History ValuesDissonance / ProfessionalWrestling

* Foreign wrestlers (or [[FakeNationality American wrestlers billed as foreigners]]) are [[ForeignWrestlingHeel usually booked as the heel]], and nationality was usually played up as part of the gimmick until very recently. Villainous nationalities included [[ThoseWackyNazis German]], [[DirtyCommunists Russian]], [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japanese]], and - somewhat ironically, as the best technical wrestlers in the world have come from there - Canadian, particularly ''[[FrenchJerk French]]''-Canadian, who are sometimes even treated as straght-up French.[[note]]On the other hand, non-French Canadians are often treated as honorary Americans. Like Bret Hart (born in Calgary) defending America against evil foreign Japanese heel Yokozuna (born in San Francisco and not Japanese). Wrestling![[/note]] However, when these characters would wrestle before crowds in their homelands (or supposed homelands), they would as often as not be booked to win the match, and gain wild applause from the audience despite still being heels! (Wrestling/JerryLawler referred to these incidents as [[Franchise/{{Superman}} "Bizarro World."]])

* Foreign wrestlers (or [[FakeNationality American wrestlers billed as foreigners]]) are [[ForeignWrestlingHeel usually booked as the heel]], and nationality was usually played up as part of the gimmick until very recently. Villainous nationalities included [[ThoseWackyNazis German]], [[DirtyCommunists Russian]], [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japanese]], and - somewhat ironically, as the best technical wrestlers in the world have come from there - Canadian, particularly ''[[FrenchJerk French]]''-Canadian, who are sometimes even treated as straght-up French. However, when these characters would wrestle before crowds in their homelands (or supposed homelands), they would as often as not be booked to win the match, and gain wild applause from the audience despite still being heels! (Wrestling/JerryLawler referred to these incidents as [[Franchise/{{Superman}} "Bizarro World."]])

** This can apply to characters on the opposite side of the badass spectrum too. Take for example Makin' a Difference Fatu, Rikishi as a reformed gangbanger spreading a message of positivity, right down to having "Just Say No" on his tights. It drew Main/XPacHeat from the American fans who saw it as the corny pandering bullshit that it was... and ''zero reaction'' anywhere else. The gimmick just didn't resonate with people living in countries where violent street crime is low and gang shootings are basically non-existent.

** What made this rule particularly absurd is that it's going to happen every time anyway whenever a wrestler gets clotheslined against the ropes, unless he/she "skins the cat."
** During the "Wrestling/{{N|ational Wrestling Alliance}}WA invasion" angle in the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} then-WWF]], this was among the rules that were in effect in an NWA title match which were known as "NWA Rules." Another one of those rules was that going up on the top turnbuckle would initiate a five-count where afterwards one would be disqualified if the competitor did not come back down.

** Even more controversial examples come from Wrestling/TripleH, where he and Wrestling/DGenerationX mock The Nation and come out in {{Blackface}}. This was followed a few years later by his feud with Booker T, where he says "people like him" don't win championships. It follows weeks of him degrading Booker T by calling him "nappy head", flicking money at him to fish out of the toilet, telling him to clean his shoes, and even saying he's not a wrestler but an entertainer to people like him, telling him to dance for him. This storyline was controversial at the time, even making the news, and it's looked upon even worse in present day.

