Professional wrestling
A professional wrestling match. Two wrestlers grapple in a wrestling ring while a referee (in white, right) looks on.
Ancestor arts	Carnival, Catch wrestling, commedia dell'arte, vaudeville, music hall
Descendant arts	Shoot style wrestling, roller derby
Originating culture	United States /  England /  France
Originating era	19th-century

Professional wrestling (often shortened pro wrestling, or simply wrestling) is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.^[1] It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport. The unique form of sport portrayed is fundamentally based on classical and "catch" wrestling, with modern additions of striking attacks, strength-based holds and throws, and acrobatic maneuvers; much of these derive from the influence of various international martial arts. An additional aspect of combat with improvised weaponry is sometimes included to varying degrees.

The matches have predetermined outcomes in order to heighten entertainment value, and all combative maneuvers are worked in order to lessen the chance of actual injury.^[2] These facts were once kept highly secretive but are now a widely accepted open secret. By and large, the true nature of the performance is not discussed by the performing company in order to sustain and promote the willing suspension of disbelief for the audience by maintaining an aura of verisimilitude.

Originating as a sideshow exhibition in North American traveling carnivals and vaudeville halls, professional wrestling grew into a standalone genre of entertainment with many diverse variations in cultures around the globe, and is now considered a multi-million dollar entertainment industry. In North America, it has experienced several different periods of prominent cultural popularity during its century and a half of existence. The advent of television gave professional wrestling a new outlet, and wrestling (along with boxing) was instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery.

Scope and influence[link]

A wrestler (Christopher Daniels) leaps off the top rope

Professional wrestling has become especially prominent in Japan and in Central and North America.^[3] In Brazil, there was a very popular wrestling television program from the 1960s to the early 1980s called Telecatch. High-profile figures in the sport have become celebrities or cultural icons in their native or adopted home countries.

Although professional wrestling started out as petty acts in sideshows, traveling circuses and carnivals, today it is a billion-dollar industry. Revenue is drawn from ticket sales, network television broadcasts, pay-per-view broadcasts, branded merchandise and home video. Pro wrestling was instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery. Annual shows such as WrestleMania and formerly Starrcade are among the highest-selling pay-per-view programming each year. In modern day, internet programming has been utilized by a number of companies to air web shows, internet pay per views (IPPVs) or on-demand content, helping to generate internet-related revenue earnings from the evolving World Wide Web.

Home video sales dominate the Billboard charts Recreational Sports DVD sales, with wrestling holding anywhere from 3 to 9 of the top 10 spots every week.^[4]

Due to its persistent cultural presence and to its novelty within the performing arts, wrestling constitutes a recurring topic in both academia and the media. Several documentaries have been produced looking at professional wrestling, most notably, Beyond the Mat directed by Barry W. Blaustein, and Wrestling with Shadows featuring wrestler Bret Hart and directed by Paul Jay. There have also been many fictional depictions of wrestling; the 2008 film The Wrestler received several Oscar nominations and began a career revival for star Mickey Rourke.

Currently, the largest professional wrestling company worldwide is the United States-based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which bought over many smaller regional companies in the late twentieth century, as well as its primary competitors in early 2001, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). The other prominent professional wrestling company worldwide is Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). There is also a rising independent promotion called Ring Of Honor. In Mexico, the top promotions are Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración. In Japan, it is New Japan Pro Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and Pro Wrestling NOAH.

Genre conventions[link]

When talking about professional wrestling, there are two levels: the "in-show" happenings that are presented through the shows, and happenings which are outside the scope of performance (in other words, are real life) but have implications on the performance, such as performer contracts, legitimate injuries, etc. Because actual events are often co-opted by writers for incorporation into storylines for the performers, the lines are often blurred and become confused.

Special care must be taken when talking about people who perform under their own name. The actions of the character should be considered fictional events, wholly separate from the life of the performer. This is similar to other entertainers who perform with a persona that shares their own name (such as Stephen Colbert and Stephen Colbert (character)).

It should be noted that some wrestlers will incorporate elements of their real-life personalities into their characters, even if they and their in-ring persona have different names. One notable example is CM Punk, who is straight edge both inside and outside the ring, and uses different aspects of the lifestyle to draw the desired crowd reaction depending on his character's alignment.

Kayfabe[link]

Historians are unsure at what point wrestling changed from competitive catch wrestling into worked entertainment. Those who participated felt that maintenance of a constant and complete illusion for all who were not involved was necessary to keep audience interest. For decades, wrestlers lived their public lives as though they were their characters.

The practice of keeping the illusion, and the various methods used to do so, came to be known as "kayfabe" within wrestling circles, or "working the marks". An entire lexicon of slang jargon and euphemism developed to allow performers to communicate without outsiders' knowledge of what was being said.

Occasionally a performer will deviate from the intended sequence of events. This is known as a shoot. Sometimes shoot-like elements are included in wrestling stories to blur the line between performance and reality. These are known as "worked shoots". However, the vast majority of events in professional wrestling are entirely preplanned or improvised within accepted boundaries.

Gradually, the nature of professional wrestling became an open secret, although American promotions' events were still often regulated by state athletic commissions through the 1980s, until World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon publicly admitted that wrestling was entertainment, not competition. This action garnered mixed reactions from the wrestling community, where some consider it ruins the experience to the spectators as does exposure in illusionism.