Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling, often referred to as pro wrestling or simply wrestling, is a form of athletic theater centered around mock combat, with the premise that its performers are competitive wrestlers. The legitimate sport of wrestling has never been popular enough in the United States to sustain a professional scene because the action is considered too slow-paced. In the late 19th century, wrestlers dealt with this by quietly fixing their matches so that they could display more entertaining action. Through improvisation and choreography, they could perform more spectacular moves that rarely (if ever) occurred in a real wrestling match, and thus managed to draw sustainable audiences.

Match fixing in sports was frowned upon then as much as it is now, so the wrestlers kept the practice a secret. Wrestling promoters scripted victories for their more charismatic wrestlers to please the fans. Since charisma mattered more than skill to a wrestler's success, wrestlers adopted personae and gimmicks to make themselves more entertaining. As promotions grew more sophisticated, they started writing dramatic stories for their wrestlers, pitting heroic "faces" against villainous "heels". Professional wrestlers were required to remain in character whenever they were in public, a practice known as "kayfabe". This requirement was relaxed in the 1990s as by then fans had not only become fully aware of the fakery, but had come to accept it.