10 Wrestling Messages Hidden In Plain Sight
Everything you're watching is real, but what exactly are you watching?
We are long past the period where all of the mechanisms that make pro wrestling function are kept secretive, but that era was dead long before Vince McMahon allegedly riddled the corpse with bullets.
The WWF owner didn't kill kayfabe when he had his wrestling show reclassified as Sports Entertainment in order to avoid some tax in 1989, but only because he was ahead of a generation that didn't really care. The time of a response other than "...so?" after the inevitable "you know it's fake, right" had already passed, with a generation of young fans discovering the dayglo World Wrestling Federation being told by friends and relatives as they watched that it wasn't on the up-and-up.
These were fans that couldn't get enough regardless and, in large numbers, embraced the every version of the wrestling internet that afforded them yet more secrets and lies that focused more on the show behind the show rather than the product itself. As wrestling had its second global boom in the late 1990s,1998's "Pro Wrestling's Greatest Secrets" special was panned for being painfully behind the times in the things it supposedly revealed.
These supposedly illicit revelations only added to the enjoyment of the theatre, if they weren't already known. The tricks of the trade are still there now, even if a Kevin Dunn-directed cameraman isn't zooming in an out of it in a seizure-inducing frenzy...
10. Big Show's Main Squeeze
A sweet one this.
The Big Show appears to have battled a number of trust issues over his strange and occasionally excellent WWE career, turning over 33 times since debuting at St Valentines Day Massacre 1999 to help Vince McMahon in his bloody steel cage battle with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Some switches have been down to the actions of others, but just as many have been because of his own questionable judgment or bizarre indecision. One can only hope the family he's taken in for Horsin' Around-adjacent Netflix sitcom 'The Big Show Show' are mindful of his formerly fickle nature - he's not been particularly reliable on the other show he's starred in.
Thankfully, his personal life hasn't been quite as tumultuous, and he's been telling us so almost every time he enters for battle. Wight's been married to Bess Katramados for 18 years, and often tacitly sends her an "I Love You" on screen with three small squeezes on his arm.
Maybe he is a nice guy after all-annnnnd he's turned again.