History Main / WorkedShoot

* Do they spend time in fully locked submissions doing nothing more than TheatricsOfPain only to miracleously revert it afterwards, instead of immediately searching the escape or reverting it ''before'' the locking?

* Is Vince Russo booking?

** It was finally confirmed as a worked shoot—or possibly a shoot that ''became'' worked—at ''All Out'' on September 4, when he won the Casino Ladder Match as the masked "Joker" (thanks to ''massive'' outside interference) to guarantee a future shot at the AEW World Championship. After Wrestling/CMPunk defeated Wrestling/JonMoxley to reclaim the world title, The Joker took off his mask in a video, revealing himself as MJF, who then came out live on stage to stare down Punk and gesture that the belt would soon be his. As it turned out, MJF's absence conveniently coincided with filming for ''Film/TheIronClaw'', an upcoming biopic of the Wrestling/{{Von Erich family}} focusing mainly on Kevin, with MJF playing Lance Von Erich, briefly a kayfabe-only member of the family.

* At the G1 Supercard, co-produced by Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and Wrestling/RingOfHonor, the indie wrestlers formerly known as Wrestling/EnzoAndCass jumped the guardrail and stormed the ring. There was actually some genuine confusion in the moment as to whether it was a work or a shoot, as the camera cut away immediately and they were quickly removed by security like the were genuine intruders; rather than the two being allowed to cut a promo, milk the crowd or attack the match participants. The next day ROH announced that it was a work and that the pair had signed with the promotion as "nZo" and "Big Ca$", despite both men being mired in personal and legal issues that should preclude working with any major company. This drew scorn from the fans, especially when it was revealed that ROH had not informed NJPW of the plan ahead of time. They were released without ever working a single match for ROH.

* At the G1 Supercard, co-produced by Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and Wrestling/RingOfHonor, the indie wrestlers formerly known as Wrestling/EnzoAndCass jumped the guardrail and stormed the ring. There was actually some genuine confusion in the moment as to whether it was a work or a shoot, as the camera cut away immediately and they were quickly removed by security like the were genuine intruders; rather than the two being allowed to cut a promo, milk the crowd or attack the match participants. The next day ROH announced that it was a work and that the pair had signed with the promotion as "nZo" and "Big Ca$", despite both men being mired in personal and legal issues that should preclude working with any major company. This drew scorn from the fans, especially when it was revealed that ROH had not informed NJPW of the plan ahead of time, and they never worked a single match for ROH.

* At the G1 Supercard, co-produced by Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and Wrestling/RingOfHonor, the indie wrestlers formerly known as Wrestling/EnzoAndCass jumped the guardrail and stormed the ring. There was actually come genuine confusion in the moment as to whether it was a work or a shoot, as the camera cut away immediately and they were quickly removed by security like the were genuine intruders; rather than the two being allowed to cut a promo, milk the crowd or attack the match participants. The next day ROH announced that it was a work and that the pair had signed with the promotion as "nZo" and "Big Ca$", despite both men being mired in personal and legal issues that should preclude working with any major company. This drew scorn from the fans, especially when it was revealed that ROH had not informed NJPW of the plan ahead of time, and they never worked a single match for ROH.

** In fact, his experience fom works came from when he was a Pro Wrestler, it was at Fujiwara Gumi shoot-wrestling promotion where he met future Pancrase founders Funaki and Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki. After he found success at the UFC representing "shootfighting" (Pancrase-style fighting), a former Fujiwara Gumi alumni Bart Vale used a worked victory over Shamrock to hype himself up as an [[AllAmericanFace All American]] shootfighting[[note]]In fact, he copyrighted the term "shootfighting" and founded the International Shootfighting Association) (ISFA). Which prevented indepedent people from promoting the combat sport[[/note]] and MMA legend back in the United States. His actual MMA record is a pitiful 1-2.

* 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, [[RomanceOnTheSet Nancy fell in love with Benoit]], [[LifeImitatesArt 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, Sullivan remained a consummate professional in the ring and never tried to hurt Benoit in any of their matches.

** It was finally confirmed as a worked shoot—or possibly a shoot that ''became'' worked—at ''All Out'' on September 4, when he won the Casino Ladder Match as the masked "Joker" (thanks to ''massive'' outside interference) to guarantee a future shot at the AEW World Championship. After Wrestling/CMPunk defeated Wrestling/JonMoxley to reclaim the world title, The Joker took off his mask in a video, revealing himself as MJF, who then came out live on stage to stare down Punk and gesture that the belt would soon be his.

