Welcome to our Wrestling
Dictionary terms page. In this section, we
include over 50 insider-terms that
wrestlers/managers/bookers use. You've heard
these words being used hundreds of times by
ring-announcers, and now you finally get to
know what they actually mean.
Angle - A wrestling plot which may
involve only one match or may continue over
several matches for some time; the reason
behind a feud or a turn.
Blade - The
practice of cutting oneself or being cut
with a part of a razor blade. Also known as
juicing.
Blow up - To become
fatigued or exhausted. The Ultimate Warrior
was said to be one of a number of wrestlers
who blows up on the entry ramp.
Booker - The
individual responsible for angles, finishes,
hiring and firing in a promotion.
Bump - A fall or
hit done as a spot (see spot) which takes
the wrestler (or other participant, i.e.
referee, manager) out of the ring or out of
action.
Card - The series
of matches in a wrestling event.
Draw - To attract
marks. n. the popularity of a wrestler, the
ability to bring in marks.
DUD - A
particularly bad and totally uninteresting
match.
Face - A fan
favorite. A wrestler who plays the good guy.
Fall - A referee's
count of three with the loser's shoulders on
the mat.
Feud - A series of
matches between two wrestlers or two tag
teams, usually face vs. heel though face
feuds and heel feuds are not unknown.
Green - Not good
due to inexperience.
Hard way - Real blood
produced by means other than blading, i.e.
the hard way. One of the possible outcomes
of a shoot.
Heat - Enthusiasm,
a positive/negative response.
Heel - A bad guy in
a federation. A heel often breaks the rules
and receives a bad poor/hated response from
the fans.
House - The
wrestling audience in the building said to
be composed of marks.
International Object
- Foreign object, something now allowed in
the ring. Derived from an order not to use
the world foreign by the Turner Broadcasting
Company.
Job - A staged
loss. A clean job is a staged loss by legal
pin fall or submission without
Resort to Illegalities
- To do a job. Sometimes combined with a
descriptive adjective (stretcher job, rope
job, tights job.)
Jobber - An
un-pushed wrestler who does jobs for pushed
wrestlers. Barry Horowitz is probably the
best known of these. Sometimes known as
fish, red shirts PLs (professional losers,)
or' ham-and-eggers.' Steve Lombardi
(Brooklyn Brawler) is also a well known
jobber.
Kayfabe - Of or
related to inside information about the
business, especially by fans. Origin is
carny jargon talk for fake.
Kill - Diminish or
eliminate heat or drawing power. There are a
variety of ways to do this, but mostly it is
done by having a wrestler do too many jobs.
A house can be killed by too many screw-job
endings.
Mark - A member of
the audience, presumed gullible.
Paper -
Complimentary tickets. To give lots of
complimentary tickets to make a house look
good, particularly for a television taping.
Pop - Sudden heat
from a house as a response to a wrestler's
entry or hot move.
Post - To run or be
run into the ring post.
Potato - To injure
a wrestler by hitting him on the head or
causing him to hit his head on something.
Run-In -
Interference by a non-participant in a
match. save n. a run-in to protect a
wrestler from being beat up after a match is
over.
Screw Job - A match
or ending which is not clean (definite) due
to factors outside the rules of wrestling.
Shoot - The real
thing, i.e. a match where one participant is
really attempting to hurt another. The
opposite of work or fake.
Spot - An event or
sequence of events which makes a particular
match distinctive, a high-point of a match.
Squash - A totally
passive job where one wrestler completely
dominates another. v.t. to win a squash
match.
Stick - The
Microphone
Stiff Chops - Hits
or moves which cause real injury (though
perhaps not more than a welting up of the
opponent.) Big Van Vader has a reputation as
a stiff worker. Not a shoot, but almost.
Stretch - A form of
shoot where one wrestler dominates rather
than injures the other as a proof of
personal superiority.
Turn - Change in
orientation from heel to face or vice-versa.
Work - A deception
or sham, the opposite of a shoot.
Workrate - the approximate ratio of
good wrestling to rest holds in a match or
in a wrestler's performance.