Theres a lot of misunderstanding that crops up when people discuss the idea of the shoot and the worked shoot. A shoot is a completely unscripted moment in the otherwise entirely worked world of professional wrestling, whether its an off-the-cuff remark, an angle gone off the rails, or a wrestler going into business for himself during a match. A worked shoot, on the other hand, is a planned and approved segment on a wrestling show thats given the appearance of being a shoot. Where a shoot is just someone deviating from the script, a worked shoot is an attempt to fool an audience thats become blasé about knowing that wrestling is a work. In the right hands, and with the right preparation, a worked shoot can be the most incendiary angle a promotion can put on, garnering mainstream publicity and laying the groundwork for a huge feud that culminates in blockbuster pay-per-view performance. At least, thats the idea
Honourable Mention: The Undertaker And Brock Lesnar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjHtxPew5Os This beautiful moment came during the aftermath of UFC121 in October 2010. An out-of-character Mark Undertaker Calaway (famously a massive MMA fan) was interviewed by respected MMA broadcaster and journalist Ariel Helwani just after Lesnar had lost the UFC heavyweight title to Cain Velasquez. While Calaway was giving his opinion about the match itself, Lesnar would walk past him and apparently eyeball the big man, who immediately fronted up to Lesnar on camera saying, You wanna do it? Calaway would then inform Helwani that he and Lesnar had some private issue, some unfinished business, and that hed just seen a little of it there. Calaways relaxed, nonchalant attitude completely sold the encounter as a shoot but of course, it was scripted to occur, the idea being that, if contracts could be worked around, Lesnar could have faced the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXVII the following April. Sadly, the legal issues involved would render this perfect match impossible, as Lesnar was under exclusive contract to UFC. In addition to that, scuttlebutt (like gossip with a jetpack on) at the time said that UFC owner Dana White was personally miffed that Calaway, Lesnar and Vince McMahon hadnt checked that running the angle at his show was okay with him, leading to some very unscripted backstage apologies. Wed have run this as part of our top ten list if the Wrestlemania match had actually taken place, but given the outcome, it ranks as an interesting curio.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