* Wrestling/CMPunk's onscreen 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 WWE appointed a "new" WWE Champion, a re-hired Punk appeared on ''Raw'' to challenge with the old belt.

* The Wrestling/WWEBrawlForAll was made out to be legitimate shoot fighting where nothing was scripted, but behind the scenes, Wrestling/DrDeathSteveWilliams was "scripted" to win, and there were accusations leveled about the judges fudging the scores to favor Williams in his matches. Whether this is true or not, the plan was derailed by Bart Gunn, who defeated Williams by KO and disrupted the entire planned work. Bart Gunn proceeded to win the Brawl For All Tournament, and was in turn set up in a match against professional boxer Butterbean at Wrestling/WrestleMania. Accounts differ as to whether this was a punishment for winning when he wasn't supposed to, or whether booker Vince Russo actually expected Gunn to win. Gunn would be KO'd in less than a minute, and was fired as soon as he made it back to the locker room.

* 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 ''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 {{retcon}}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 showed back up on ''Raw'' and bragged about it being "a shoot" on his blog, any illusion that he was acting independently was broken.

** It was finally confirmed as a worked shoot at ''All Out'' on September 4, when he won the Casino Ladder Match as the masked "Joker" (thanks to ''massive'' outside interference) to guarantee a future shot at the AEW World Championship. After Wrestling/CMPunk defeated Wrestling/JonMoxley to reclaim the world title, The Joker took off his mask in a video, revealing himself as MJF, who then came out live on stage to stare down Punk and gesture that the belt would soon be his.

If you answered "yes" to more than half of the above questions[[note]]Or "yes" to the last one and any of the others, or just "yes" to the last one[[/note]], then don't worry: that wrestler's "shoot" was all part of the show. Remember that the default response to something completely unexpected happening is to ''cut away and pretend it never happened''.

If you answered "yes" to more than half of the above questions[[note]]''Especially'' that last one[[/note]], then don't worry: that wrestler's "shoot" was all part of the show. Remember that the default response to something completely unexpected happening is to ''cut away and pretend it never happened''.

* On June 1, 2022 MJF, with it publicly known that he's unhappy with his contract, cuts a worked shoot promo on ''AEW Dynamite'' trashing most of the roster (throwing particular shade to AEW executive [=VPs=] The Young Bucks) and concluding by telling [[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW]] owner Tony Khan "FIRE ME! FIRE ME YOU FUCKING MARK!" before his mic is cut. He's yet to return to TV and Khan has "No comment"-ed every time he's been asked, leading many to believe this was just a plain shoot rather than a worked one.[[/folder]]

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLZwB1kUXBI face-off]] during the contract signing between Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/RomanReigns in the lead-up to their match at ''Wrestling/NoMercy 2017'' saw both men cutting promos on each other ''laden'' with reality subtext, as they brought up pretty much every real life issue fans have with them that make them such {{Base Breaking Character}}s. Cena called out Reigns for being a half-baked, corporate-manufactured {{Expy}} of him, Reigns criticised Cena for burying the careers of other young up-and-comers, Cena criticised Reigns for being given all the opportunities in the world but not managing to even get as over as him, and both men used booking terminology such as describing each other (and even themselves) and being "protected". It's uncertain ''exactly'' how much of the promos were scripted and approved backstage in advance and how much saw them improvising; certainly a part where Reigns visibly forgets his lines and Cena rips into him with "It's called a promo, kid, if you wanna be the big dawg you gotta learn to do it" wouldn't have been preplanned, but [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]] was thoroughly convinced that pretty much all of it had been personally cleared by Vince in advance[[note]]The real kicker of that promo was Cena telling Reigns "I'm only here because you can't do your job!", in other words saying that Reigns was a failure as a top guy and wasn't drawing enough money. No word on if Vince approved ''that'' line[[/note]]. It was unquestionably given away to be at least mostly a work when John rebutted Reigns' accusations of him having a "golden shovel" by saying [[BlatantLies "they]] ''[[BlatantLies (the fans)]]'' [[BlatantLies hold the keys, they always have, they always will"]].

