Pro Wrestling: Is It as Fake as You Think?

Alex’s Wrestling Speech.

Okay, so you are all probably thinking “this is going to be sooo boring” well guess what, it’s not going to be. Today, I am not saying how wrestling is so cool, i’m saying how wrestling is not fake and how you guys regard it for something it isn’t. Be honest, who here thinks they don’t really punch each other? Well you’re all wrong. You want something fake? Look at the lochness monster now that’s fake.

It takes years and years for a wrestler to even train himself to be ready for a real match. Let’s be honest, a wrestler never wants to get hurt more than he wants to hurt his opponent, but it’s their job. They all get hurt, each and every one of them. If you follow wrestling you will hear every week a wrestler getting injured. It might not be serious but hey they still get injured. Moves take a long time to train for, like a real long time. Hey, a DDT for an example (see image) is very hard to maneuver. Your opponent needs to know how to fall on his head properly and you need to fall in a way that is appropriate so your opponent doesn’t snap their necks. It may seem easy, but it isn’t honestly. Admit it, if you stepped into the ring with John Cena you would either end up dead or paralyzed. Another move that takes a long time to execute is a suplex. This move requires learning how to fall and isn’t taught until far into your training. If the opponent is to fall incorrectly, he/she could end up in serious pain or even spinal injury. One very dangerous move that is rarely attempted anymore is the Tombstone Piledriver. The opponent is actually higher up on the other guy so his head doesn’t smash into the ground.

Okay, I’ve talked about moves long enough to bore you right? Who here is still convinced that wrestling is fake?? Well now I’m going to talk about the weapons. The weapons in wrestling are 100% real, well most of them. The steel chairs you see in WWE / TNA or anywhere else are real steel and almost identical to the ones in the large lunchroom. If you took a chair and whacked someone right now it would hurt right? But not wrestlers, you know why? The wrestlers pull back a little just before the chair hits the opponent so the opponent doesn’t get hit so hard, make no mistake, he still gets hit. The ladders are real too, they even have their own match called a “Ladder Match”. Original right?  Wrestlers also have to train how to fall off of these. They get “pushed” and shoved off of them all the time but if they weren’t trained for that they’d be in serious pain. The one thing everyone regards as fake is blood. “Oh they just use capsules” everyone says, well no they don’t. It’s 100% real blood. The blood comes from the wrestlers hiding a small blade in their wrist tape and cutting themselves when hit with a nasty blow.

What else do wrestlers need to know you ask? Well wrestlers need to know how to sell, selling is pretending a move is harder than it is. For example, if I softly slap you on the shoulder and you start to cry, that’s a form of selling. Selling is what people misunderstand. It’s not that they don’t punch each other, it’s that they sell the punch harder than it is. Wrestlers also need to learn to take bumps. Bumps is a fancy term for “learning how to fall”. Falling is the one of the top things that wrestlers mess up which results in a possible severe injury. June 2009, WWE Superstar Edge was dropped wrong on his foot and tore his achilles tendon leaving him out for 8 months. That was a totally legit injury and I have a picture of the surgery.

Has anyone heard of the word botch? It’s a term that is used for “messing up a scripted move”. If a wrestler for example does a suplex and messes up the grab, that would be a BIG botch.

Oh my, please don’t tell me you think wrestling is STILL FAKE! Here are some injury examples if you are still skeptical.

1. Over The Edge 1999, Owen Hart fell to his death after a botched descent from the sky using a rope. The rope was broken and Owen fell flat onto the turnbuckle and died almost instantly.

2. Summerslam 2008, John Cena was to flying legdrop Batista but Batista caught him and powerbombed him into the mat, breaking some sort of disc in Cena’s neck, leaving him out six-nine months.

3. The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels Casket Match,  The Undertaker accidentaly chokeslamed Shawn Michaels onto the casket instead of inside which left Shawn to have a broken back and be out for five years.

4. A SmackDown taping where D’Lo Brown botched a powerbomb leaving Droz paralyzed from the neck down. Droz now works behind the scenes as an editor to WWE.com

I left you with mechanics and injuries and everything you need to know and do you still think wrestling is fake? Tell me! Raise your hand now! Wrestling is absolutely real as you and me and if you still disbelieve then I consider you a disbeliever.