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.