** In the 1970s and '80s, it was taboo for a man to even so much as threaten a woman, be she a fan, a wrestler or a valet. In Creator/AndyKaufman's infamous amateur "intergender wrestling matches" with female audience volunteers, the objective was never to injure women; it was more for showmanship (with his {{Heel}} persona of a StayInTheKitchen misogynist), to sell his act to a male audience, and to no small extent personal preference (he secretly flirted with many opponents, with frequent success; ''this'' would be seen as extremely questionable now). Wrestling/MissElizabeth -- the valet (and real-life wife) of Wrestling/RandySavage -- was shoved by the Wrestling/HonkyTonkMan, had her wrist and ankle broken by various heels, was slapped by Wrestling/JakeRoberts (after being made to beg for Savage's well-being), had her name sullied by [[Wrestling/AllenCoage Bad News Brown]], and was constantly threatened, all to the outrage of the face-leaning announcers; at one time, Wrestling/AndreTheGiant grabbed Elizabeth's hair and was planning to brutally injure her, but Roberts -- several years before he himself slapped Elizabeth -- stopped the whole thing. While Elizabeth was a face, the face-leaning announcers would invariably cheer when the heel [[Wrestling/SherriMartel Sensational Sherri]] was knocked around, usually by the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior[!]. At the same time, heelish announcer Wrestling/JesseVentura condemned Sherri being beaten up but blamed Elizabeth when she was in danger. (Even Wrestling/BobbyHeenan, during ''This Tuesday in Texas'', was shocked when Roberts slapped Elizabeth, sure that a [=DDT=] would follow.)

** It was taboo for a man to even so much as threaten a woman, be she a fan, a wrestler or a valet. While comedian Creator/AndyKaufman once had an act where he would wrestle a woman, the objective was never to injure the woman; this was more for showmanship and to sell his act to a male audience. Wrestling/MissElizabeth -- the valet (and real-life wife) of Wrestling/RandySavage -- was shoved by the Wrestling/HonkyTonkMan, had her wrist and ankle broken by various heels, was slapped by Wrestling/JakeRoberts (after being made to beg for Savage's well-being), had her name sullied by [[Wrestling/AllenCoage Bad News Brown]], and was constantly threatened, all to the outrage of the face-leaning announcers; at one time, Wrestling/AndreTheGiant grabbed Elizabeth's hair and was planning to brutally injure her, but Roberts -- several years before he himself slapped Elizabeth -- stopped the whole thing. While Elizabeth was a face, the face-leaning announcers would invariably cheer when the heel [[Wrestling/SherriMartel Sensational Sherri]] was knocked around, usually by the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior[!]. At the same time, heelish announcer Wrestling/JesseVentura condemned Sherri being beaten up but blamed Elizabeth when she was in danger. (Even Wrestling/BobbyHeenan, during ''This Tuesday in Texas'', was shocked when Roberts slapped Elizabeth, sure that a [=DDT=] would follow.)

* Really, the Attitude Era in general (roughly 1998 to 2001) compared to today's WWE, which is still edgy but comes ''nowhere'' near the gleeful subversiveness of the Attitude years. The aforementioned race angles, and heels (or [[WhatTheHellHero even faces]]) [[WouldHitAGirl hitting women]] on purpose and getting cheered for it are just one part of it, as it even featured ''Satanic rituals''. The company has attempted to clean up their product in particular following Wrestling/ChrisBenoit's double murder and suicide and Linda [=McMahon's=] Senate campaign, and is thus trying to pretend that the more... offensive bits of the Attitude Era never happened.

** Even more controversial examples come from Wrestling/TripleH, where he and Wrestling/DGenerationX mock The Nation and come out in {{Blackface}}. This was followed years later by his feud with Booker T, where he says "people like him" don't win championships. It follows weeks of him degrading Booker T by calling him "nappy head", flicking money at him to fish out of the toilet, telling him to clean his shoes, and even saying he's not a wrestler but an entertainer to people like him, telling him to dance for him. This storyline was controversial at the time, even making the news, and it's looked upon even worse in present day.