* On the ''Raw'' following The Undertaker's shocking defeat by Wrestling/BrockLesnar at [[Wresting/{{WrestleMania}} WrestleMania XXX]], Wrestling/PaulHeyman decided to "''shoot'' from the hip," and talked about Taker's legitimate concussion during the match as well as Vince [=McMahon=] leaving the [=WrestleMania=] set to make sure he was alright. While the whole promo was very obviously a work, it involved a lot of events that would normally be kept out of kayfabe.

* On the ''Raw'' following the 2015 Elimination Chamber, [[Wrestling/KevinSteen Kevin Owens]], after defeating John Cena cleanly, mentioned how despite all the years it took for him to make it to WWE, his son looks up to Cena as his hero. He also mentioned the issues Cena's detractors have against him.[[note]]For example, he referred to Cena as "[[AscendedFanon Super Cena]]" during his promo.[[/note]]

* 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]]

If you answered "yes" to more than half of the above questions, then don't worry: that wrestler's "shoot" was all part of the show. Remember that the default response to something completely unexpected happening is to ''cut away and pretend it never happened''.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLZwB1kUXBI face-off]] during the contract signing between Wrestling/JohnCena and Wrestling/RomanReigns in the lead-up to their match at ''Wrestling/NoMercy 2017'' saw both men cutting promos on each other ''laden'' with reality subtext, as they brought up pretty much every real life issue fans have with them that make them such {{Base Breaking Character}}s. Cena called out Reigns for being a half-baked, corporate-manufactured {{Expy}} of him, Reigns criticised Cena for burying the careers of other young up-and-comers, Cena criticised Reigns for being given all the opportunities in the world but not managing to even get as over as him, and both men used booking terminology such as describing each other (and even themselves) and being "protected". It's uncertain ''exactly'' how much of the promos were scripted and approved backstage in advance and how much saw them improvising; certainly a part where Reigns visibly forgets his lines and Cena rips into him with "It's called a promo, kid, if you wanna be the big dawg you gotta learn to do it" wouldn't have been preplanned, but [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]] was thoroughly convinced that pretty much all of it had been personally cleared by Vince in advance. It was unquestionably given away to be at least mostly a work when John rebutted Reigns' accusations of him having a "golden shovel" by saying [[BlatantLies "they]] ''[[BlatantLies (the fans)]]'' [[BlatantLies hold the keys, they always have, they always will"]].

* They tried to turn the obviously scripted stage collapse accident on [=McMahon=] in 2008 into a worked shoot. He can be heard saying "Paul, I can't feel my legs."[[note]]Paul is the real first name of [=McMahon=]'s son-in-law, Wrestling/TripleH and [[DoNotCallMePaul he generally refuses to let anyone use it]].[[/note]] Then they pretty much just forgot about it.

* 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 Joey Styles' 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.

* On the very first WCW card Russo booked, Buff Bagwell and former tag partner Wrestling/ScottyRiggs shot a backstage segment where Riggs informed Bagwell that he (Riggs) would be winning the match, and Bagwell reacted with disbelief - and then when they actually had the match, Bagwell used a small package pin and "wouldn't let go", winning the match. A couple weeks after that Bagwell was in a match against Wrestling/LaParka. He no-sold everything, then took a dive from the "run into someone's feet in the corner" spot and "threw" the match.

* Wrestling/ScottHall's first pro wrestling appearance after no showing several TNA and WWC events was for Wrestling/JuggaloChampionshipWrestling, where he was a founding member of the "juggalo World order". Hall challenged the jWo to go "on the road" and invade either WWE, ROH, TNA or UFC. They decided to start with TNA, by buying front row tickets to the "Turning Point" event. TNA officials actually thought JCW was actually threatening to interfere with the show and even Samoa Joe was worried because he thought they might have been there on behalf of Hall, who he had dissed. Sheik Abdull Bashir thought the jWo [[ActuallyPrettyFunny was a welcome part of the show]] and started to "[[ThrowItIn fight]]" with 2 Tuff Tony, which security interfered with and had the jWo expelled. The "invasions" of the other three companies never got past the planning stages.

* One of the persistent conspiracy theories about the Wrestling/MontrealScrewjob is that it was a worked shoot for one simple reason: The camera feed never cuts away from the chaos in the ring, even as Wrestling/BretHart was drawing big 'WCW' letters ''at the WWF-operated camera''. While Hart's story that this was a legitimate betrayal has been consistent over the years, proponents such as Wrestling/ScottHall have maintained that there was something fishy about the whole affair being just a little bit too convenient.