We’re coming right off one of the dullest Pay-Per-Views this year and a very strange Monday Night RAW. But all of that is further establishing that Mondays aren’t the time for wrestling, it’s Wednesdays. There’s new NXT, season 2 of Lucha Underground is in full swing with a 3rd season confirmed, and once a month, the trifecta hits all the right places and makes us all marks for a new issue of Ringside. This month is no different. The table is set and everyone is having their own dinner. What I mean to say is that all our characters are set up, and they’ve set off on their own paths that cross from time to time, depending on what time the story is being told and from whose point of view, which is something that speaks to the world of independent wrestling circuit, where everyone comes around each other at one point of another. Ringside continues to be gritty and gnarly but has one or two more twists in this issue. The conversations are prolonged, and also shows a new side of prospect wrestlers, who want to stay in the straight and narrow, whereas the old guard were just enjoying their time in the spotlight and Carpe fucking Diem. The issue keeps going back around Dan’s quest to find Teddy, and his newfound bail bonds friend who’s taken pity on Dan and helps him not get killed without getting his own hands dirty. Little does he know, the old Minotaur can still ram some motherfuckers here and there if needed.

Ringside #4 is where the story is really kicking off, although very enjoyable previous issues, there was still that air of world building in them. whereas this issue trusts the reader to know who the players are and moves forward with the story. One of the biggest complaints I kept hearing from other who read ringside was the lack of actual wrestling on the book, which is a fair point, given the covers have in-ring action in them, but the title itself tells it all. This is about everything that happens outside the ring, and the crazy life the people who run inside it have. I would definitely like to see Barber and Gough take a couple of their characters through Suplex City, but I’m very much ok with the level of violence in the book already.

Ringside #4 is a sure buy for those who love wrestling and continues to show that there are more options out there than being forced to watch some guy bathed in baby oil punching people with the supposed strength of a famous DC character.

Score: 4/5

Ringside #4 Writer: Joe Keatinge Artist: Nick Barber and Simon Gough Publisher: Image Comics Price: $3.50 Release Date: 2/24/16 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital