History Main / WorkedShoot

* Arguably originated by Wrestling/JerryLawler, Wrestling/JimmyHart, and Creator/AndyKaufman, with the long-running Lawler/Kaufman feud. Qualifies as a worked shoot because some of the stunts Kaufman and Lawler pulled, like getting into a fight on the set of David Letterman's show, managed to convince a lot of people who weren't usually fooled into believing kayfabe. This was revisited during the filming of Kaufman biopic ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', with Lawler and Creator/JimCarrey getting into a fistfight on-set. As the story was told, Carrey had gone into method-actor mode, would only answer to "Andy" on the set, and started picking fights with Lawler in order to get into Kaufman's head. This didn't spill over into the wrestling ring, unlike most worked shoots, but it did get a lot of airtime on Wrestling/{{WWE}} programming. While Carrey was doing publicity for ''Man on the Moon'', he was visited by Tony Clifton, resulting in a fight and Clifton actually urinating on scene with a [[GagPenis gag penis]]. The journalists gathered seemed to [[GenreSavvy realize that it was a worked shoot, however.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAi08eAMG6E Seen here.]] Finally, most of Kaufman's career consisted of worked shoots, like faking a British accent and reading ''The Great Gatsby'' instead of performing his comedy routine because he was "sick of your lowbrow American humor." The [[http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/fridays.htm night he hosted]] ''Fridays'' was another such moment.

* The on-screen [[NeverFoundTheBody apparent death]] of WWE chairman [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon Vince McMahon]] may have been an unintentional worked shoot. WWE was very up-front about the fact that it's only the ''character'' "Mr. [=McMahon=]" that died, and the ''real'' Vince is alive and well (though for at least a few hours WWE.com claimed that Vince was "presumed dead"), but that didn't stop some news outlets from running the story as real within a couple of days after it happened, and it didn't stopped some finance columnists from [[http://www.cnbc.com/id/19330600 all but accusing the WWE of securities fraud for faking the death of the chairman]]. The storyline was scrapped, however, when the Wrestling/ChrisBenoit incident happened, forcing [=McMahon=] out of "death" to address it.

* Wrestling/MattHardy discovered that his girlfriend [[Wrestling/{{Lita}} Amy "Lita" Dumas]] was cheating on him with fellow wrestler [[Wrestling/{{Edge}} Adam "Edge" Copeland]], and when he started to talk publicly about it, he was unceremoniously fired. After he slowly built a rabid fanbase using the sympathy from this incident on the internet, he suddenly began appearing on WWE RAW again, jumping over the barricade and attacking Edge, then being carried out by security while screaming things like, "I thought you were my friend, Johnny Ace!" (a reference to WWE executive John "Johnny Ace" Laurinaitis). Soon enough, the truth came out; Matt had been re-hired, and plans were in place for a storyline based on the problems between Matt and Edge (even though this meant {{Ret Con}}ning a year's worth of storylines in which Lita was Wrestling/{{Kane}}'s wife). To this day, fans still debate whether the infidelity that started the whole thing was work, or shoot. Realistically there's little question it was initially a shoot - WWE didn't talk about it, and you know that WWE.com would have been full of stories about it if it was a work. Note that the ''second'' Matt Hardy showed back up on Raw and bragged about it being "a shoot" on his blog, any illusion that he was acting independently was broken.

* The ECW One Night Stand 2005 pay-per-view plays it straight with one promo and subverts it with some commentary later on. The first instance was a Wrestling/RobVanDam promo where he claims he's shooting and talks about how important the night was and how to him, missing it is worse than missing ''[=WrestleMania=]''. The subverted part is during Wrestling/JoeyStyles' infamous remarks about Wrestling/MikeAwesome (calling him a "Judas" for the way he left ECW for WCW while still champ, and wishing that a [[FunnyAneurysmMoment Suicide Splash had actually killed him]]). Wrestling/MickFoley points out it's a shoot (which, as mentioned above, is typically a sign that it's a work), but Joey really did get in trouble for his comments after the show.

* An inadvertent one came during the 2015 Elimination Chamber match for the Intercontinental Title. When Sheamus was supposed to be released from his pod, the door got stuck, which visibly disrupted the match and led to wrestlers stopping and audibly directing each other as if improvising a new plan for the match. After throwing a fit for several minutes in his pod, Sheamus suddenly stops and lifts up his necklaces from the floor of his pod, as if he had deliberately gotten himself stuck in his pod.

* Vince Russo has continued to do worked shoots in TNA. One particularly atrocious worked shoot was the scene where Mick Foley goes backstage and meets Vince Russo and the writers. Foley tells them that they're doing a great job, and asks if they can write a scene where Dixie Carter returns his phone calls. Foley was clearly not happy about having to break the fourth wall in this fashion.

* In 1957, The NWA ran an angle where several member promotions took different sides in a dispute over whether Wrestling/LouThesz or Édouard Carpentier had won a match for the World Heavyweight Title. This was supposed to be building to a big match but then Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn left the alliance, leading to NWA President Sam Muchnick declaring Thesz the official winner, ending the "dispute".

** {{Worked Shoot}}s were somewhat endemic to Japanese professional wrestling. First, there was Wrestling/AntonioInoki, who won a series of (fake) shoot fights with fighters of various martial arts disciplines (and drew a real fight with Muhammad Ali, doing serious damage to Ali's legs in the process despite goofy restrictions on his side.[[note]]Ali was under the understanding that the match would be a work, and only found out 15 minutes before bell time that Inoki had planned on fighting for real - the rules were then cobbled together in that 15 minutes before the match started. One of them was that Inoki could only throw kicks if one knee was in contact with the ground, leading to a surreal fight where Inoki lied on his back and kicked Ali's legs a lot.[[/note]]) Then in the 1980s, several wrestlers in Inoki's New Japan promotion with real martial arts backgrounds felt that they were being forced to lose to inferior opponents. Two of them ([[Wrestling/SatoruSayama Satoru "Tiger Mask" Sayama]] and Wrestling/AkiraMaeda) formed the UWF, which was the first shootwrestling promotion. The shootwrestlers eventually made their way back to the mainstream promotions, and New Japan to this day still has a heavy emphasis on matwork and submissions due to their influence (and almost all major promotions in Japan go to clean finishes for the same reason). Several promotions down the line, shootwrestlers such as Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki and Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki felt they were being forced to lose to inferior opponents, and formed Pancrase, which did away with the whole predetermined outcome thing, and set the stage for Japan's next cultural fad (and America's MMA PPV phenomenon.)

* Ring Of Honor also ran angles involving CM Punk and [[Wrestling/SethRollins Tyler Black]] threatening to take the Ring Of Honor World Heavyweight Championship with them to WWE. This was also done in Full Impact Pro, only in this case the threat was to take the Florida Heritage Championship [[ComicallyMissingThePoint to Japan.]]

This can be applied to entire matches and promotions. Japanese wrestling once had a tradition to stage "shoot fights", but most of them were actually worked matches with many degrees of realism. Years after, the promotions who followed the "shoot-style" movement featured matches designed to look like UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts bouts, and many of them put actual MMA fights into their cards to blur the lines between kayfabe and reality. Even outside of Japan, the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} World Wrestling Federation]] had a similar system of real fights called Brawl for All.

The same trope can be applied to entire matches and promotions. Japanese wrestling once had a tradition to stage "shoot fights", but most of them were actually worked matches with many degrees of realism. Years after, the promotions who followed the "shoot-style" movement featured matches designed to look like UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts bouts, and many of them put actual MMA fights into their cards to blur the lines between kayfabe and reality. Even outside of Japan, the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} World Wrestling Federation]] had a similar system of real fights called Brawl for All.

* Wrestling/CMPunk's on-screen feud with Wrestling/JohnCena and off-screen contract squabbles in the summer of 2011 were turned into one giant worked shoot. After declaring he was leaving WWE on TV, he then cut a promo where he bashed WWE for being MerchandiseDriven and firing his friends like Wrestling/ColtCabana[[note]]Cabana had had a brief, unsuccesful run as Scotty Goldman[[/note]]; he was promptly "suspended" for his words, only to be reinstated the following week at Cena's request (WWE actually announced the reinstatement five days earlier, possibly to suggest further that the suspension was real). Punk then beat Cena at Money in the Bank and ran out with the WWE Championship, only to keep popping up at WWE promotional events, inciting smarks in the area and daring new WWE head Triple H to hire him back. Sure enough, once the WWE appointed a "new" WWE Champion, a re-hired Punk appeared on ''Raw'' to challenge with the old belt.

* Arguably originated by Wrestling/JerryLawler, Wrestling/JimmyHart, and Creator/AndyKaufman, with the long-running Lawler/Kaufman feud. Qualifies as a worked shoot because some of the stunts Kaufman and Lawler pulled (like getting into a fight on the set of David Letterman's show) managed to convince a lot of people who weren't usually fooled into believing kayfabe.
** This was revisited during the filming of Kaufman biopic ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'', with Lawler and Creator/JimCarrey getting into a fistfight on-set. As the story was told, Carrey had gone into method-actor mode, would only answer to "Andy" on the set, and started picking fights with Lawler in order to get into Kaufman's head. This didn't spill over into the wrestling ring, unlike most worked shoots, but it did get a lot of airtime on Wrestling/{{WWE}} programming.
*** While Carrey was doing publicity for ''Man on the Moon'', he was visited by Tony Clifton, resulting in a fight and Clifton actually urinating on scene with a [[GagPenis gag penis]]. The journalists gathered seemed to [[GenreSavvy realize that it was a worked shoot, however.]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAi08eAMG6E Seen here.]]
** Really, most of Kaufman's career consisted of worked shoots, like faking a British accent and reading ''The Great Gatsby'' instead of performing his comedy routine because he was "sick of your lowbrow American humor." The [[http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/fridays.htm night he hosted]] ''Fridays'' was another such moment.

* Wrestling/CMPunk's on-screen feud with Wrestling/JohnCena and off-screen contract squabbles in the summer of 2011 were turned into one giant worked shoot. After declaring he was leaving Wrestling/{{WWE}} on TV, he then cut a promo where he bashed WWE for being MerchandiseDriven and firing his friends like Wrestling/ColtCabana[[note]]Cabana had had a brief, unsuccesful run as Scotty Goldman[[/note]]; he was promptly "suspended" for his words, only to be reinstated the following week at Cena's request (WWE actually announced the reinstatement five days earlier, possibly to suggest further that the suspension was real). Punk then beat Cena at Money in the Bank and ran out with the WWE Championship, only to keep popping up at WWE promotional events, inciting smarks in the area and daring new WWE head Triple H to hire him back. Sure enough, once the WWE appointed a "new" WWE Champion, a re-hired Punk appeared on ''Raw'' to challenge with the old belt.

* The worst-ever Worked Shoot for WCW though was when the ''company itself starting shooting on itself'', complete with the user of insider terms during the show, example Kevin Nash and Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} cutting "shoot" promos and the commentators acting like it's a shoot, or rather explicit mentions of predetermined match finishes ''on purpose while the cameras are still rolling during the show''. Unsurprisingly, this came at a time when Wrestling/VinceRusso was writing for WCW. The stupidity culminated at the wretched New Blood Rising show, where WCW promoted a match between Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Wrestling/ScottSteiner who were going to have a "real fight". Midway through the match, Goldberg "stopped co-operating" and walked out on the match, with the announcers criticizing his lack of professionalism. Nash and Steiner then proceeded to "improvise" a finish, with the announcers praising how professional they were. Soon after, they ran Fall Brawl promos talking about how Goldberg [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cZtuwjdPJU "refused to follow the script"]]. And you wonder why WCW was out of business less than a year later.

* Wrestling/CMPunk's on-screen feud with Wrestling/JohnCena and off-screen contract squabbles in the summer of 2011 were turned into one giant worked shoot. After declaring he was leaving WWE on TV, he then cut a promo where he bashed WWE for being MerchandiseDriven and firing his friends like Wrestling/ColtCabana[[note]]Cabana had had a brief, unsuccesful run as Scotty Goldman[[/note]]; he was promptly "suspended" for his words, only to be reinstated the following week at Cena's request. (WWE actually announced the reinstatement five days earlier, possibly to suggest further that the suspension was real). Punk then beat Cena at Money in the Bank and ran out with the WWE Championship, only to keep popping up at WWE promotional events, inciting smarks in the area and daring new WWE head Triple H to hire him back. Sure enough, once the WWE appointed a "new" WWE Champion, a re-hired Punk appeared on ''Raw'' to challenge with the old belt.