** Up until the 1980s, it was taboo for a man to even so much as threaten a woman, be she a fan, a wrestler or a valet. While comedian Creator/AndyKaufman once had an act where he would wrestle a woman, the objective was never to injure the woman; this was more for showmanship and to sell his act to a male audience. The changes came in the late 1980s, when Wrestling/MissElizabeth -- the valet (and real-life wife) of Wrestling/RandySavage -- was shoved by the Wrestling/HonkyTonkMan, had her wrist and ankle broken by various heels, was slapped by Wrestling/JakeRoberts (after being made to beg for Savage's well-being), had her name sullied by [[Wrestling/AllenCoage Bad News Brown]], and was constantly threatened, all to the outrage of the face-leaning announcers; at one time, Wrestling/AndreTheGiant grabbed Elizabeth's hair and was planning to brutally injure her, but Roberts -- several years before he himself slapped Elizabeth -- stopped the whole thing. While Elizabeth was a face, the face-leaning announcers would invariably cheer when the heel [[Wrestling/SherriMartel Sensational Sherri]] was knocked around, usually by the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior[!]. At the same time, heelish announcer Wrestling/JesseVentura condemned Sherri being beaten up but blamed Elizabeth when she was in danger. (Even Wrestling/BobbyHeenan, during ''This Tuesday in Texas'', was shocked when Roberts slapped Elizabeth, sure that a [=DDT=] would follow.)

* In Wrestling/ChrisJericho's book, he mentioned a case of this during a WWE tour in Tokyo. The people behind the scenes were horrified at how quiet the audience was, thinking the crowd was dead and weren't enjoying the show. Jericho (who worked extensively in Japan before joining WWE) tried to explain how the Japanese take a more academic approach to wrestling, ''analyzing'' the match quietly rather than simply ''watching'' it and cheering. He mentioned how the brass were still uneasy about it and still piped in crowd noise for the TV broadcast. This isn't limited to wrestling, either, see the real life section of JapanesePoliteness.

* "Badass" characters in wrestling are often seen drinking beer as part of their gimmick (Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin, Wrestling/TheAPA, and [[Wrestling/JimFullington The Sandman]] spring to mind). This is because in the US, drinking is supposed to be an "adult" thing, and the young audience will assume this indicates the character is rebellious. However, said wrestler is usually drinking Budweiser, which to people in the UK is considered quite a weak beer and would have very little effect on one's personality. This would certainly not be enough to turn you into the fighting machine writers would have you believe it does. Coupled with the fact that many people in the UK (and Europe) start drinking at home when they are around 13 or 14, the overall effect is of the character trying too hard to be cool.

* In America, working stiff or [[NoSell No-Selling]] your opponents offence is considered extremely unprofessional unless done for a good reason, e.g. to build up some "hardcore" credit or put someone over as a [[WrestlingMonster monster]], and is to be done only with your opponent's consent and/or instructions from management. In Japan, where wrestlers have a more relaxed schedule and more time to recover between matches, working stiff is not only allowed but encouraged by many promotions, and many wrestling schools teach students not to sell for anyone who isn't [[EnforcedMethodActing legitimately beating them up]]. This can lead to problems when wrestlers trained in one country cross over to the other.

* Wrestling promotions in the current age that refuse to book women are often looked upon with hostility and viewed as sexist (just look no further than to Wrestling/RingOfHonor who, despite being otherwise well-regarded for their product, got a lot of flak during the years it was male-only). The same doesn't apply to Japan, where promotions are either male-only (''puroresu'') or female-only (''joshi puroresu''), and female promotions have outdrawn male promotions in the past (Wrestling/AllJapanWomensProWrestling was a bigger draw than [[Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling its male counterpart]] in TheEighties). This can be held down to how, in comparison, there have been few American female-only wrestling promotions to reach mainstream notabilty. In fact, when Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling toured America in 2018 and a petition popped up demanding they book female wrestlers, said petition faced backlash not only from other wrestling fans who thought they were being disrespectful to puroresu tradition, but from ''joshi promotions themselves''.

* At Royal Rumble 2005, ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' winner Daniel Puder was subjected to a legit beating during the Rumble match at the hands of notorious backstage enforcers [[Wrestling/BobHolly Hardcore Holly]], Wrestling/EddieGuerrero and Wrestling/ChrisBenoit. This was a punishment for Puder daring to actually fight back against Wrestling/KurtAngle in a shoot match (after Angle had shoot on another ''Tough Enough'' competitor, Chris Nawrocki, legitimately breaking his ribs), with many backstage believing the rookie had ideas above his station. Essentially, WWE aired a public hazing live on PPV in front of millions of people worldwide. In the "Be A Star" era, that would never happen, as WWE have worked hard to bury their long history of backstage bullying and hazing.

