As the years progress, it appears that wrestling is becoming more self-aware.  Once a self-contained sphere, wrestling was an absurd universe unto itself in days past.  Yes, it was a world where men could body-slam giants and Robo-cop would appear to even the odds in rigged cage matches.  Yes, the world of professional wrestling was one that was ridiculous and over-the-top, but also took itself seriously.  In the past, no one dared talk about “kayfabe”, the unspoken understanding not to speak of the back-stage interplays between events as fake, much as one would not talk about the stage crew or performance costs of theater when the play was running.  Kayfabe was the biggest secret in an industry of secrets, the understood invisible wall that towered just behind the Titantron.  Over the recent years, however, this wall is beginning to crumble.

    Enter Kevin Nash, who uttered many taboo words about the industry, after deciding to hang up his boots, including the “F-word” that would spark controversy, threats, and Internet backlash from other retired wrestlers.  Kevin Nash called wrestling “fake.”  The “fake-ness” of wrestling was one of the unspoken understandings of the business.  It’s obvious that there is no such thing as resurrected cultist dead men who take over corporate America with their occult demonic powers, nor are there any men on earth that could get away with kidnapping and marrying their boss’s daughter after knocking her unconscious.  These are make-believe scenarios, where we choose to suspend our disbelief for the benefit of being entertained.  It’s the same suspension of disbelief that we lend to plays and movies, knowing full well that there are no such things as super-heroes and giant robots.  We choose not to see the wires holding up Neo in the Matrix as he flying kicks hundreds of security guards as well as forget the knowledge that a man cannot pick up a tank.  This is the willful ignorance of the cinema, we choose to ignore the fiction for the sake of entertainment.  What happens, then, when the fourth wall is torn down, when people apply behind-the-scenes knowledge of a wrestling production to the events? 

    Nowadays, fans propagate “dirt sheets,” which forecast the winners of matches, as well as the potential story-line angles to be revealed down the road.  “Shoots” or interviews in which wrestlers talk about what goes on behind the curtain, are becoming more pronounced and popular with the wide-spread use of the Internet.  In a real way, the luster of the wrestling business is being worn away, much as the magic of a magic trick fades should the magician explains how the trick works. It’s the imperfect knowledge and ignorance of the moving parts that makes entertainment exciting, due to the unpredictability and suspension of disbelief that we exercise every time we tune into Raw, NXT, or a NJPW showcase.  In a developing industry, where the “meta” of the wrestling world is starting to be presented hand-in-hand with the actual product, is there something to be said about the interplay between the two?  Vince Macmahon addressed the elephant in the room, when he openly admitted in an article that sports-entertainment was as fake and produced as a TV sitcom, and, as such, opened the flood-gates to speculation and kayfabe e-zines. 

    In a way, with this understanding brought to the fore-front, there allows a certain growth in the entertainment medium.  Wrestling is becoming more self-aware, addressing more of its ridiculous aspects with a referential roll of its eyes.  Take for example, the current events leading up to the IC championship run, where R-Truth was transformed into a Wily E. Coyote figure, stealing the belt and offering it to various wrestlers for the sake of his own amusement.  During all of this, the announcers treated the affair with a bemused levity, asking about his bag, stating that everyone knew what was in it, what the next spot would be, yet all the while, R-Truth continued to feign ignorance.  The interplay, though a bit childish of an arc, was entertaining none-the-less and indicative of the modern wrestling climate. 

    As an audience, we are more invested with attempting to understand all the ins-and-outs of a business that most of us have not experienced first-hand.  In a world of more wide-spread knowledge, it is tempting to look up multiple articles, then claim understanding of the industry.  We claim that wrestling is becoming a parody of itself, that we have prior knowledge of events and the lives of people most of us haven’t met.  In a way, modern wrestling story-lines are becoming more of a commentary of this new found arm-chair theorist environment, playing on the supposed meta-knowledge of the audience, occasionally throwing in a non-sequitur here and there in an attempt to throw off the audience’s expectations.  Case in point.  Years ago, would Mizdow have been a thing?  This writer would argue this would not be the case, nor would the recent boom in Orton’s popularity.  Whether or not one agrees with the sudden climate of kayfabe breaking, one cannot deny its impact on the sports-entertainment world.  Good or bad, one thing is for sure; it certainly continues to make pro wrestling interesting.

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