Things You Thought Were Fake About Wrestling But Are Real

Professional wrestling fans around the world will know all too well what it's like talking about one of their favorite things with people who don't know much about it, primarily because one word will always pop up in conversation. That word is, of course, fake. "You do know that it's fake right?" "Isn't that just a bunch of fake fighting?" "Why do you watch that stuff? It's fake anyway!" The temptation to respond with something like, "You do know Luke Skywalker isn't a real Jedi right?" or "Walter White doesn't really exist," or "Why do you watch this TV show? It's not real either," is very real to some people, but to all of the people who think professional wrestling is entirely fake, this one is for you.

As much as the art and medium of professional wrestling is scripted in that everyone knows what's going to happen ahead of time, wrestling is a business filled with human beings who have very real emotions and very real feelings. It's also a business filled with human beings who are far from perfect, meaning that they will make mistakes from time to time, and when you're dealing with human beings, no matter how good the script might be, things can get very real, very quickly.

That is what we are here to talk about today, the elements of a business that in the eyes of a casual consumer are entirely fake, but in reality can be the most real and genuine form of storytelling in all of entertainment. If you ever thought you could be a professional wrestler because you thought it was just a bunch of fake fighting, maybe take a read of these nine things that you thought were fake about wrestling, but are extremely real.

A lot of wrestlers might look big and strong, but they don't get that sort of look overnight.

Some of the biggest names in the business have had years of extensive training, beginning in wrestling schools and learning how to take a bump, how to lock up, and how to perform certain moves. However, to do all of those things, wrestlers have to be in phenomenal shape virtually all the time, with some larger wrestlers piling on dozens of pounds at times to give themselves "extra protection" when taking moves. 

The workout routines of many wrestlers would have the average gym enthusiast quake with fear as the entire body needs to be kept in top shape to not only look good on camera but also be able to perform matches safely. Extensive cardio training so performers don't get blown up mid-match, weightlifting exercises that border on record-breaking (just look at Big E), strength and conditioning drills, wrestling-specific training that includes grappling on the mat, and exercises specific to what happens in the ring. It takes a lot for wrestlers to look and act the way they do, a lot of hard work goes into making them the best possible athletes that they can be.

For a lot of professional wrestlers, particularly in WWE thanks to their NIL program, they will often have backgrounds and experience in other sports before they ever step foot in a ring. For example, Ronda Rousey had already been the queen of the UFC and a Judoka at the Summer Olympics before joining WWE. Kurt Angle famously won an Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics before transitioning into professional wrestling, and stars like Goldberg, Vader, and Roman Reigns all had football careers before getting into the squared circle.

Growing up, many fans will look at a wrestling ring and think that it's like jumping on a bed, a couch, or even a trampoline considering how much some of the wrestlers bounce around the ring. However, it's only when people get in the ring for the first time that they fully realize that the wrestling ring is not a bed, a couch, or a trampoline. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

A wrestling ring is made up of various very stiff materials. For starters, the frame and base of the ring are made of steel beams that allow wooden plank staging to sit on top. A thin foam padding is then placed on top of the wood in order to give some sort of protection to the wrestlers so they aren't landing on pure steel and wood, and then a canvas sheet is placed over the top to complete the setup. At times, a large spring could be placed under the center of the ring to give the ring more bounce, but companies have largely stayed away from this as the spring breaking can actually cause a lot of damage to wrestlers who aren't expecting it to bottom out. 

The ring is then held up with steel legs that sit on all four sides of the frame, and four large steel ring posts in each corner. On the posts, three steel turnbuckles hold up the ring ropes, which are usually covered by a thin pad, or in other companies a large foam pad. As for the ropes themselves, in a lot of companies, they are high-tension steel cables wrapped in rubber, while in places like WWE, natural fiber ropes are covered in tape, which can hurt when bouncing off of them.

Once you get physically ready, run the ropes a few times, and get into a company, wrestlers will start performing in matches that will blossom into storylines. Some of wrestling's best storylines have been so engaging that they have been able to fill up stadiums with fans eager to see two performers finally settle their score after months of build-up, and at times, these storylines have been more real than some might suspect.