* The on-screen [[NeverFoundTheBody apparent death]] of Wrestling/{{WWE}} chairman [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon Vince McMahon]] may have been an unintentional worked shoot. WWE was very up-front about the fact that it's only the ''character'' "Mr. [=McMahon=]" that died, and the ''real'' Vince is alive and well (though for at least a few hours WWE.com claimed that Vince was "presumed dead"), but that didn't stop some news outlets from running the story as real within a couple of days after it happened, and it didn't stopped some finance columnists from [[http://www.cnbc.com/id/19330600 all but accusing the WWE of securities fraud for faking the death of the chairman]]. The storyline was scrapped, however, when the Wrestling/ChrisBenoit incident happened, forcing [=McMahon=] out of "death" to address it.
** They also tried to turn the obviously scripted stage collapse accident on Vince in 2008 into a worked shoot. He can be heard saying "Paul (the real first name of his son-in-law Wrestling/TripleH), I can't feel my legs." Then they pretty much just forgot about it.
** A similar event happened with Donald Trump "buying" ''Raw'', despite the fact that ''Raw'' is a TV show, not a corporate subsidiary. Unfortunately, due to some official press releases from the USA Network that seemed to imply the whole thing ''wasn't'' an angle (not to mention the press conferences held by Vince and Trump reiterating the storyline), and, with the apparent prospect of a person with no wrestling experience apparently going to be running half of the company's programming, WWE stock dropped significantly the next day. Any long term plans for this arc were scrapped on next week's show with Vince "buying ''Raw'' back" for twice what he was originally paid.

* In 1997, Wrestling/ShawnMichaels engaged in a series of "unscripted" incidents, including an entire tirade against Wrestling/TheUndertaker that was edited out of a later ''Raw'' broadcast. Rumors flew left and right that Michaels was trying to get himself fired in order to go to rival WCW and join his friends Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash in the [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder nWo]]; in fact, the entire thing was a set-up to the birth of [[Wrestling/{{DGenerationX}} D-Generation X]].
** This particular incident arose first as a dare by a fellow wrestler (and real life friend of Taker), and then Michaels decided to have some fun. The guy conducting the interview, Wrestling/JimRoss, was none too happy about it, but the Undertaker took it better.
* Also in WWE, Wrestling/MattHardy discovered that his girlfriend [[Wrestling/{{Lita}} Amy "Lita" Dumas]] was cheating on him with fellow wrestler [[Wrestling/{{Edge}} Adam "Edge" Copeland]], and when he started to talk publicly about it, he was unceremoniously fired. After he slowly built a rabid fanbase using the sympathy from this incident on the internet, he suddenly began appearing on WWE RAW again, jumping over the barricade and attacking Edge, then being carried out by security while screaming things like, "I thought you were my friend, Johnny Ace!" (a reference to WWE executive John "Johnny Ace" Laurinaitis). Soon enough, the truth came out; Matt had been re-hired, and plans were in place for a storyline based on the problems between Matt and Edge (even though this meant {{Ret Con}}ning a year's worth of storylines in which Lita was Wrestling/{{Kane}}'s wife). To this day, fans still debate whether the infidelity that started the whole thing was work, or shoot. Realistically there's little question it was initially a shoot - WWE didn't talk about it, and you know that WWE.com would have been full of stories about it if it was a work. Note that the ''second'' Matt Hardy showed back up on Raw and bragged about it being "a shoot" on his blog, any illusion that he was acting independently was broken.

* One of the more successful recent ones has involved internet darling Wrestling/BryanDanielson. [[TheScrappy Michael Cole's]] shots at both Danielson and the [[{{Smark}} Internet Wrestling Fans]] as a whole on NXT led even the most self-proclaimed Smarks to [[MisaimedFandom assume he legitimately hated Danielson]]. Then Danielson was fired after the rookies' first attack on the WWE, with many believing it was because his choking ring announcer Justin Roberts violated the show's PG-rated policy. In truth, WWE stayed in contact with Danielson and simply waited for the right time to bring him back; he returned at Summerslam and has been a main Superstar since, going from United States Champion to World Heavyweight Champion in little more than a year.

