Basic Trope: Pro wrestlers often have second jobs, and wear attire more appropriate for those jobs as wrestling gear.
- Straight: Walt Wrestler is a card-carrying member of the WTF, but still works as a desk jockey outside of the ring and rents an apartment rather than owning a house. He comes to the ring still wearing his shirt and tie from his day job.
- Exaggerated: Walt Wrestler lives in a cardboard box on the street. He comes to the ring in filthy rags, with his "home" slung over his shoulder.
- Downplayed: Walt's day job is as a wrestling coach at the local high school, so brings his coach hat to the ring.
- Justified
- The WTF is a small independent company; it doesn't have a lot of money to pay its employees large incomes.
- The WTF is a non profit vehicle that raises funds primarily for those in greater need than Walt Wrestler.
- Walt Wrestler's region is so economically devastated that hardly anything pays well unless the local oligarchy takes an interest in it. Assuming it even has one of those...
- Inverted:
- Walt Wrestler makes more than six figures a year, and lives in a Big Fancy House in a gated community.
- Walt Wrestler in character is an Upper-Class Twit Heel, who has never worked a day in his life if you don't count professional wrestling. Meanwhile out of character he conceals his actual job which he works at ninety percent of the time.
- Subverted:
- Walt Wrestler makes six figures a year
- Walt is reasonably well off, but his Kayfabe character is explicitly poor.
- Double Subverted:
- But only a small portion of that comes from the WTF. The rest comes from stock trading.
- The poor character comes from a time in Walt's life when he was barely scraping by, possibly a very recent time.
- WTF is starting to make more money, and uses some of it to make Walt a more "convincing" uniform.
- Walt Wrestler makes a lot of money from wrestling, but when his insurance refuses to help pay for an injury or illness caused by his pro wrestling career, he is forced to get a second job to cover his bills for awhile.
- Parodied: Walt Wrestler's day job is a panhandler.
- Zig Zagged: Walt Wrestler has a gimmick from his second job he uses to support his pro wrestling career, but then his wrestling career takes off and he no longer has to work a second job. Dropping the gimmick derived from his second job causes fans to turn on him however, so he takes the gimmick back up anyway. Then Walt Wrestler takes on a fun training job to draw in new employees to his second job's employer based on Walt Wrestler's wrestling fame.
- Averted: Walt Wrestler makes a lot of money.
- Enforced
- Truth in Television.
- Athletics in Walt Wrestler's region are regulated in such a way that prevents athletes from making much money.
- Pro wrestling in Walt Wrestler's region is so deregulated and monopolized that money making wrestlers belong to a small club Walt Wrestler is not a part of.
- Lampshaded: "Not on a wrestler's salary!"
- Invoked: Walt Wrestler signs onto the WTF, a small up-and-coming company, as a Jobber. He can't afford wrestling gear on his salary, so...
- Exploited: Walt Wrestler (dressed as a hobo) panhandles the audience as he comes in, and donates that money to cancer research.
- Defied:
- Walt Wrestler signs onto a wrestling company that is larger and better-paying (even for non main-eventers.)
- The WTF pays its employees well, allowing each of them to focus on wrestling and not worry about holding down another job.
- Discussed
- "Amazing balance and core strength displayed there! Walt likely owes that to those long hours on the high rises."
- "Walt's coming in late. He's wrestling Bob The Baker in the second match."
- Conversed: "Walt got those legs in the warehouse? He could wrestle on the weekends as 'The Inventory Man'!"
- Played For Laughs: Walt Wrestler is cast as the wrestler who took his world title belt in his upcoming film.
- Deconstructed
- Having to maintain a wrestler's schedule means Walt can't hold a job very long, and he certainly can't manage on just the wrestling money, so he's forced to work a series of increasingly bad jobs during the day. Meanwhile, his ring work and win-loss record suffer as he has less and less time to train and his day jobs leave him more and more worn out.
- Walt Wrestler successfully holds down a job and has fun wrestling, but has no social life, or any other kind of life outside of work and wrestling. His living quarters fall into disrepair, his knowledge of current events slips, burnout and stagnation become increasingly apparent risks to outside observers.
- Reconstructed
- Walt's coworkers and or superiors think that him being a professional wrestler is novel. This leads them to alleviate some of the pressure of his job so that Walt Wrestler can be more successful in the ring.
- A savvy promoter, insightful employee or concerned family member identifies the pitfalls of Walt Wrestler's professional schedule and seeks to help him around them. Walt is promoted and booked in ways that allow him work lighter on or even miss entire shows without diminishing his presence in a promotion from time to time, is encouraged to invest in employee benefits such as paid time off towards his mental health and social life, while periodically being updated on community events and checked up on by friends.
- Walt Wrestler has a career he enjoys, but from a promoter's perspective it comes with few perks worth making concessions for, so promotions that run infrequently are the only ones Walt can regularly wrestle for without disrupting said career, and most of these don't generate enough money to pay wrestlers very well. The passion Walt Wrestler puts into his work does draw the attention of larger promoters however, and leads to some of Walt's managers, tag team partners and opponents who don't have lucrative careers like his getting into better paying promotions. As so many people associated with Walt Wrestler become famous, Walt himself becomes fairly well known, despite remaining a fixture of small time indie shows.
- Played For Drama
- Walt and his wife or girlfriend are always fighting about how they'll pay the bills. She wants him to get a "real" job, and he wants to pursue his dreams.
- Walt Wrestler is regularly attacked by other wrestlers who are under the impression he thinks pro wrestling is a just a way to pass time and does not take their chosen profession seriously.
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