* This is arguably the basis of Jim Cornette's loathing of Wrestling/KennyOmega for wrestling a match with a nine-year old girl in the Japanese based World Wonder Ring STARDOM. Even if Japanese audiences might have enjoyed the match, most Americans would find a grown man wrestling a little girl to be ''extremely'' weird, if not creepy (not to mention completely kayfabe-destroying when the kid successfully pulls off a pro wrestling move on the grown man). World Wonder Ring STARDOM, for whatever reason, thought a "{{satire}}" of grade school angle that also started off parodying [[Wrestling/SatoruSayama Tiger Mask]]'s KidAppealCharacter status by having the school kid being beaten up by Yuziki Aikawa, otherwise a {{face}} wrestler, wearing a replica of the tiger's mask until the kid survived via time limit draw, was an appropriate cool down match. But this didn't ''completely'' destroy kayfabe because the crowds considered previous matches where Aikawa was beaten to a swollen and bloody pulp, particularly her "[[PayingTheirDues due paying]]" [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown experience]] from Nanae Takahashi, allowance for a little fun before more such matches, not to mention having a celebrity like Aikawa in the ring at all was something of a DancingBear. Omega agreeing to participate in this angle may or may not have been looked at as sympathetically, but the live crowd did little more than laugh at him when the kid still got a time limit draw. It's not like Omega has to worry about getting over it in what's usually an all women company anyway, and the male companies didn't seem to hold it against him. In the US, ''[[CausticCritic The World Famous Flee Market]]'' castigated Omega for participating even before Cornette became aware, and even more sympathetic parties like ROH used Omega's ''Kid's Fight'' participation as fodder for angles, such as Omega's feud with Wrestling/AdamCole.

* Akeem the African Dream, aka Wrestling/TheOneManGang. Where to begin? Initially conceived as a parody of Wrestling/DustyRhodes' PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy character, Akeem was a [[JiveTurkey jive talking]] white man who dressed in a dashiki, was billed from "Deepest DarkestAfrica", entered the ring to jive music and danced around. He was managed by Slick, a black "hustler" character who was as close to a pimp a WWF could get away with protraying in the early nineties. Slick transformed him from One Man Gang to Akeem in a ceremony in Harlem involving tribal music played on a boombox and African warriors with spears and warpaint dancing around a flaming oildrum. For so, ''so'' many reasons, that would not fly today. Notably, when George Gray returned for the Gimmick Battle Royale at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania X-Seven'', it's probably for the best that he did so as the Gang, having slimmed down too much to pass as Akeem.

* Akeem the African Dream, aka Wrestling/TheOneManGang. Where to begin? Initially conceived as a parody of Wrestling/DustyRhodes' PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy character, Akeem was a [[JiveTurkey jive talking]] white man who dressed in a dashiki, was billed from "Deepest DarkestAfrica", entered the ring to jive music and danced around. He was managed by Slick, a black "hustler" character who was as close to a pimp a WWF could get away with protraying in the early nineties. Slick transformed him from One Man Gang to Akeem in a ceremony in Harlem involving tribal music played on a boombox and African warriors with spears and warpaint dancing around a flaming oildrum. For so, ''so'' many reasons, that would not fly today.

