hey…i believe that professional wrestling is real. answer this question…how do the wrestlers get blood all over theyre face. And they get up when theyre down because they have the guts and determination to get up. anyone beg to differ please do
Link to Staff Report: Is professional wrestling for real? – CKDH
Blood bags were invented at least 500 years ago, and so was fake fighting.
The big difference between actors fighting and professional “wrestlers” fighting is that actors fake it better.
well… is wrestling fake? no. Is it predetermined? absolutely. Is it legitimate competition? not a chance. Can wrestlers get hurt? certainly. Do they bleed? yes. the easiest way to get blood is to bleed… now there ARE a ton of ways to “pop” open an eyebrow so that you bleed like a stuck hog, which looks worse than it is.
But I assure you getting body-slammed hurts. Getting Clotheslined HURTS, and going off the top of a steel cage through an announce table has GOT to REALLY hurt.
So the action is real (for the most part)… the outcome is not.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, wrestlingman, glad to have you with us.
When you start a thread, it is helpful to others if you provide a link to the Staff Report or Column that you are commenting on. Helps keep us all on the same page, saves time searching, etc. I have accordingly edited your initial post to include a link. No biggie, you’ll know for next time. And welcome aboard.
How is it remotely possible that a fan of pro wrestling like yourself has not had access to the following:
WWE’s and MTV’s Tough Enough where we watched how they train wrestlers to fake the match (granted, the athletics, pain, and occasional accidents are real enough)?
Various specials on pro wrestling on Discovery and TLC where they ‘expose’ how wrestlers ‘fake it’?
The various books written by wrestling stars over the years where they openly talk about how matches were scripted?
The behind the scenes ‘secret conversations’ between wrestlers and/or managers and paramours where we, the audience, learn secret information that none of the other wrestlers know, despite the fact that the scene is aired on national television. If they fake that part of the soap opera, what else might they fake?
Are you really that blind to the above?
WRT to blood:
Small blood bags or items with fake blood are surreptitiously applied while the wresters is rolling around in pain.
Oops, real blood was accidentally spilled.
The cut. A wrestler uses a small pin or razor to open up a superficial wound along the brow or forehead wrinkle. Like a shaving nick, bleeds profusely but heals completely. Have you noticed that unlike with boxers, the cuts that happen in a wrestling ring don’t need stitches?
WRT to getting back up:
It’s scripted. Do you think someone on the verge of passing out from a strangle hold will suddenly get oxygen to his brain and stand up just because of a cheering crowd?
OTOH, there’s been known accidents were the athletes were really injured and even killed during a match/stunt. Sometimes the stretcher’s a ruse, sometimes it’s the real deal.
Peace.
The key here is the meaning of the word “fake” and the difference to the idea of something being real but staged. The hits and slams are real enough that they would put an untrained person out of commission – and sometimes even the trained professionals. But the development of the marquee matches (and of course the soap-operatic “storylines” of WWE) are scripted and choreographed.
from the linked report. Could someone fill me in on the details here? What network? Why evil? I shouldn’t ask this, should I?
Probably not. Do you want to draw attention to the evil network that cancelledThe Straight Dope TV show? The Asinine and Evil network, as it were?
The real question is, why does anyone care if wrestling is “fake” (and I prefer the term predetermined, as the toll it takes on the wrestlers is in no way fake) or not?
I mean, no one goes around saying “oh, the Matrix, that’s fake, oh 24, that’s fake” so really then why should it matter if HHH and Shawn Michaels aren’t really trying to beat the s*** out of each other?
My judo teacher told me that one of the Portland Wrestlers came to the dojo once to try judo.
He said they all look the same lying down.
Because they pretend it’s real.
I also used to train (in judo) with a professional wrestler (in Wisconsin, many years ago).
FWIW - Allen Coage, former national champion, Pan-Am gold medallist, and Olympic bronze medalist (in judo) wrestled professionally under the name Bad News Brown. Willem Ruska, world and Olympic champion, also had some professional bouts in Japan.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - Yes, it’s faked.
Bad News Brown? Good wrestler, got stuck with the biggest push killer of an angle with Superstar Billy Graham. Nothing worse for your reputation than to have a 50 year old man in terrible shape beat you several times.
So do the actors in TV and movies – while in the role.
Outside of the wrestling shows, they no longer pretend wrestling is “real” any more than Kiefer pretends he’s a government agent.
What, are they supposed to everytime someone does a move on wrestling go “remember it’s fake folks!”
Blood packets and capsules are used very rarely, and almost exclusively by non-wrestlers. Celebrity guests who are “attacked” by wrestlers, or “family members” (who usually really are family) who are beaten up as part of an angle, for example.
Fake blood doesn’t mix well with sweat. Applied to the forehead of a wrestler after ten minutes of a match, they end up looking like food coloring mixed with water.
Nine times out of ten, if you see blood on a wrestler, it IS real blood. It didn’t get there from the chairshot or series of punches or whatever (unless the person swinging the chair messed up). It comes through “blading”- the practice of keeping a razorblade in the tights or knee pads which can be used to surreptitiously cut open one’s forehead while the opponent distracts the fans. This gets easier the more you do it; scar tissue is easier to cut correctly, and is less likely to hurt than normal skin.
