I mean i understand some matches may be fixed but when two popular players fight would any of them want to be the loser ? And the damage looks very real or is the only fixed thing the outcome ? Maybe someone from the industrty can answer . Or am i missing something if so put it into the comments and i’ll edit the post.
WWE and the like are a theatre performance designed to entertain. The fights are choreographed and intended to tell a story. The fighters are essentially actors/stuntmen whose job is to throw eachother around in ways that look exciting but are safe.
Boxing and sport wrestling are a genuine athletic sport where both fighters are trying to win.
I wouldn’t really call WWE “safe”, more like “mostly not life-threatening”. Lots of wrestlers have gotten properly fucked up over the years. Yes, the intent isn’t to cause harm but with all the flashy moves being pulled you are bound to break a few bones at some point
Fair point. In the same way being a stuntman isn’t always safe.
Owen Heart died in the ring when his harness failed and he hit a turnstiles during an entrance. Undertaker had his face scorched pretty bad and had to perform through it. It isn’t just the in ring stunts that do damage. Its a live stunt performance, and its all very dangerous.
Fine. Pro wrestling is like cheerleading.
Cheerleaders actually suffer a shitload of injuries
Why do you think I made the comparison?..
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Pro wrestling is fake (or, is all just fiction, like a TV show or a theater performance). Wrestling and boxing are not fake.
Few wrestling matches will be pre-scripted stunt-by-stunt, but the actors will generally have agreed upon what they in-general want to pull off, and roughly in what order.
The actual physical work is (usually) real, of course. Lifting a huge guy over your head or climbing onto a post and jumping down require a lot of physical training, in particular to not hurt yourself or the other person.
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I guess a better way to think about it is that the competition is fake. Always. It’s not a competitive match, it’s a cooperative effort to create a physical drama play.deleted by creator
The outcomes are all fixed for all matches. However back in the earlier days (and maybe still today though I have never heard of this happening) one wrestler would sometimes refuse to lose for one reason or another. This would usually result in the match being changed. Though sometimes if it happened during the match things would get more real and could turn into a “shoot” (real) fight.
One of the more infamous matches where wrestlers didn’t want a particular ending was the Acolytes (A.P.A.) vs. Public Enemy.
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I think the line between scripted wrestling (WWE, WCW, etc) and actual sports (boxing, UFC) is very very clear. In the latter some matches may be rigged, but those are exceptions and instances of corruption. In the former, no adult truly expects them to be genuine sports competitions.
While I agree there is a bright line between the two, especially when it comes to something that’s going to be televised, there is a bunch of relatively shady shit that happens lower on in the process to bad records and etc. For instance, there are boxers with hundreds of loses, where there is an unspoken agreement that they are always going to lose while making it look like a fight, if not a great one.
It’s like live action stunts the stories and theatre is scripted the broad strokes of the match are choreographed with the finer details worked out between the wrestlers and the ref. But you can’t fake some of the bumps esp if you were someone like Mick Foeley
Pro wrestling is staged, pro boxing is not.
That said, while harm reduction is practiced in pro wrestling, people can and do get injured. Chris Benoit’s numerous concussions leading to him killing his family and himself, Bret Hart having his career ended by Goldberg, Darren Drozdov being crippled from the neck down, etc. etc.
Check out the Unreality of Pro Wrestling, its a video by some guy online who’se really fascinated by the fine line between the fiction of wrestling and the reality of it. Like, yeah, they’re selling, but there’s also real stakes for the wrestlers too. When the storylines and the wrestler’s motives align just right, it’s basically real for just a little while, even if its fake.
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