10 Most Revealing Wrestling Shoot Videos On YouTube

The death of kayfabe has had a seismic impact on the wrestling industry.

Wrestling can no longer operate under the pretence that it is real; accordingly, the nuance of the art form has been largely lost. We know that, in most cases, wrestlers embroiled in onscreen feuds are often quite pally behind the curtain, which undermines the very premise of the industry.

The toll this has had on the matches themselves is also somewhat detrimental; without the luxury of kayfabe, modern day wrestlers often feel they have to cram tonnes of often damaging content into their matches as an equaliser for the lack of inherent crowd heat.

The death of kayfabe, however, has at least given rise to the shoot interview.

The shoot interview is an odd beast. Sometimes smacking of desperation, the best entries in the canon are nonetheless fascinating given the revealing glimpse they provide into the often amazing backstage machinations of the business and the personal lives behind wrestling's larger than life personas, which were previously the stuff of word-of-mouth legend.

Referring to "Shoot Videos" and not "Shoot Interviews" in the title is a deliberate choice - restricting this list to that format would have disqualified perhaps the most infamous shoot of all...

CM Punk abruptly left WWE in January 2014, for reasons he wouldn't share until several months after the fact.

When he did so, he set the wrestling world ablaze with a series of revelations which sullied the reputation of WWE and many, many people associated with the company. Punk was deeply frustrated - so much so that he sounded off for a full two hours about everything from Triple H to the WWE medical staff.

The recently-released Ryback bore much of the brunt. Nobody confused him with Eddie Guerrero between the ropes, but the extent to which Punk trashed him was legendary. Punk, having been injured at his hands, had huge issues with Ryback's unsafe style, so he called him out. Punk asked Ryback if he had injured him on purpose, or if he was simply "dumb as f*ck". "I'm dumb as f*ck," came the downtrodden reply.

Despite an early proclamation that this wasn't a "shoot interview" in which he'd simply "bash WWE", Punk goes on to thoroughly bash WWE - and Triple H in particular. He was disgusted at the prospect of working with him at WrestleMania XXX, even having being promised a win, because Triple "just had" to shoehorn his way into and ruin the 2011 Summer of Punk angle.

Punk also took the company's medical practises to task, in perhaps the most startling revelation. In the Wellness Policy era, and the fallout from Jerry Lawler's near fatal heart attack, WWE has a sterling reputation in that field. Punk however took it to shreds when he claimed to have worked through a career-threatening staph infection, incorrectly treated through excessive antibiotics, which became so serious that he ended up defecating in the ring.

Brilliantly, this edition of Cobana's Art of Wrestling podcast was sponsored by the WWE 2K15 video game.