* The Fabulous Freebirds, a PowerStable active from 1979 to 1994, were know for using the Confederate battle flag as a symbol for the group. By way of background, they first started using it while feuding with the Wrestling/VonErichFamily in WCCW - the Von Erichs were proud Texans, while the Freebirds were associated with Georgia. Both teams flew their state flags to highlight their rivalry and at the time the Georgia state flag included a Confederate flag. Eventually, the Freebirds decided to just use the battle flag, since they liked the way it looked. During the 2010s, the flag fell out of favor with much of the American population after it was co-opted as by a resurgent white supremacist movement, especially when it was revealed that the man who murdered black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, embraced the flag as a symbol of racism. Michael Hayes, the original leader of the Freebirds, stated in a shoot interview in 2016 that it never occurred to them that some might find the Confederate flag offensive. While there are those who [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment do not consider]] the Confederate flag an inherently racist symbol, no modern wrestling promotion would court controversy by putting it on TV.
** Similarly, when Wrestling/TheUndertaker joined Wrestling/LexLuger's team of {{All American Face}}s for ''Survivor Series 1993'', he unveiled a thirteen-star "Betsy Ross" flag. In {{Kayfabe}}, Undertaker was an undead zombie from [[TheWildWest the Old West]], meaning that was the flag of the USA when he was "alive".[[note]]This was something of ArtisticLicenseHistory, as the Old West era is usually believed to have begun in the 1850s, while the Betsy Ross flag started to decline in use in the 1790s. However, between 1861 and 1890 it was an acceptable alternative to depict the stars on the flag in a circular pattern similar to the Betsy Ross flag.[[/note]] In the present day, the Betsy Ross flag has been [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment associated with some]] American extremist groups, also courting controversy.[[note]]It is worth noting, though, that the Betsy Ross flag is still used at some government ceremonies at the federal level; U.S. presidential inaugurations use a large Betsy Ross flag alongside the modern U.S. flag to represent the history of the nation, and since the 1980s, this display also includes a U.S. flag design symbolizing the year the president's home state was admitted to the union.[[/note]]

* Akeem the African Dream, fka Wrestling/TheOneManGang. Where to begin? Initially conceived as a parody of Wrestling/DustyRhodes' PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy character, Akeem was a [[JiveTurkey jive talking]] white man who dressed in a dashiki, was billed from "Deepest DarkestAfrica", entered the ring to jive music and danced around. He was managed by Slick, a black "hustler" character who was as close to a pimp a WWF could get away with protraying in the early nineties. Slick transformed him from One Man Gang to Akeem in a ceremony in Harlem involving tribal music played on a boombox and African warriors with spears and warpaint dancing around a flaming oildrum. For so, ''so'' many reasons, that would not fly today.

** Ever since the WWE Divas Division was rebranded as the WWE Women's Division back in 2016, the WWE has stopped doing sexualized matches such as bra-and-panties matches, pillow fights, costume matches and bikini contests due to a combination of the #MeToo Movement as well as WWE's desire to treat its female talents as equals to their male counterparts.

* Akeem the African Dream, fka Wrestling/TheOneManGang. Where to begin? Initially conceived as a parody of Wrestling/DustyRhodes' PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy character, Akeem was a [[JiveTurkey jive talking]] white man who dressed in a dashiki, was billed from "Deepest DarkestAfrica", entered the ring to jive music and did stereotypical "black" dances. He was managed by Slick, a black "hustler" character who was as close to a pimp a WWF could get away with protraying in the early nineties. Slick transformed him from One Man Gang to Akeem in a ceremony in Harlem involving tribal music played on a boombox and African warriors with spears and warpaint dancing around a fire in an oildrum. For so ''so'' many reasons, that would not fly today.

* Akeem the African Dream, fka Wrestling/TheOneManGang. Where to begin? Initially conceived as a parody of Wrestling/DustyRhodes' PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy character, Akeem was a [[JiveTurkey jive talking]] white man who dressed in a dashiki, was billed from "Deepest DarkestAfrica", entered the ring to jive music and did stereotypical "black" dances. He was managed by Slick, a black "hustler" characetr who was as close to a pimp a WWF could get away with protraying in the early nineties. Slick transformed him from One Man Gang to Akeem in a ceremony in Harlem (where all black people live) involving music played on a boombox and Afrcan tribal warriors with spears and warpaint dancing around a fire in an oildrum. For so ''so'' many reasons, that would not fly today.