A lot of times in wrestling, storylines often stem from things that have happened in real life. WWE have had a number of extremely volatile feuds over the years that started with real-life incidents, such as Matt Hardy and Edge's feud in 2005, where Hardy's girlfriend Lita cheated on him with Edge while Hardy was injured. CM Punk and Jeff Hardy's 2009 feud had a lot of real-life tension due to the two men leading very different lifestyles, and virtually all of the interactions between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in the 1990s as the two men legitimately hated each other backstage.

More often than not, storylines can start strictly as an in-house story but can become real over the following weeks, months, and years. This was evident in Triple H and Stephanie McMahon's storyline during 1999 and 2000, which eventually led to the two having real feelings for each other that concluded with them getting legitimately married in 2003. It also happened in WCW when Kevin Sullivan, the booker at the time, booked himself in a feud with Chris Benoit who wanted Woman, Sullivan's wife in real life. Benoit and Woman would generate feelings for each other and she would leave Sullivan to marry Benoit for real in 2000, leading to the famous phrase "Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce."

One of the biggest problems that people have had with WWE over the years has been the promos that their superstars cut. For a long time, the company was very strict on the promos being scripted, and the WWE Superstars would have to stick to the script word for word if they wanted to avoid being yelled at by the powers that be. However, much like some of the best storylines, a lot of the most iconic promos in wrestling history have not only been real but they have been improvised on the spot.

Arguably the most famous example of a promo being real, or a shoot as those within the business would call it, is CM Punk's "Pipebomb" promo that he cut in 2011. Punk was legitimately nearing the end of his contract with WWE, and ahead of his WWE Championship match with John Cena at that year's Money in the Bank pay-per-view, he decided to cut a promo where he would express his frustrations with Cena, the company, the people that run the company, and even the fans by telling them that they were too lazy to go and get a real job, and would rather harass him at the airport. It was a promo that came from a real place, and while Punk might have known what he was going to say, it went against the scripted nature of WWE at the time.

Paul Heyman has also cut a number of shoot promos over the years that had no scripts behind them, such as the time he told TNN to kick ECW off the air, telling Vince McMahon he made wrestling a dirty word, and when he ran down the WWE roster members who tried to crash the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view in 2005.

If you watched wrestling through the COVID-19 pandemic, you will know how important fans are to the professional wrestling business, but there have been times where fans have overstepped the mark and stuck their noses into a business they have no place in.

When the action gets a little too much for the fans to take, a number of them have decided to take matters into their own hands and jump the guardrail to try and make themselves famous, or even try and save their favorite wrestlers from the heels. There were multiple instances of this during WCW's peak of popularity in the "Monday Night Wars," with fans regularly jumping in the ring to try and attack the nWo, with the night that Hulk Hogan turned on the company producing such a volatile reaction that Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and even the referees got their licks in on one fan who wanted to get his hands on The Hulkster.

WWE has also had its fair share of fan disruptions over the years. Triple H and Steve Austin both beat the life out of a fan who jumped in the ring during a live event in Germany, Eddie Guerrero was pushed off a ladder during a match with Rob Van Dam in 2002, only for the fan who pushed him to get a swift right hand to the side of the head from Guerrero, and even the main event of WrestleMania hasn't been safe from rogue fans as the beginning of Shawn Michaels and John Cena's match at WrestleMania 23 was stopped after a fan decided to try and make it a triple threat match. Given how some of the fans have ended up after trying to have their moment in the sun, they won't be doing it again.

Former AEW World Champion Bryan Danielson has mentioned in the past that whenever he bleeds in a wrestling match, he tells his children that it's just ketchup and that he's just pretending. Fake blood has been used in wrestling, but more often than not, the blood that you see in wrestling is 100% real.

When it comes to bleeding, there are usually two ways of producing a crimson mask. The first one, and amazingly the safer way of doing it is by blading, which is where a wrestler will take a razor blade, cut it down to such a small size that they can hide it in their wrist tape, their gear, or even their mouths, wrap it in tape and either make an incision in their forehead, or simply stab themselves in the head until they hit a spot where the blood can flow freely. Blading has been banned in many promotions, including WWE, for many years, but companies like AEW will allow their wrestlers to blade, with an eagle-eyed fan even spotting CM Punk blading at the company's All In London event in 2023.

