Glossary of Wrestling Terms by Byron C. Howes

Contributions, suggestions and corrections are always welcome. This may be freely distributed as long as original content and attribution are intact.

--Byron

angle

n. 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

v.i & v.t. [razor blade] the practice of cutting oneself or being cut with a part of a razor blade hidden in tights, hair or wrappings in order to produce juice.

blow up

v.i. 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

n. the individual responsible for angles, finishes, hiring and firing in a promotion.

bump

n. 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

n. the series of matches in one location at one time.

draw

v.t. To attract marks. n. the popularity of a wrestler, the ability to bring in marks.

DUD

n. A particularly bad and totally uninteresting match.

face

n. & adj. [babyface] a good guy.

fall

n. [pinfall] a referee's count of three with the loser's shoulders on the mat.

feud

n. a series of matches between two wrestlers or two tag teams, usually face vs. heel though face feuds and heel feuds are not unknown.

finish

n. the event or sequence of events which leads to the ultimate outcome of a match.

green

adj. Not good due to inexperience.

hardway

juice n. real blood produced by means other than blading, i.e. the hard way. One of the possible outcomes of a shoot.

heat

n. enthusiasm, a positive response. The WWF uses a heat machine for its televised shows which make them somewhat of a work.

heel

n. & adj. a bad guy, rule-breaker.

house

n. The wrestling audience in the building said to be composed of marks.

international object

n. Foreign object, something now allowed in the ring. Derived from an order not to use the world "foreign" by the Turner Broadcasting Company.

job

n. a staged loss. A clean job is a staged loss by legal pinfall or submission without resort to illegalities. v.i. To do a job. Sometimes combined with a descriptive adjective (stretcher job, rope job, tights job.)

jobber

n. an unpushed wrestler who does jobs for pushed wrestlers. Barry Horowitz is probably the best known of these. Sometimes known as fish, redshirts PLs (professional losers,) or 'ham-and-eggers.' Steve Lombardi (Brooklyn Brawler) is also a well known jobber.

juice

n. blood. v.i to bleed, usually as a result of blading.

kayfabe

n. adj. of or related to inside information about the business, especially by fans. Origin is carny jargon talk for "fake."

kill

v.t. 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

n. A member of the audience, presumed gullible.

paper

n. complimentary tickets v.t. to give lots of complimentary tickets to make a house look good, particularly for a television taping.

pop

n, v.i. sudden heat from a house as a response to a wrestler's entry or hot move.

post

v.t. To run or be run into the ringpost.

potato

v.t. To injure a wrestler by hitting him on the head or causing him to hit his head on something.

run-in

n. 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

n. adj. a match or ending which is not clean (definite) due to factors outside the "rules" of wrestling.

shoot

n. the real thing, i.e. a match where one participant is really attempting to hurt another. The opposite of work or fake.

spot

n. An event or sequence of events which makes a particular match distinctive, a high-point of a match.

squash

n. a totally passive job where one wrestler completely dominates another. v.t. to win a squash match.

stiff

adj. 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

n. a form of shoot where one wrestler dominates rather than injures the other as a proof of personal superiority.

turn

n., v.i. change in orientation from heel to face or vice-versa.

work

n. a deception or sham, the opposite of a shoot.

workrate

n. the approximate ratio of good wrestling to rest holds in a match or in a wrestler's performance.

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