Wrestling Terminology

[Guest Vitamin X]

Hey all I had to write a paper in English 101 regarding the terminology in wrestling and how we use it, and I was just looking for a little feedback and perhaps a little discussion about it. I post the essay right here, exclusive to the SmartMarks.com! (thumbs up, cheap pop)

Enjoy

 

It is a sport as much as it is a product of entertainment. Men and women both run out there to an arena jam packed with thousands of people crammed to see them compete in a sport which everyone knows is fixed. But for those precious few minutes, their disbelief has to be suspended, or their entertainment would be vanished. The little entertainment and credibility that the sport has, gone. The cynics who hate the fake sport based on what they hear about it, bash it and gleefully point out the fakeness of each thing that the two men or women do inside what is known to the insiders of the industry as "the squared circle". But they have never stopped to think and wonder what happens behind the scenes, once the men have done their job, or won a piece of tin slapped on an enormous leather belt, which means practically nothing since whoever was working, or "booking" the match was the one who gave it to him. The intricate, complex world backstage that constantly deals with the onslaught of criticism from the mainstream media and populace in general.

 Put yourself in the shoes, or rather the boots, of a professional wrestler for a change. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be enormous, muscle bound, or even a man to be one. Anyone, any common man can get invovled in the wrestling industry. The world of the professional wrestler deals with two kinds of people: the cynics, and the open-minded. If I were to make a statement such as, "Wow I can't

believe he just turned heel! He won't be NEARLY as over as when he was a face! Huh, I bet he'll start having to job out now to the upper-midcard guys, because he sure as hell isn't over enough to justify being brought to the main event yet." confusion would no doubt run rampant through the mind of anyone who doesn't follow the industry.

 But why so much terminlogy? Why all the lingo? Once again, the two kinds of people discussed in the world to the professional wrestler are the cynics, those who hate the wrestling industry and look down upon it, or the open-minded, the ones who are curious to see what the fuss is about, and who can suspend their disbelief in the reality that, yes, this is all choreographed, and everything is fixed (or in the wrestling world, "worked"). The constant lingo spoken behind the scenes is because of the division of these two groups, and how the professional wrestler distinguishes those two apart. That's not to say that if one is open-minded, they're supposed to know what a face or heel is, or if that shoot was appropriate enough to draw ratings or not. It's to say that the professional wrestler will say these things, and the open-minded among us will inquire what all these things mean, instead of bash the wrestling industry with what the wrestler constantly hears, about how fake it is.

First off, everyone knows wrestling is fake. The word leaked out about it some time ago, and the wrestlers more than anybody know how fake it is. To them though, it is not necessarily as fake as much as it is choreographed. The reason to why professional wrestling, ironically compared to amateur wrestling which is real, is fixed is because the sport needs to draw ratings, merchandise, and money. The conditions under which the wrestlers perform is not the same kind of condition that athletes in football, basketball, or baseball endure. The conditions under which they perform has to be that they entertain the crowd, not directly compete with each other to gain the upper hand and win a game. The contracts which they sign have far less zero's than the average Major League Baseball

contract. Their season never ends. And even professional wrestler Kurt Angle, also an accomplished amateur wrestler, so accomplished he won the 1996 Gold Medals in Atlanta in amateur freestyle wrestling, has noted that he has sustained more injuries in two years in World Wrestling Entertainment, than he ever had in all twenty plus years of amateur

wrestling. Because in professional wrestling, a competitor (or as frequently referred to in WWE, "superstars") doesn't fight the other guy and try to make him look ridiculous so he can be the victor. In this case, he or in some cases she, constantly knocks themselves down and bash their heads, arms, legs, and entire bodies into a hard canvas, over and over again to make the OTHER guy look good. This is what's called in the wrestling industry as "selling" for your opponent.

 The way I was introduced to all this terminology came from two sources: the internet wrestling fanbase, and from local workers in independent wrestling federations around Southern California. When I first started watching wrestling, I was curious to see just how the business worked, how these men who have to have so much endurance to run

around the ring and literally injure themselves to entertain the crowd, do their work. As much as the cynics look down on the wrestling industry, so do the insiders of the wrestling industry look down upon the cynics, and thus another reason for the language among the insiders is because they don't want the cynics to understand them. The hatred for the these cynics, these Phil Mushnicks (a favorite target of the internet wrestling fanbase due to his constant criticizing of wrestling on television) and Parent Television Councils, runs so deep around the wrestling business that they don't want to express what they are saying, or make it obvious to the cynics how fake the sport is, lest they face even more unnecessary bashing.

Another reason is because of the rule of thumb in professional wrestling known as kayfabe. Kayfabe is derived from carny jargon talk, referring to inside information about the business, especially by fans. Lately, there has been much controversy among the inside of the wrestling business surrounding the popular MTV show, "Tough Enough". What is interesting about the show is that insiders feel as though it breaks kayfabe about the wrestling business far too much, and that everyone can, will, and has already been completely, totally, and utterly exposed to how the wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment do their job. This is a major problem for insiders, because the small children who watch wrestling and believe all of it is real, can become disinterested in it and dismiss it as "fake", becoming another cynic to professional wrestling. And the more cynics, critics, and those who can't suspend their disbelief to be entertained by this testosterone-injected soap opera there are, the more poorly business will do. These men don't have any kind of labor union, no medical insurance, nothing. All they have is the support of the fans and the money that comes from what they sell.

 And thus, the division is hopefully now more apparent. When a professional wrestler will hear someone talking about works, shoots, faces, heels, jobbing, booking, selling, and such, his eyes will light up and his head will certainly turn as he knows that one of his kind is near, those on the other side of the wall of kayfabe. Those who know that wrestling is fake, and that don't decide that the business is half-bad at all.

And when he goes out there and quite possibly nearly paralyzes himself doing what he loves to do, making his earnings via a means noone else would dare do if they knew what they were getting into, he can smile at that fellow insider on the way to the ring. Because he is one of his own kind.

 

 

There ya go. I appreciate the feedback.

[Guest Jericholic82]

Nice job!!!

 

I also have written many papers on wrestling throughout high school and now college, so I think it is cool