The other way, and for some the realest way of bleeding, is what wrestlers call "the hard way." To put it simply, a wrestler will hit their head on something so hard that it causes a cut deep enough to produce blood. As previously mentioned, blading has been banned in WWE, but performers have bled buckets over the years by simply taking the harder route to get there. The prime suspect for this form of bleeding has been Brock Lesnar, who not only bled "the hard way" by headbutting the ring post as hard as he could but caused others to bleed in the same manner by elbowing them in the head.

A timely entry considering what has just happened in All Elite Wrestling, the weapons used in wrestling might be adjusted somewhat for dramatic effect, but for a lot of them, there is simply no way of faking them.

The most famous weapon in wrestling is, of course, the steel chair. These metal folding chairs can be shaved down and gimmicked so that they can collapse or break on impact, but even after all that, it's still a steel chair. There is a reason why unprotected chair shots to the head have essentially been outlawed in major companies due to how dangerous they can be, and while things like trash can lids and cooking sheets are thinner and produce a louder sound due to the material they're made of, they're real too. Tables are another fan favorite and can be used to break a wrestler's fall, as can wooden doors, but even though they are easier to break, they are still tables and can cause real damage.

Then there are things like thumbtacks, they are 100% real and it's been well-documented that wrestlers hate them for good reason. Flaming tables can't be faked either because it's an actual fire, how else are you going to fake that? 

Even nails have been used in wrestling, and while many AEW fans thought Cope's trusty bat "Spike" was covered in gimmicked nails, they weren't wondering that after the bat got stuck in Jon Moxley's back to the point where his Death Riders stablemate Wheeler Yuta and referee Paul Turner couldn't get it out. Barbed wire and broken glass are also weapons that can be altered by major promotions, but the real stuff is often used for certain occasions at the request of certain wrestlers. Yes, we're looking at you Jack Perry.

Wrestlers can always fake an injury to bait their opponents into a false sense of security, but with wrestling being as physically demanding as it is, injuries are extremely common. If you've ever watched a wrestling match and caught the referee holding their arms up in the X symbol, that is usually the universal sign that a wrestler has gotten hurt and cannot continue the match. Injuries can vary from a nasty cut that can't be shut without stitches, to a wrestler being knocked unconscious, tearing a muscle, or breaking a bone.

Some of the worst injuries that have ever happened in wrestling have occurred during some of the biggest matches. In 2001, Sid went for a jumping big boot from the second rope, but upon landing, he snapped his leg clean in half, which didn't quite force him into retirement, but altered both his career and life forever. Mick Foley has suffered more injuries than some wrestlers put together, with the hardcore legend suffering a separated shoulder, a collapsed lung, and having one of his teeth going through the top of his mouth and being lodged in his nose during his 1998 Hell in a Cell match with The Undertaker (yes, all of those injuries happened in the same match).

However, careers and even lives have ended in a wrestling ring. In 1999, Droz was left permanently paralyzed after taking a botched powerbomb in a match that had never been aired to the public. The same thing almost happened to Chris Bey in 2024 as he was left temporarily paralyzed after suffering a serious neck injury, he has made steps to a full recovery, but stars like Perro Aguayo Jr., Gary Albright, and Mitsuharu Misawa all suffered such severe injuries that they ended up passing away in the ring.

Given how stiff the ring is, how many injuries end up happening, and all of the hazards that surround the business, the most real part of the wrestling business is that it takes its toll on those who decide to pursue it as a career.

Professional wrestling is an industry that can chew people up and spit people out with no remorse. It's an industry that at one point in time was one that if you made it past a certain age, it was a miracle. Roddy Piper once said that he knew after everything that had happened to him during his career, he knew he wasn't going to live past the age of 65, and as morbid as that might sound on paper, he was right, he died at the age of 61, and at that time, 61 was a ripe old age for a veteran professional wrestler.

Years of bumping in the ring have left bodies permanently altered, performers are in constant agony because of how taxing it can be on the body. One mistake can change lives in an instant, and over the years, more than a few wrestlers have turned to drugs (both legal and illegal) and alcohol in order to get themselves through the day because they are in too much pain to get out of bed in the morning. 

The results are predetermined, the performers in the ring are (mostly) not trying to hurt each other, and the professional wrestling industry is designed to entertain fans all over the world. With that said, there is a reason why WWE still run video packages telling people to not try it at home, and that's because, quite simply, wrestling is more real than most people would like to admit.