* When Wrestling/KenShamrock was new in WWF they booked a Pancrase-style match between Shamrock and one of his students from the Lion's Den, Vernon White. The match was billed as an exhibition, but during the match, White supposedly "tried to turn it into something it wasn't supposed to be" and shoot kicked Shamrock, which caused Shamrock to snap and ground n' pound White unconscious. The match was a work from top to bottom, though.
** Ironically enough, Shamrock was involved in a number of worked matches in Pancrase. He did a job to Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki to drop the Pancrase title (before facing Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA champion Dan Severn in a UFC bout; since the NWA was "fake" wrestling, Pancrase would have lost face if Shamrock lost), and it's believed that he dropped a match to Minoru Suzuki when fans needed to believe a Japanese guy could hang with him. He also tanked a match to avoid an injury before facing Royce Gracie in a rematch, and "carried" several other opponents to more exciting finishes than would have happened in a pure shoot.

* WCW saw another Worked Shoot backfire when wrestler/booker Kevin Sullivan put together a storyline that had his (on-screen and real-life) wife, Nancy "Woman" Sullivan, sleeping with his rival, Wrestling/ChrisBenoit. Sullivan was from wrestling's old school, and he made sure that Woman and Benoit traveled together, were spotted entering each others' hotel rooms, and otherwise spent a lot of time together in public, just to drive the angle home. The problem? After spending all that time together, Nancy fell in love with Benoit, and left Kevin for real to marry him. This led to Woman being moved into a non-speaking role as a valet for Wrestling/RicFlair, and Benoit kicking Sullivan's ass in match after match, along with fighting his way through Sullivan's PowerStable the Wrestling/DungeonOfDoom, culminating in Benoit defeating Sullivan in a "Career vs. Career" match at ''WCW Bash at the Beach 97''. Sullivan was replaced as booker in late 1998 by Wrestling/KevinNash, who gave the world the FingerpokeOfDoom and roughly a year of terrible booking. and was himself replaced by Wrestling/VinceRusso and Ed Ferrara in October 1999. Benoit left the company in January 2000 when Sullivan re-gained the head booker position, as Benoit feared that Sullivan was still holding a grudge. Worse yet for WCW, his friends Perry Saturn, Wrestling/DeanMalenko, and Wrestling/EddieGuerrero all left for fear of becoming collateral damage; the quartet formed The Radicalz in the [=WWE=], where Benoit and Guerrero became ''huge'' stars.
** To Sullivan's credit, Benoit said on the ''Hard Knocks'' DVD that for all the animosity he held toward Benoit (for, you know, breaking up his marriage) that Sullivan remained a consummate professional in the ring and never tried to hurt Benoit in any of their matches.
*** Wrestling/RingOfHell takes it one step further: Sullivan knew that his feud with Benoit would be his last (Bischoff didn't want his at-the-time head booker as an active wrestler) and wanted to keep it going as long as possible until the blowoff. The real reason behind Benoit's career stagnation in WCW is that the top guys didn't want ''anyone'' new getting over (because that might threaten their own position, and their considerable salary).
** And without turning this into a big game of fantasy booking and what-ifs: If the Benoit/Sullivan worked shoot angle hadn't happened, Chris and Nancy wouldn't have fallen in love, wouldn't have gotten married... and the double murder/suicide would not have happened.
* The worst-ever Worked Shoot for WCW though was when the ''company itself starting shooting on itself'', complete with the user of insider terms during the show, example Kevin Nash and Bill Goldberg cutting "shoot" promos and the commentators acting like it's a shoot, or rather explicit mentions of predetermined match finishes ''on purpose while the cameras are still rolling during the show''.
** Unsurprisingly, this came at a time when VinceRusso was writing for WCW.
** The stupidity culminated (?) at the wretched New Blood Rising show, where - and apologies in advance if this doesn't make any sense, but blame the source material - WCW promoted a match between Wrestling/{{Goldberg}}, Kevin Nash and Wrestling/ScottSteiner who were going to have a "real fight". Which logically meant all other matches were fake, but ignore that for the moment because Everything Else You're Watching Except What's On TV Right Now Is Fake is certainly a Russo Trope. Anyway, midway through the match (which, you'll recall, was supposed to be real), Goldberg "stopped co-operating" (... um...) and walked out on the match, with the announcers criticizing his lack of professionalism. Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner then proceeded to "improvise" a finish, with the announcers praising how professional they were. Soon after, they ran Fall Brawl promos talking about how Goldberg [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cZtuwjdPJU "refused to follow the script"]]. And you wonder why WCW was out of business less than a year later.
*** As if anyone would believe that ''Scott Steiner'' was any more professional than Bill Goldberg.
* Bash at the Beach 2000 was almost as bad. HulkHogan [[ProtectionFromEditors was pulling his creative control card]] and insisting on beating JeffJarrett for the title while VinceRusso and Creative were set on Booker T ending up with the belt. The negotiation between Hulk and Russo ended with this: Russo would tell Jarrett to lay down in the ring to make Hogan win in a way that would make Hogan look bad, Hogan would leave in a huff, and then Russo would come back out by himself and reveal everything that went on backstage to the fans just so he could nullify Hogan's win and put the belt back on Jarrett - with no one but Russo and Hogan actually knowing it was all a work. As a result, Jarrett was obviously incensed but went along anyway, but the end result in not telling the announcers was them actually saying ''on the air'' "This is not part of the script!" and then saying Russo was not "in character" when he cut his promo.
** The promo ended up being the reason Hogan later sued Russo for defamation of character (the suit was dismissed in 2002), claiming that he never knew about it, or at least (according to ''The Death of WCW'') that it was a worked shoot turned half-work half-shoot where Russo went completely overboard in calling Hogan a "big bald son of a bitch." The likely real reason for the suit was Hogan reading claims from fans online that Russo had finally "put him in his place" while Russo didn't call him the next day after claiming he would because TNT president Brad Siegel told him not to (according to Russo in a later interview). Enraged by this, Hogan refused to continue working for WCW despite having a contract. (Which is really ironic, because, according to Hogan's 2002 book, the reason he was insisting on winning the belt was Russo supposedly trying to force him off of WCW TV; given what Siegel told Russo about not calling Hogan so they wouldn't have to put him on the air, it's clear ''someone'' connected to WCW wanted Hogan gone and thus he gave them just what they wanted by refusing to work)

