. The only thing he really lacks is over the top charisma, but he has a "Stone Cold" Steve Austin kind of blue-collar anti-hero persona.”
As part of the writing process, creating a backstory for Hack was a crucial element for P.J. It helped him find the right narrative tone for his main character.
“Hack’s backstory is that he got into pro wrestling for the sport of pro wrestling, and not because he wanted to be a bigger-than-life personality. He's a hard worker and got to the top of the game through determination and grit. I think he's a very likeable and relatable kind of character,” said P.J.
The future of Undisputed
The story of Undisputed will be told over three issues. Issue #1 ends with intrigue and the introduction of what appears to be the villain for the next issue.
“We're in preproduction for issue # 2 right now,” said P.J. “I'm anticipating we'll be in production through July, getting the art done. Issue # 2 is sort of our Empire Strikes Back. It ends on a real downer, so we have to get to issue #3 to see the Spirit of '76 comeback, right?”
Issue #1 can currently be purchased digitally (as a PDF) from pjcurling.me
P.J. Curling will also be at several upcoming Comic Con shows to promote Undisputed. He announces all of his appearances on his Substack, P.J. Curling Makes Comics
You can check out the first six pages of Undisputed #1 for free by sending me a DM on Substack.
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I've debated trying to do a wrestling themed fiction world. I loved this article and can't wait to see what he does with it. Thank you both for inspiring a strange creative spot in my brain.