Its still real to me dammit - the brutality of pro wrestling

This is an article that has been submitted for the journal by our newest member, Tinribs. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did and welcome him to the board:

Its still real to me dammit - The Brutality of Professional Wrestling
By Richie Andrews

Professional wrestling is often touted as "fake." There are many reasons for this, be it the Kayfabe rule, the fact that the matches are staged or that the outcomes are pre-determined. None of it comes without pain though; the wrestlers get hurt for real. I'm not really a wrestling fan, so this article aims to view some of the painful incidents in the sport from the perspective of an outsider. 


Breaking Kayfabe

It's 1977. In Britain, the punk scene is rife, there's fighting on the football terraces and Queen Elizabeth II is celebrating her silver jubilee. In America, Jimmy Carter succeeds Gerald Ford as the 39th President, Elvis Presley dies at his Graceland home aged 42 and the Atari 2600 is released. 
In Japan, two men stand in an area of combat. Like a boxing ring, the area has a mat, four corners and ropes surrounding the surface area. These two men are about to fight, only this isn't boxing, it's wrestling. 

The two men in question are Antonio Inoki, standing at 6' 4", and the Great Antonio, standing the same height, but weighing a whopping 495 pounds. Inoki is a famous Japanese wrestler while the Great Antonio is merely a guest on the scene, a Croatian-Canadian who is about to find out the seriousness of Professional Wrestling.
The bell rings, and the pre-determined match begins with Inoki showing off some athletic skill with a pointless somersault and a quick run against the ropes. The Great Antonio looks on, confused, before the pair go into the first of many grapples where The Great Antonio shows off his greater strength by seemingly man-handling Inoki with just one arm. 

A couple of headlocks later and Inoki tries a little attacking of his own. He fails at an attempt to lift the heavy Great Antonio and so performs a drop kick instead. However, Antonio seems unaware of one of the golden rules of pro wrestling, Kayfabe. The rule of Kayfabe is simple, you have to "sell" a move to the audience, meaning you're supposed to act like it hurt, you're supposed to fall to the ground and act stunned by the unbelievable wit and cunning of your opponent. He doesn't though. Instead he doesn't even flinch, boasting instead about it not hurting one bit, letting on to the crowd that none of the fighting is real and even bashing his chest triumphantly like King Kong.

After a few minutes of this farce, Inoki grows very tired of the charade and completely loses his temper. He throws a couple of vicious slaps and palm strikes to the Great Antonio's face. Antonio looks on in disbelief at how real they are, Inoki throws a couple more and kicks his cocky opponent in the leg. He then performs the ultimate take down move to get the giant onto the floor and proceeds to kick the man in the face, twice. The Great Antonio crawls to the ropes and hangs onto them stunned. He wasn't interested in pretending to be hurt, but now he doesn't have a choice. Inoki turns up the brutality by kicking Antonio in the face a further three times and then stamping on his head repeatedly. A member of the Great Antonio's camp eventually realises that things have gotten out of hand and jumps in to stops things, there's a short scuffle and Inoki stops his assault and has his arm risen by the referee in victory. A TKO win for Inoki, and proof that it's better to play along with the game, rather than get hurt for real without mercy or sympathy.

The above was a true event. It happened on the 8th December 1977, the rest of the world seemed to miss it, or just weren't interested, because at the time pro wrestling wasn't the billion dollar industry that it is today. Now, let's pose a question: Did the Great Antonio really deserve the beating he took? He may have been acting unprofessionally, he may have been making the entire thing look an absolute farce (bearing in mind that back then, people weren't as aware of Kayfabe as they are today), but Inoki still went too far.

Now, let's skip forward to 1997 and focus on an incident that happened in the WWF (now WWE).

The Broken Neck

In 1997, the WWF was reaching new heights with its now famous Attitude era. The industry had long since become loved by people around the world and year by year the art of pro wrestling was constantly improving. However, none of that meant that accidents didn't happen anymore, the risks were still there and some might say even more so as the audiences thrived for more risky stunts now that things were becoming normal.
So, when Stone Cold Steve Austin met Owen Hart at a match in the company's 'Summerslam' pay per view event, it was the ever popular Stone Cold who would be on the receiving end of something shockingly brutal, unlike the Inoki - Antonio incident though, this one was pure accident.
It was towards the end of the match that Stone Colds health took a drastic turn for the worse, he spun Owen Hart to attempt a move that never was as Owen, making good on his part of the deal, reversed the move and lifted Stone Cold into a pile-driver position.