* One of the most famous classic worked shoots was a interview made by [[Wrestling/MickFoley Cactus Jack]] known as the "Cane Dewey" promo, during his time in Wrestling/{{ECW}}. The promotional interview was inspired by a sign Foley saw during a match against Terry Funk, which read "Cane Dewey".[[note]]Dewey being Foley's then 5-year-old son.[[/note]] Foley became somewhat disillusioned with the wrestling business at this time and, at the advisement of ECW promoter and booker Paul Heyman, channeled that into his feud with Tommy Dreamer, which had Foley, then a {{heel}} being against the "Hardcore" wrestling style, and attempting to get Dreamer, who had a Hardcore gimmick, to leave ECW for Ted Turner's WCW - which was at that time reviled by ECW fans.

* One example that helped catapult wrestling into pop culture was the "Gold Record Incident" in Feb. 1985, where Wrestling/RoddyPiper interrupted an award ceremony on MTV with Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper, smashed Albano's commemorative record over his head and then body slammed Lauper's manager David Wolff. The whole thing was so realistic that a NY cop rushed into the ring and tried to stop Piper, which made him mess up his slam and actually hurt Wolff. The whole thing was a setup for the "War to Settle the Score" special, which itself was a setup for the original [[Wresting/{{WrestleMania}} WrestleMania]].

* One of the most famous classic worked shoots was a interview made by [[Wrestling/MickFoley Cactus Jack]] known as the "Cane Dewey" promo, during his time in Wrestling/{{ECW}}. The promotional interview was inspired by a sign Mick saw during a match against Terry Funk, with which read "Cane Dewey" - Dewey Foley being Mick's 5-year-old son. Mick became somewhat disillusioned with the wrestling business at this time and, at the advisement of ECW promoter and booker Paul Heyman, channeled that into his feud with Tommy Dreamer, which had Foley, then a {{heel}} being against the "Hardcore" wrestling style, and attempting to get Dreamer, who had a Hardcore gimmick, to leave ECW for Ted Turner's WCW - which was at that time reviled by ECW fans.

