Is WWE Fake? The Truth Behind Wrestling's Scripted Drama And Real Dangers

Answering the controversial, age old question.

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It's a question nearly as old as professional wrestling itself. Is WWE fake? AEW, TNA, NJPW and hundreds of independent wrestling promotions across the globe, are they all fake as well?

It's always a heated debate amongst wrestling fans and detractors when the topic is brought up in conversation. Check popular discussion forums like Reddit and Quora and you'll see endless threads and thousands of comments with wide-ranging views on the subject.

What's the answer? Truth be told it's a far more nuanced profession than many give it credit for being. Boiling it all down into a simple yes or no does not do the business justice.

Many will dismiss the sport all together because it's not a legitimate competition. The cat was let out of the bag on that fact years ago. It cannot be disputed. Professional wrestling matches are fixed. The winners and losers are determined prior to the opening bell by the person in charge of the show, known as the booker.

The booker makes the matches and chooses who goes over in the end. The job of the wrestlers once the action begins is not to injure one another or inflict as much pain as possible. It's actually quite the opposite. The objective is to work with your opponent to put on the most entertaining show possible for the fans and walk away at the end of the match as close to 100 percent as humanly possible.

The first lesson I was taught when I began my in-ring training a few years back was to think of a pro wrestling match as more of a dance than a fight. You have to move with your opponent at the right time and in the right rhythm to make the magic happen. And again, not end up in the trainer's room.

Easier said than done in certain cases. Just ask Drew McIntyre who recently had his head split wide open when CM Punk struck him with a tool box inside of Hell in a Cell.

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While wrestlers can certainly blunt the amount of damage done during a match, there's just no escaping that fact that some moves hurt. Some are extremely dangerous. These men and women literally trust each other with their lives every single time the head out to the ring.

I ask you. What's more real than that?

Prior to his Hall of Fam professional wrestling career, Kurt Angle won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1996 summer games. A feat he famously accomplished with a 'broken freaking neck'. If you ask him, he'll tell you that stepping into the world of WWE and sticking with it for as long as he did was hardest thing he's ever endured as an athlete.

"The bumps that we take, we're bumping on plywood. It brings long-term injuries," Angle said in a recent interview with WFAN. "Your neck goes, your back goes, your knees go."

Former WWE Superstar and current OVW CEO Al Snow once told me that a single bump in the center of the ring has roughly the same impact on your body as a car accident at 25mph.

Pain is real. Scars last forever. Injuries linger. And that's if everything goes right in a match. Accidents do happen and they can have catastrophic, real life results. There's simply no dismissing that aspect of the business, predetermined outcomes or not.

Professional wrestling is a larger-than-life spectacle that offers a unique experience to it's audience. A perfect blend of both entertainment and athleticism.

The scripted nature of the business allows for richer storytelling and character development, which is perhaps the biggest appeal of it all, and why many wrestlers have gone on to become global icons outside of the ring. The Rock, John Cena and Dave Bautista have all gone on to incredibly successful careers in Hollywood.

It's the grueling physical demands of the business where professional wrestlers often do not get the credit they deserve. They are among the best athletes in the world. Even professional football players have crumbled under the rigors of a WWE tryout, let alone survived the year round travel schedule that comes with performing on a live television show that airs 52 weeks a year.

This is a sport that takes strength, toughness, cardiovascular endurance and certain level of grit and determination that very few athletes possess.

Wrestling is a great many things. It's scripted and choreographed, but also dangerous. It can be dramatic, humorous and exciting. A barbaric display of violence that leaves mean and women broken, battered and bloody. But is it fake?

It's whatever you want it to be, but I highly suggest stepping foot inside a ring and finding out what it's all about before you start throwing around four letter words. Unless it's, "f--- this hurts!"