Archived Discussion Main / Kayfabe

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Po8: My father was a general surgeon, and treated a well-known professional wrestler on several occasions. This guy was a champion wrestler in college (where wrestling is undeniably "real") and was quite open about what was going on in the sport. This wrestler was in better physical shape than an Olympic weightlifter or marathon runner, more graceful than most dancers, and smart enough to do anything he wanted for a living. Dad had nothing but respect for him, and was proud to have treated him.

Sure, pro wrestling is "fake" in the sense that it is heavily scripted (although the scripting was much lighter thirty or forty years ago), many of the dramatic moves are impossible (no one hit hard over the head with a steel chair for real walks away from it), and the wrestlers adopt cartoonish personas. At the same time, professional wrestlers are amazing athletes (you try picking up a 250 pound guy and whirling him around over your head while he flails around sometime) and many of the standard moves are for real.

While I abhor what pro wrestling has evolved into, when I think of Andre the Giant wrestling Dutch Savage in the Portland Wrestling of my youth I still have respect for this "kayfabe" sport as a professional sport.

Daibhid C: Good point. I think of professional wrestling as being like TV or film stunt-work; it requires skill and a lot of training, and is potentially dangerous, and the fact it's "not real" has nothing to do with this.

Di Mono: I seem to recall seeing in a television special that some newspaper writer got drunk and accidentally published the next day's wrestling results in the paper, which was when the penny dropped for most people about wrestling being fake. If anyone remembers the date or the name of the paper, it should probably be added to this article.

George TSLC: 1. Di Mono's story sounds like an "urban legend" to me, but Snopes.com doesn't list it. 2. Snope's also informs us that George Carlin did not originate the Bad-American claim that "I know pro wrestling is fake but I still think the Rock could kick my butt,"—which claim which the first two commentators here corroborate. 3. In the multi-part pro-wrestling expose run on TV a few years ago, the only thing that shocked me was that the promoters were giving out amateurishly hand-lettered signs for the audience to hold up, rather than depend on their bringing their own.

HeartBurn Kid: Yeah, that doesn't actually happen. I know, I've been to quite a few shows, and I usually do up my own signs. In fact, quite the opposite, they often have security double as "sign police" to take away signs that might get them in trouble with the FCC and/or promote something they don't want to promote (like a rival company). The closest thing I can think of to that whole thing is that, during Al Snow's run in ECW, they used to give the fans styrofoam heads (the ones you get at barber supply shops) so they could wave them during Al's entrance.

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