Sometimes the “eyebrow bust” is used too- the practice of punching downward with the knuckles to cut open someone’s eyebrow. Relatively painless when done by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Wrestling isn’t fake. It isn’t real either. Most of the techniques used in wrestling could be used to injure someone- try (don’t try) taking a piledriver where your head actually makes contact with the ground.
There is a big difference between the pain associated with a stage technique and an actually applied one. A stage clothesline probably does hurt, but compare that to an actual strike to your throat. You will be crippled with pain well before your attacker needs to generate enough force to pivot you around your center of gravity and send you flat to your back.
Landing on a table hurts? I’m sure it does. So does breaking a board, I’m sure, but if you watch you’ll see the table break and, like the board, that breaking absorbs a lot of energy and makes the impact much more manageable. Also watch how they hit each other with the folding chairs. It generally seems to be across the back with the flat surface. That is exactly how you’d want to hit to do minimal damage, since you are maximizing the surface area of the blow. Strikes w/ the chair only go to the area around the hairline in the front where the skull is the thickest.
When they strike each other, it is generally with an open hand slap to the chest with the force going to the side rather than straight in. Closed fist strikes are always delivered to the hairline above the forehead. If those were sincere blows, you would see broken hands left and right.
I think it was Chris Benoit who had an opponent in a heel hook. This is an amazingly dangerous move which will tear and break the knee with ease, yet his opponent fought and fought and, IIRC, even managed to escape it. Again, we have a case of a dangerous technique applied in a manner clearly designed to have visual appeal, but not effectiveness. Other moves such as pile drivers and back breakers are literally crippling.
Or consider the sleeper hold. An effective choke, e.g. a sleeper hold, will put an opponent out in ten seconds or less. They operate by cutting off the supply of blood to the brain rather than the air to the lungs and bring about unconsciousness with suprising speed.
Pro wrestlers may walk away with bruises, sprains, etc. as a normal by-product of doing what they do. To say that their moves aren’t being applied in a manner designed to minimize risk, injury, & pain is something that I simply cannot agree with.
Who does, the fans or the wrestlers? I’m not sure there’s a difference.
I am reminded of when my daughter and I had a talk about the tooth fairy. I had been in the habit of including a silly note with the payment, and we both enjoyed it greatly. When she was a bit older, I asked her if she thought the tooth fairy was real. After a few back-and-forths, we agreed that it was fun to pretend to believe in the fantasy.
So, when wrestling fans jump to their feet and scream, it’s not much different from an audience in “Independance Day” cheering. We voluntarily suspend our disbelief, and for an hour or two, we pretend to believe the fantasy (in the case of wrestling, the fantasy that the outcome is the result of a pitched battle).
One difference between movies and wrestling is the requirement that the wrestlers stay in-character during all public appearences. An actor can be interviewed and talk about how much fun it was to make the movie. A wrestler has to talk about how he’s going to destroy his opponent. It’s interesting that many fans also choose to stay in-character when away from the ring … they insist that they believe the fantasy whenever challanged. For most of them, it’s just part of the fun. Kinda like people who insist that the smartest man in the world and his editor are different people. 
One result is that there are far more people who are fooled into genuinely believing those fantasies than there are people who genuinely believe in Matrix (although I wouldn’t doubt that there are a few…).
The fact that “professional” wrestling is “faked” and sold as “real” isn’t itself troubling, so long as the audience accepts that they are watching entertainment that is not a true sporting endeavor with uncertain outcome (kinda like watching a Tigers baseball game…). After all, who can really criticize watching wrestling, even if you don’t like it. I’m reading The Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time, which some might consider really silly given that I know the outcome.
But the Original Post shows why people condemn the “professional wrestling” business. I’ll repeat the original post so you can see the point:
I’ve met enough people in my time who truly think that they are watching something “real”, even to the point of believing that the outcomes aren’t pre-determined or the action scripted, let alone the results (pain, blood, etc.) acted out. So the complaint is that the business takes advantage of chumps, unlike broadcast television shows, where no one believes that the action is a portrayal of real life… ooooops, then again… 
A friend of mine from high school used to work as a ring announcer for a minor federation (World Xtreme Wrestling–dunno if it’s around any more). His stock answer to “Is wrestling fake?” was “You don’t know how fake it is.” He told me that all kinds of stuff happened just beyond the crowd’s or camera’s sight, like wrestlers asking each other if they were ready for a certain move, referees telling wrestlers, “OK, you’ve got X number of minutes before we wrap it up,” that kind of thing. The funniest one he saw was in a match where one wrestler had a “Superfly”-type jump off the top rope trick. One of the ropes was slack, so the wrestler just asked the ref to hold the rope tight so he could stand on it!
I am not an expert, but having seen a fair number of matches, I believe that most of the moves actually recuire the active participation and cooperation of both wrestlers.