Is Wrestling Fake?

If I had a dollar every time I've been asked that question, I could just quit wrestling altogether. That's one of the most frequently asked questions in the wrestling business. It's actually kind of weird, if you ask me. If you know it's staged... if you know the punches are pulled... if you've known this for years and years... then why would you even ask? In this blog, I'm going to tell you why people ask.

Have you ever walked by a wrestling ring and reached out and grabbed the ropes? Sure you have. Everyone has. After the tug the ropes and see exactly how tight they are, you begin to pat the mat. You understand now that the ring is very hard. It's not as soft as you once thought. Then, you take a look under the ring and see the steel and wood. Because that's what a wrestling ring is made of. It's made of nothing more than steel, wood, and even the ropes are made of cable that can cut right through your skin without a problem. So, for such a phony business, the ring is pretty hard.

Now, after you feel the ring for a moment, you always think in your head, "Man, that ring's gotta hurt!" Well, you know what? It DOES hurt. Every single bump or fall that you take in that ring, it hurts. Every single time you elbow drop or leg drop someone, it hurts you more than it hurts your opponent. Imagine flying off the top rope onto your opponent. Not only is your opponent in danger, but you're flying in the air maybe eight feet off the mat. You may be eight feet off the mat, in mid-air might I add, but you're a good fifteen or so feet from the actual ground! So, you're flying through the air to land on this opponent without hurting him? Huh? Are you kidding me? AND you're trying not to hurt yourself in the process? You try it out and see how well that works for you.

I've seen so many injuries in my professional career, it's unbelievable. I want to share with you just a few of the things that I've seen since entering the wild world of professional wrestling. Don't get me wrong, these aren't ALL the injuries that I've seen. They're just a select few that might give you a little insight on how rough our sport really is.

Here's a nice disgusting one for everyone. There was a regular night of matches planned in Middle Tennessee. A kid that was brand new to the business had a match, that night. Everything went okay... or so we thought. He came through the locker room door making a groaning noise that absolutely freak me right out. I knew this kid had to be seriously injured. He was holding his wrist with one hand... and holding his fingers out on the other. We all wanted to know what was wrong but he couldn't speak... he could just moan and groan. I look down at his fingers that he was holding out and one of them was completely out of socket. I'll never forget it. It was his ring finger. The skin wasn't broken, so there wasn't any blood. But you could see the bone in the finger totally out of place... and the end of it was poking out from his knuckle.

Now, I immediately told the guy to go to the hospital right away. Another one of the guys in the locker room had seen this before and wanted to fix it up for the kid. He told him not to go to the hospital, he could fix him right up. I looked at the guy and told him straight out: I would go to the hospital if I were you. He could mess that finger up for good. Well, you know the guy didn't listen. They put a towel in his mouth to bite down on, pulled the finger off his knuckle... and it went right back into place. The amazing part? Well, the kid taped it up (tape fixes everything in the wrestling business) and went back out to finish up his night of work.

Not too bad? Well, try this one on for size. Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, TN. A friend of mine dislocates his shoulder before he ever even enters the ring. Before the match, as his music is playing, he's on his way to the ring and pops his shoulder out of socket giving a fan a high-five! Now, I know this has nothing to do with wrestling being real or fake. But the guy yanks his shoulder out giving someone a high-five! Unbelievable, right? Well, here's the good part... he gets in the ring and wrestles a full match! With his shoulder out of socket, nonetheless! Now, in any other sport... the guy would've walked right back through the curtain and gone to the hospital for help. No, not in the wrestling business. He went to the ring and had a match with a bum-shoulder. Call it heart, toughness... or just plain stupidity. Call it what you will.

I have one more story that I want to share. This is a personal experience of mine. I haven't been injured too much in my seven years in wrestling (knock on wood)... but I've been banged up a bit. I was wrestling Brian Christopher in Rector, AR just a few months back. Brian had a head of steam during the match and hit me so hard that I flew over the top rope and onto the concrete floor. Typical in the wrestling business. Well, when I was headed over the top rope, apparently my wrist got hung up in the ropes. When I hit the floor, I felt a steaming hot sensation in my wrist and hand. It was tingling and it was on fire... almost as if someone poured hot coffee on my hand. I looked down at my hand to make sure my fingers were still in place (I remembered what happened to the kid), I felt my wrist to make sure I didn't have any bones coming from my skin, then I tried to just walk it off. That's what you do in wrestling. There aren't any time-outs. You don't stop the match because of an injury to your hand. You just wrestle through it, trying not to do anymore damage to it. So, after my personal inspection of my hand, I went through with the rest of the match.

Later on, I had my hand checked out... it had been slightly fractured. I told them that I didn't need a cast, I knew it could heal on it's own. So, I just decided to tape it up (remember, tape fixes everything in wrestling) and go on with my regular wrestling regime.

Now, you can make your own decision. Wrestling... fake or real? It's a good question, apparently. I've been asked about it about a million times. I seem to think that just because some thing is staged doesn't necessarily mean that it's fake. Look at boxing. MMA. NBA. The proof is in the pudding.