"It's still real to me, damn it!"
"Kayfabe" is a Carny term thought to have originated from the
Pig Latin for "be fake."
Professional Wrestling adopted the term as a reference to the standard
Fourth Wall features of separating the audience from the action. It is meant to convey the idea that, yes, Pro Wrestling is a genuine sport, and yes, this is how these people act in real life. It is essentially
Willing Suspension Of Disbelief specifically for Pro Wrestling.
Back in the old days, though, Kayfabe was much more; it was pro wrestling's real-life
Masquerade. Wrestlers, promoters, and everybody else involved with the business alike resorted to any means necessary to guard the secret that wrestling was rigged, from wrestlers roughing up any reporters who dared ask, "It's all fake, right?" to (alleged) death threats towards anybody who threatened to expose the secret, through contacts with the Mafia and other organized crime. Heels and faces weren't allowed to travel, eat, or be seen with their 'enemies' in public. Regardless, fans started to figure out the truth in the '70s, and once Vince McMahon's
WWF rose to prominence in the '80s, the secret was pretty much out for any but the most die-hard (and thick-headed) fans. And even they finally got it in the '90s, when Vince himself revealed it on
Monday Night RAW.
"Breaking kayfabe", for a pro wrestler, is like "breaking character" for an actor.
Note that even in the current era, when pro wrestling is known to be staged, kayfabe is still a big deal; most wrestling organizations expect wrestlers to maintain kayfabe at all times, and one (Deep South Wrestling, one of
WWE's farm leagues) levied substantial fines on its wrestlers for breaking kayfabe at public appearances, before it was shut down.
Some people compare 'modern' kayfabe to Penn & Teller's tricks which seem to give away the 'magic secret', while actually setting you up for a different, more impressive effect.
Kayfabe can be heavily bent, if not outright broken, by a
Worked Shoot.
As a side note, if you happen to know anybody who claims to have been a wrestling fan "back when it was real", unless Willard Scott announces their birthday on
The Today Show, they were taken in by Kayfabe. By all accounts, wrestling was pretty much completely show within 10-15 years after the turn of the 20th century. By the late 1930s, even
Looney Tunes were making jokes about this, but many people themselves insisted on
their own version of Kayfabe in asserting that it was real.
The late
Gorilla Monsoon, one half of the best commentary duo of his era, had "KAYFABE" on his car's license plate.
The night after the "Secrets of Pro Wrestling" special came out (years after Kayfabe was 'exposed' in mainstream wrestling), Mick Foley was the only one to try to 'restore' kayfabe by claiming "I didn't do so well, last week- but I was watching TV last night, and the Secrets of Pro Wrestling were revealed to me!" Although Mick was probably just taking the mickey (pardon the pun) out of the ridiculous show. I mean, come on, Stunt grannies!
Conversely, some fans would prefer not to see "real" fighting, and prefer kayfabe. The arguments include:
- If it was real, it would be too disgusting to watch, like boxing or Joe Theisman's squick moment on MNF.
- Real fights tend to be very short, as demonstrated by the UFC or MMA in general.
- Real fights tend to be visually boring. Wrestling is more theatrical.
- Wrestling moves are like watching expert gymnasts, a skill in its own right, not weightlifting.
- Wrestling provides a story that is often more interesting than the match. Parodied in an episode of South Park where the kids think wrestling is only about the stories. (Season 13, Ep 10.)
- As demonstrated in the NFL, when the injuries are real, the quality of the games slowly degrade over the course of the season until they are not much better than college games. Kayfabe allows for minimal injuries over a long period of time.
- Unlike actual sports, wrestling involves an underlying morality of good vs evil (or face vs heel) which has been a part of literature for centuries.