"I remember we went into the pile-driver deal, I picked him up and we reversed that and he picked me up, my head was about, I don't know, 6 to 8 inches below the bottom of his legs" - Stone Cold Steve Austin
6 to 8 inches is a lot. Without wanting to go into detail about how to execute a pile-driver, it's only common sense to realise that the head needs to be above your legs to avoid injury. Even a few centre meters or on a level field with the bottom of the legs is dangerous. Hart wouldn't have known of the botched way he was holding Stone Cold, and so he finished performing the move, driving Austin's head into the mat and forcing the spine and neck to clash together under the weight.
Stone Cold Steve Austin had broken his neck. He couldn't move, he lay flat on his back unable to even move his fingers for a short time. What he did after was remarkable, he actually carried on the match and won.
Austin crawled over to Hart who had his back turned, he grabbed Owen from behind and pulled him to the ground. He successfully pinned Owen Hart and the match was over. Broken neck or not, Austin had performed possibly the ultimate act of professionalism. He wouldn't let anything get in the way of sticking to the rules and obeying Kayfabe, not even a broken neck. Where Inoki had acted so unprofessionally in the Seventies and lashed out in anger because things weren't going his way, Austin had suffered the worst injury imaginable and carried on with the event to please the fans.

One man’s pain becomes another man’s chance

Many say that this accident was what propelled The Rock to stardom. At the time, Austin was one of the most popular wrestlers in the business but with him now out of action, The Rock was able to step into the limelight and become the icon he is today.
The Rock fought his fair share of brutality also, and his involvement in an I Quit match against Mankind was to go down in history for some as one of the most brutal things they've seen in wrestling.
It was at the 1998 Survivor Series that the rivalry for this match started. Mankind had been "screwed" by Vince McMahon who had taken a more active role in story lines and even had his own stable, The Corporation. McMahon was able to crown The Rock as his "Corporate Champion" at Survivor Series.
In the New Year of 1999, Mankind was able to finally win the title at the first Raw night of the year. This led to the I Quit match at Royal Rumble, a match where anything goes and the only way to win is to force your opponent to say "I Quit".
The match itself was full of shocking moments which all seem to be sticking to Kayfabe when looking back. They look planned now, they look choreographed, like a certain moment where Mankind falls from a platform and lands onto a rig of electrical equipment, only for sparks to fly everywhere. Whether or not the sparks are real or the equipment was real isn't really the point. The point is that he was willing to risk his body for the entertainment of thousands of fans.


Continued here - http://v2journal.com/17/post/2013/03/its-still-real-to-me-dammit-the-brutality-of-pro-wrestling.html

Very enjoyable read, if it was meant to be making a point it's gone over my head but very well written all the same

Welcome to the board

Good article and one I entirely agree with.

Knockers of pro wrestling often seem to fail to realise that, while the matches may be pre-determined, it takes an incredible amount of skill and athleticism to put on a good, convincing match, not to mention no small amount of strength and stamina.

It only needs a wrestler's timing to be slightly off, or their grip/hold to be slightly wrong to result in a serious injury - either to themselves or their opponent.

Just to illustrate the point, last night's edition of Impact had a couple of "Holy Crap!" moments. One was the X Division title match, where Kenny King did a moonsault out of the ring onto both Zema Ion and Sonjay Dutt, right up against the barrier. The other was the tag team match where Hernandez ran almost the full length of the ramp and did a flying double clothesline over the top rope, on Roode and Aries.

So even if the storylines are botched, a well executed match can still be very entertaining in its own right.

Really great read Tinribs, welcome to the forum!

Thanks for the feedback and the welcome chaps, much appreciated.

As mentioned in the article, I'm not a follower of wrestling, used to be but stopped watching it when they merged WCW and ECW with WWE.

Still doesn't mean I don't respect it though, the levels of danger are just as high if not higher than most other sports in my opinion and that is something which isn't highlighted enough.

A brilliant read, and enjoyed every minute of it. Welcome to the boards!

I must admit, I've always looked for a counter argument to the whole "Wrestling is fake" jibe, and I think that this can show people what wrestlers do for the entertainment of fans.

Thanks again for such an enlightening read