* Because of the death of {{Kayfabe}}, many younger fans tend to be shocked when they see footage of the John Stossel/David Schultz incident or the {{Wrestling/Vader}} incident where both wrestlers physically assaulted interviewers who suggested wrestling was fake. Although such questions are still considered in poor taste, very few, if any, wrestlers today would likely go to such lengths to protect Kayfabe; more likely, the wrestler would simply end the interview.

* This is arguably the basis of Jim Cornette's loathing of Wrestling/KennyOmega for wrestling a match with a nine-year old girl in the Japanese based World Wonder Ring STARDOM. Even if Japanese audiences might have enjoyed the match, most Americans would find a grown man wrestling a little girl to be ''extremely'' weird, if not creepy (not to mention completely kayfabe-destroying when the kid successfully pulls off a pro wrestling move on the grown man). World Wonder Ring STARDOM, for whatever reason, thought a "{{satire}}" of grade school angle that also started off a parodying [[Wrestling/SatoruSayama Tiger Mask]]'s KidAppealCharacter status by having the school kid being beaten up by Yuziki Aikawa, otherwise a {{face}} wrestler, wearing a replica of the tiger's mask until the kid survived via time limit draw, was an appropriate cool down match. But this didn't ''completely'' destroy kayfabe because the crowds considered previous matches where was Aikawa beaten to a swollen and bloody, particularly her "[[PayingTheirDues due paying]]" [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown experience]] from Nanae Takahashi, allowance for a little fun before more such matches, not to mention having a celebrity like Aikawa in the ring at all was something of a DancingBear. Omega agreeing to participate in this angle may or may not have been looked at as sympathetically, but the live crowd did little more than laugh at him when the kid still got a time limit draw. It's not like Omega's has to worry about getting over in what's usually an all women company anyway and the male companies didn't seem to hold it against him. In the US ''[[CausticCritic The World Famous Flee Market]]'' castigated Omega for participating even before Cornette became aware and even more sympathetic parties like ROH used Omega's ''Kid's Fight'' participation as fodder for angles, such as Omega's feud with Wrestling/AdamCole.

* This is what cost Jim Cornette his job for the ''NWA Powerrr'' show in 2019. The show had been building up some attention online for its throwback presentation of modern stars in a 1980s-style studio wrestling setting. Sadly, Cornette took that too far in the eighth episode where he tried to make Trevor Murdoch sound tough by bringing up a line on "He's the only man who can strap a bucket of fried chicken on his back and ride a motor scooter across Ethiopia." It didn't seem to occur to Cornette that a joke that may have sounded funny in the 1980s or '90s wouldn't go over as well in 2019. A massive backlash on social media forced the show to be taken off Website/YouTube to edit the line out. Cornette resigned within a day and many wrestling blogs stopped covering the series. Albeit, some were fans of Cornette who saw him as a {{scapegoat}}, the argument was still that a pre taped show should have had that edited out before airing, showing that even his supporters were okay with his old joke staying in the 1980s/90s.

* Japanese wrestling tends to vary more drastically in tone and presentation from promotion to promotion, especially in regards to leniency with rules than its counterparts in Anglo sphere and Latin American wrestling. American fans who are used to an instant disqualification upon the use of a weapon and a strict ten-count as soon as a wrestler leaves the ring(some like ROH have a twenty count) are often shocked when [[Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling NJPW]] wrestlers hit each other with chairs and fight for ''minutes'' outside the ring without even a stern word from the referee, especially after being told New Japan is one of the more "serious" feds. It is serious in the sense Japanese promotions consider a disqualification or countout [[JapaneseSpirit a dishonorable way to win]], and New Japan's way of dealing with this from the 2010s onward(and a [[CyclicTrope few times before]]) is allowing almost anything outside the ring, where countouts don't begin until a wrestler is incapacitated. Even in the case where a wrestler brings a foreign object into the ring, the ref will do everything in his power to get it away from the offender instead of disqualifying him. Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling traditionally took a more "real sports" approach by trying to prevent such shenanigans ahead of time, while Wrestling/{{FMW}} was in fact WAY more relaxed than New Japan ever was, but in the 2010s New Japan was arguably Japan's only major promotion besides maybe IGF or Wrestling/DragonGate. Dragon Gate's [[MobWar faction war driven chaos]] was seen as an antidote to the stagnant MMA {{crossover}} wrestling cards that once plagued New Japan and were still going on in IGF, leading to the style being aped by New Japan and also imitated by some other Japanese feds trying to get the same renewed interest New Japan was enjoying. But by no means all.

