The new age of “kayfabe” in professional wrestling

I’ve been a fan of professional wrestling since grade school, and and I’ve been through every phase.

From believing wrestling was as real as gravity to helping put on the show, I’ve seen all angles of this wild and crazy business. I’m doing so, I’ve noticed one consistent antiquity that’s been held onto by at least a significant portion of those in the business, the preservation of kayfabe AKA “Protecting the Business”. The instinct is to present the product as genuine competition, and do nothing to ever put that into question. To keep the good guys and bad guys diametrically opposed, and to keep the feuds presented as real animosity.

Some days I admire this effort, others I scoff at it. Like, of course during a show, there should be no explicit insinuation that what your watching is fake; you wouldn’t see that in theater or in a major motion picture (with some exceptions we’ll circle back to). There should definitely be an effort to preserve the suspension of disbelief for a paying audience, but that’s just what it is, Suspension of disbelief! Nobody is going to theater or the movies believing they are seeing something real, and in 2024 wrestling is really no different.

It’s not the the 80s anymore, the business has been exposed on the largest platform there is, WWE, time and time again. There’s no closing Pandora’s box, so to speak. Some see this as the death of the business, and I think those people are bitterly longing for a time that will never be again. I however see this as an avenue to tell all new types of stories, develop all new types of characters, and present a whole new type of professional wrestling.

The “death of kayfabe” allows wrestling to be treated as art rather than just sport. It allows for experimental presentation and storytelling once thought to be reserved for books, movies, music, even video games. You can have a show like DDT pro wrestling, with all of its over-the-top slapstick, exist alongside a show like Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport, with it’s almost MMA presentation, exist alongside one another and even share talent!

All of this is not to discredit wrestling that attempts to present itself as “real”, in fact, that’s why I enjoy Bloodsport so much. Wrestling can be magical when it can make you believe, but it can also be magical when it makes you roll on the floor laughing, or when it makes you cry your eyes out, or even when it scares the bejeezus out of you. There’s no one right way to do wrestling, and I think a lot of “old timers” have made themselves miserable trying to convince everyone otherwise.

There are things the fans will never know, how exactly moves are executed, how it feels to hit those ropes, or land on that mat. That’s the new kayfabe, the intricate art of professional wrestling will forever be mystery to those who never step between the ropes. Even if they “know it’s fake” they can never know how real it truly is until they do it, and for that reason they can still make themselves believe.