* The tendency for WCW staff not to be informed of plot developments lead to some hilarious situations where, when something genuinely unexpected happen, the staff would assume it had been planned and just not told them. Most notably, a fan dressed as Wrestling/{{Sting}} jumped a barricade and started to interfere with a match and the commentators, so used to not being told about changes, assumed it was meant to be the real Sting.

An alternate definition is a wrestler taking the planned storyline and using it to express his real feelings -- thus shooting during a work, for a worked shoot.

Again, if you have answered affirmatively to three or more, you are before a worked shoot fight.

* Kevin Steen burying Ring Of Honor on their official message board while putting over Wrestling/ProWrestlingGuerilla.

-->--'''Tod Gordon''', {{Wrestling/ECW}} founder, on Wrestling/ShaneDouglas seceding from the {{Wrestling/NWA}} (''Forever Hardcore: The Documentary'')

-->--'''Tod Gordon''', {{Wrestling/ECW}} founder, on Wrestling/ShaneDouglas hurling his {{Wrestling/NWA}} belt to the wind (''Forever Hardcore: The Documentary'')

-->--'''Tod Gordon''' {{Wrestling/WCW}} founder, on Wrestling/ShaneDouglas hurling his {{Wrestling/NWA}} belt to the wind (''Forever Hardcore: The Documentary'')

-->--'''Tod Gordon''' {{Wrestling/WCW}} founder, on Wrestling/ShaneDouglas''' hurling his {{Wrestling/NWA}} belt to the wind (''Forever Hardcore: The Documentary'')

-->''"This is a shoot, dammit!"''
--> --'''[[StockPhrase Stock phrase]] of a wrestler delivering a worked shoot'''.

** Ironically enough, Shamrock was involved in a number of worked matches in Pancrase. He did a job to Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki to drop the Pancrase title (before facing NWA champion Dan Severn in a UFC bout; since the NWA was "fake" wrestling, Pancrase would have lost face if Shamrock lost), and it's believed that he dropped a match to Minoru Suzuki when fans needed to believe a Japanese guy could hang with him. He also tanked a match to avoid an injury before facing Royce Gracie in a rematch, and "carried" several other opponents to more exciting finishes than would have happened in a pure shoot.

[[folder: WCW ]]

* In Wrestling/{{WSU}}, there was Tina San Antonio absence from a show being explained as her faking an injury to tryout for WWE, leaving her tag team partner Marti Belle to fend for herself.
* Also in WSU, there was DJ Hyde firing a good part of the roster and banning Jessicka Havok for life after she decided to work at a TNA event. In this case it worked because many women had left the company when he took over, coincidentally [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere or otherwise.]] [[note]]they left because of Drew Cordeiro becoming their boss and some came back when Hyde took over. But Hyde has an evil boss gimmick so [[CardCarryingVillain he incorrectly takes the blame]] [[{{Heel}} for getting rid of wrestlers.]][[/note]][[/folder]]

[[folder: Other Professional Wrestling Organizations ]]

[[/folder]]

* Also in WSU, there was DJ Hyde firing a good part of the roster and banning Jessicka Havok for life after she decided to work at a TNA event. In this case it worked because many women had left the company when he took over, coincidentally [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere or otherwise.]]

* One example that helped catapult wrestling into pop culture was the "Gold Record Incident" in Feb. 1985, where Roddy Piper interrupted an award ceremony on MTV with Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper, smashed Albano's commemorative record over his head and then body slammed Lauper's manager David Wolff. The whole thing was so realistic that a NY cop rushed into the ring and tried to stop Piper, which made him mess up his slam and actually hurt Wolff. The whole thing was a setup for the "War to Settle the Score" special, which itself was a setup for the original [[Wresting/{{WrestleMania}} WrestleMania]].

* Wrestling/AJLee was allowed a shoot promo during her run as the Diva's champion, and she used it to great effect, tearing apart the 'plastic, interchangeable' Series/TotalDivas women who hadn't earned their spots on the roster like she had. Despite supposedly being a heel, it just got her over even further.

* Chaz Warrington was allowed to drop his horrible Beaver Cleavage gimmick via worked shoot. While pretending to cry to his mother because he didn't want to wrestle "some guy named Meat", he abruptly said "I can't do this" and walked off screen. Marianna yelled "Chaz, we're live!" and then the feed cut abruptly to Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, who apologized for the "creative differences" and said the match wouldn't take place.