WWE: 10 Biggest Lies In Pro Wrestling

An industry based on deception.

By Grahame Herbert /

Pro Wrestling is in essence a lie. The industry is built on a foundation of con artist and gypsy travellers. These 'promoters' originally set out around 19th century Europe to trick local townsmen into losing money on match results and challenges. The perception was that the sport was real, and it was a happy coincidence of the fixes that the touring bouts actually ended up as being entertaining - sports entertainment was never the aim. The real aim was to convince people that the wrestling was as real as possible in order to trick them out of their money. It worked. Everyone thought the wrestling was real, and as it grew in entertainment value, the sport ended up being taken over to America by immigrants settling in the post American Civil War era. Fast forward one hundred years and Vince McMahon is still making money from these types of fixes. Wrestling is no longer about conning the audience, the crowd is now in on the fix, the aim has became all about entertaining in the same vein as theatre or performing arts. Wrestling stopped being viewed as legitimate sport during America's 'roaring 1920's', when wrestling promoters focused on making a buck by entertaining the depression hit crowds, but it would be another sixty years before the scripted matches were fully acknowledged as fake. Nowadays the business is pretty open and there is no need for lies, but that hasn't stopped some entertaining and shocking lies emerging in the last thirty years. They just can't help themselves at times, and here we take a look at ten of the biggest lies ever to appear in pro wrestling...