* During the 'Diva Era' in the mid-late 2000s, WWE would often have Halloween costume contests and some of the costumes worn would probably raise some controversy in today's days of cultural sensitivity. Victoria for example wore a sumo wrestler costume at the 2007 ''Cyber Sunday'' event, complete with stereotypical Japanese accent. Mickie James's BraidsBeadsAndBuckskins costume teeters on the edge (since Mickie does have prominent Native American heritage), and commentator Renee Young (who is white) wore a similar costume in TheNewTens and got lots of attacks on Instagram because of it.

* The Fabulous Freebirds, a PowerStable active from 1979 to 1994 were know for using the Confederate battle flag as a symbol for the group. By way of background, they first started using it while feuding with the Wrestling/VonErichFamily in WCCW, the Von Erichs were proud Texans, while the Freebirds were associated with Georgia. Both teams flew their state flags to highlight their rivalry and at the time the Georgia state flag included a Confederate flag. Eventually the Freebirds decided to just use the battle flag, since they liked the way it looked. During the 2010s, the flag fell out of favor with much of the American population after it was co-opted as by a resurgent white supremacist movement, especially when it was revealed that the man who murdered black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, embraced the flag as a symbol of racism. Michael Hayes, the original leader of the Freebirds, stated in a shoot interview in 2016 that it never occurred to them that some might find the Confederate flag offensive. While there are those who [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment do not consider]] the Confederate flag an inherently racist symbol, no modern wrestling promotion would court controversy by putting it on TV.

* Masks used to be incredibly common in the American wrestling and still are in Latin American Wrestling, especially Mexico thanks to the legendary careers of The Masked Marvel, The Blue Demon, Wrestling/ElSanto, Atlantis, Mascarita Sagrada, Wrestling/{{Mistico}} etc, the [[HumiliatingWager ever popular mask vs mask wager]] and TheReveal that follows. In America though, masks fell out of favor in the so called "Rock N' Wrestling Era" when wrestling was crossing over with other forms of media such as movies and cartoons, leaving wrestlers to think masks would hamper their marketing value even though they never stopped Mexicans from getting movies or comics. However, with the rise of the internet, masks started making a small comeback in the 50 states as they were one of the surefire ways to force a gap between professional and private life, helping keep the mystique of TheGimmick. Wrestling/KaijuBigBattel and Wrestling/{{Chikara}} in particular ran with this.

* Going back even to the 90s, Kayfabe was still heavily enforced. For example the cast of ''{{Wrestling/GLOW}}'' had to stay in character whenever they were out in public - and that Faces and Heels couldn't be seen together. Professional wrestling these days tends to acknowledge that the wrestlers are only playing characters on TV. It's more unusual to find a wrestler doing an interview ''in'' character (One notable exception to this, though, is Twitter, as many Superstars will use their Twitter accounts to extend their feuds and characters beyond what they can in their limited TV time. See Wrestling/{{Fandango}} and Wrestling/SummerRae playing up their Kayfabe breakup for an example.)

* Vince [=McMahon=] is a fairly hardline conservative, and whenever a feud even touches politics (which, admittedly, happens only rarely), he books the conservative as the face. Problem is, his target audience has shifted left politically since the 80s and now skews fairly liberal (being primarily middle-class Americans ages 15 to 25), which makes things put things like [[http://www.wrestlecrap.com/classic40.html this in-ring debate]] on the Iraq war seem, well, silly.