Pro wrestling isn't fake, it's 'kayfabe' — a mix of fiction and reality we all employ

*Originally published on September 6, 2022.

In April 2019, a wrestling match in New Jersey got out of hand. Several minutes in, a wrestler attempted to throw his opponent — his own brother! — from a balcony. As the referee tried to intervene, they both toppled over the bannister. The two rivals fell into the crowd below, sending spectators scattering and falling over backward in a heap. 

The strange thing was both wrestlers were invisible. Only the referee could see them, fans were told, by wearing a special pair of sunglasses.

Despite the invisibility of the wrestlers, fans cheered on the good guy and taunted the bad guy throughout the match. After the wrestlers' disastrous fall, the crowd burst into a spontaneous chant: "This is wrestling! This is wrestling!"

Of course, neither wrestler actually existed, except in the mind of the spectators. 

And it's this kind of suspension of disbelief that makes professional wrestling so relevant to philosophers today.

'Face' vs. 'heel'

Aside from the added element of invisibility, the match in New Jersey wasn't all that different from a typical indie pro wrestling match. The audience threw their support behind a good guy, or, in wrestling lingo, a "face," and dutifully booed the bad guy, also known as the "heel."

But wrestling fans tend to bristle at the idea that wrestling is "fake." According to Douglas Edwards, author of the Philosophy Smackdown, wrestling fans see the reality of wrestling differently from outsiders. 

"The word 'fake' is a bad word to use here because it implies something kind of counterfeit or attempting to mislead," he said.

"And I don't think that's what wrestling is. I think there are layers of reality to wrestling which make it a really fascinating phenomenon."

Keeping kayfabe

In Philosophy Smackdown, Edwards examines what wrestling can teach us about reality, identity and ethics. He says a word that wrestling insiders use to describe the fictional parts of wrestling is "kayfabe."

The origins of the word, which rhymes with "say babe," are a bit murky. Wrestling insiders have a few theories: that it's adapted from Pig Latin for "be fake;" that it's named for a legendary wrestler who never spoke named "Kay Fabian;" or that it was a code-word that wrestlers would shout when an outsider came backstage, to warn each other to stay in character.

Kayfabe was taken so seriously in the past that pro wrestlers often stayed in character whenever they were in public.

"If you were a 'heel' or a bad guy and you went to the bar after the show, you had to play that character still. You had to be mean to fans who came up to you. If you were a 'babyface' or a good guy, then you had to be really nice, signing autographs and doing that stuff," he said. 

Even if a bad guy and good guy were best friends, they couldn't act like it. 

"You guys couldn't be seen socializing outside of the shows, to keep kayfabe, to keep up the appearance that this was all real," said Edwards.

"During the late 80s and early 90s, the idea of kayfabe started to slip."

While professional wrestlers no longer "keep kayfabe" all the time, kayfabe is still alive and well in wrestling, covering everything from the characters wrestlers play to the rivalries between them.

The allegory of the ring 

Edwards's book came out of his shared love of pro wrestling and philosophy.

"I think one of the things that fascinated me most about philosophy was a similar thing to kind of what kept me interested in wrestling: the difference between appearance and reality — that perception of things might not accurately map on to how things really are."

An entry-level bit of philosophy is from Plato, in The Republic, written around 375 BC. It's called the allegory of the cave, and is often used as a metaphor for the difference between appearance and reality.

Plato describes most of humanity as prisoners locked in a cave, watching shadow puppets on a wall. The prisoners think what they're seeing is real, despite the fact that it's a construction from powerful people behind a wall. If a prisoner should escape, they'd not only see that what they thought was reality was a construction, they could see the true nature of the world. 

Edwards says the joy of watching wrestling is that it's like a mini-version of Plato's allegory. A wrestling fan enjoys the performance, the construction of reality, and the true nature of the wrestling industry, all at the same time.

"You get the reality as it's presented to you, which is a genuine contest. And then behind that is two people working together to put on the appearance of a contest. And then even behind that, you've got a third layer of reality where — they are not the ones who ultimately are deciding how the match is going to end or indeed why they're in that ring in the first place," he said. 

"There are other people who are writing the storylines which dictate why these wrestlers are wrestling and who's going to win and why. So you get multiple layers of reality when you're watching wrestling, which make it a really fascinating thing."

Kayfabe is everywhere

A misunderstanding of "kayfabe" is why outsiders to wrestling have often viewed wrestling fans as unsophisticated, said CarrieLynn Reinhard, a communications professor at Dominican University in Illinois and president of the recently formed Pro Wrestling Studies Association.

"There is definitely still that perception that professional wrestling fans are lower class, lower educated, more likely to embrace racism and jingoism and sexism and transphobia, homophobia and so on," she said.

"[That] idea is often because of kayfabe, and the sense that professional wrestling fans must be duped into believing what they're seeing." 

Reinhard said everyone has elements of kayfabe in their own lives. 

"I think kayfabe applies to any time that you see people working on their performance and how they want to present themselves to other people," she said.

"And that way we perform. It may not be authentic or genuine to what we consider to be our true self, our core self. But we do so just like a wrestler."
 

Guests in this episode:

Justin Morissette is a Vancouver sports broadcaster and writer, play-by-play announcer for Nation Extreme Wrestling.

Douglas Edwards is an associate professor of Philosophy at Utica University and author of the book Philosophy Smackdown.

CarrieLynn Reinhard is a professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Dominican University and President of the Pro Wrestling Studies Association.

Adam Ryder is a professional wrestler, wrestling as "The Haida Heartthrob." 

*This episode was produced by Matthew Lazin-Ryder.