http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProfessionalWrestling

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Professional Wrestling, as the term is understood today, is a cooperative endeavor in which athletes face off in loosely choreographed matches with pre-determined outcomes, in a manner resembling a type of freestyle combat loosely based on Greco-Roman wrestling, amateur/Olympic wrestling, and (since the 1990s) Mixed Martial Arts (which themselves grew partially out of pro wrestling). Modern professional wrestling derived from Catch Wrestling, a grappling style developed by carnival promoters in late 19th century Britain, which soon gained popularity in America as a legitimate form of athletic competition. By the early years of the 20th century,note It's impossible to know exactly when wrestling started being worked because of the highly secretive nature of kayfabe in the early years; Frank Gotch, who was world champion from 1908 to 1913, is generally considered to have won and defended his title legitimately, while other sources suggest fights had been rigged as early as 1870, and worked matches devolving into legitimate fights were a common occurrence as late as the 1970s and happen on occasion even today the sport had evolved into a "work" where the winners of bouts were determined ahead of time by the organizers, with performers playing "face" or "heel" characters to elicit respective cheers or boos from the audience. From this arrangement, a system gradually evolved of numerous territorial wrestling leagues across the US, cooperating under the auspices of the National Wrestling Alliance (which WWE, WCW, ECW, and almost every other major promotion in North America and some outside of it were affiliated with at one point), which sponsored the world championship and other titles, picked the champions, and arranged for the top talent from the territories to go on tour and gain national exposure. In 1963 the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, once the NWA's New England territory, split from the group, rechristened itself the Worldwide Wrestling Federation (later the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)), and over the following decades expanded on a national scale to create the wrestling industry as it exists today.

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Pro wrestling is usually full of concepts from different types of shows. Each match is roughly choreographed (though not usually in much detail since wrestlers don't have much rehearsal time, let alone for whole matches, given that they wrestle twenty to twenty-eight days per month on average—most of a match's details will be improvised, with only the beginning, the end, and a few key "spots" in between specifically planned; the mark of a good wrestler is being able to make a match flow naturally, despite only having this sort of rough outline). World Wrestling Entertainment's programs remind one of nothing so much as a Soap Opera for guys (and indeed the terms "the soap opera for men" or, in recent years, "redneck anime", have become frequent nicknames for the business as a whole), complete with all the emotion, melodrama, and occasional comic relief that the phrase implies. Other organizations, such as Ring of Honor, strive for a more gritty, realistic presentation, but still incorporate many soap opera elements.

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The history of pro wrestling is a bit convoluted; until the late '80s/early '90s, promoters claimed that wrestling was a legitimate sport, and attempted to hide the fact that it was scripted at all costs. The truth is the performances are as ritualistic and stylized as Japanese kabuki theatre, or Commedia dell'Arte: each match is a miniature set piece, using stock "characters", "plots" and "twists". This has become more obvious in recent years with the increased sense of theatre provided by the major promoters and programs. As more and more wrestling fans grew wise to the fact that wrestling was scripted and choreographed, promoters had no choice but to reveal the secret that everybody already knew by that point anyway. Vince McMahon went so far as to televise a speech on an episode of Monday Night Raw in which he promised to "stop insulting (fans') intelligence" and referred to Raw as an "action-adventure" series.

All wrestling organizations will have a "booker", or person who decides which wrestlers are going over on any given "card" or event. The larger wrestling organizations will have full booking teams, made of bookers (who help wrestlers lay out the matches) and scriptwriters (who tell the bookers the companies' long-term goals with the storylines). These are often called the "creative teams", or simply just "creative" (as in "Creative has no ideas for you at the moment"). Booking wrestling matches and storylines is a difficult skill; most of the boom times for wrestling can largely be accounted for through good booking of matches. Poor booking can be disastrous: WCW was literally destroyed through terrible creative decisions, first under the stewardship of Vince Russo and a few others, then through WWE's terrible "Invasion" vanity trip.

However, as many Sitcom plots (and Botchamania) have implied, Professional Wrestling is very real in the sense that mistimed inexperience can leave someone seriously injured. Professional wrestlers are like stuntmen; they're acting out a scene, but physically, and with the chance of injury, not to mention they get no second takes. And despite whatever you may have heard, they do hit each other, although their moves are generally designed to seem much more devastating than they are, and they avoid harm whenever they feasibly can without it looking too obvious. Just because it looks nothing like a real fight and more like a Hollywood fight scene does not mean they are not seriously putting themselves at risk in every match - matches are "fake" only in that they have a predetermined outcome. It would be less accurate to say that pro wrestling matches are Hollywood fantasy intended to simulate real danger and more accurate to say that they are real danger intended to simulate Hollywood fantasy. Professional wrestlers literally put their lives in their opponents' hands several times in a single match; the slightest misstep can — and often does — result in broken bones, a broken neck, paralysis, possibly even death. Don't Try This at Home.

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Now has a Useful Notes page that attempts to debunk the nasty stereotypes about the business. Not that it will work. In case you are interested in the times in which professional wrestling was a legitimately competitive sport, see the catch wrestling Useful Notes page.

See Wrestling Tropes for tropes exclusive to or primarily found in the medium. Thanks to the various wrestling related Tropes that have been named, it now has its own page.

We are always open for new pages about wrestling. See this page for a list of page requests.

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Tropes Examples A-Z

Sample of Pro Wrestling Promotions By Region

People in Pro Wrestling with Pages

Stables and Tag Teams

PPVs and Other Events

News and Opinion Sources

Other

Professional Wrestling in Various Media