10 Wrestling Stories That Blurred Reality

That stuff is scripted, but this is real. Honest...

Bret Hart Shawn Michaels 2010
WWE.com

Despite being a worked business that relies on carefully-orchestrated stories, larger-than-life characters and more drama than your average season of Friends to lure fans in and rip cash from their wallets, pro wrestling is obsessed with reality.

It's not hard to see why. Television as a whole has become increasingly dominated by "real life stories" - reality TV's rise in the late-1990s bled over into the wrestling sphere, creating an atmosphere that bizarrely takes elements of truth and mixes them up in a bowl with some good, old-fashion wrasslin' histrionics.

It sells, or at least should sell.

The phrase 'worked shoot' is well-known now, and WWE are still trying to convince everyone that some of their angles are more real than others. This, as you might expect, creates a schism between what's presented in one segment compared to the next; if that story is real, but this one isn't, then what's the point in the fake one?

That's a question wrestling likes to ignore, because it gets in the way of occasionally blurring lines between fiction and reality. As these examples prove, the biz loves to blur...

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Contributor

Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.