When has a work actually worked?

[Snitsky's back acne]

Works always used to work. It's how the business made money. It doesn't mean everyone believed what they were seeing was legit but enough people bought into the work to become invested in it and pay to see it.

The Austin/McMahon work worked massively, for example. Did everyone believe Austin and Vince truly hated each other? No - but enough people were invested in Vince being a prick and Austin being the unpredictable rebel babyface that it achieved massive business. 

[Carbomb]

11 minutes ago, Chico Torres said:

Not to sound too glib about it but yes basically the entire point of wrestling prior to the mid 1990s was based on getting fans invested enough in the work in order for them to pay money. The sad part is that it is a foreign concept now when the selling point of a (spoiler) fake sport is shite like athleticism or explicitly having the stated goal be a great match or “stealing the show” or fulfilling a dream or some other nonsense.

So…what’s the point of wrestling any more?

 

Entertainment - there are enough people who enjoy it that it does still have a point. But the problem at the heart of what you describe is that the fans have to be in on the kayfabe now.

I absolutely detest shoot-works - they're invariably rubbish, and extremely lazy. Main reason being that it's breaching a barrier that doesn't need to be breached; the fans are more than willing to join in on the fun, and we see plenty of evidence of that. They don't need to know anything about what's going on behind the scenes to appreciate what's going on in the ring. No different from TV or film, really. 

But sometimes the "meta" can enhance the enjoyment. It's rare, but possible. Case in point that I think of is C**** B***** at Wrestlemania XX. I was a big fan, and really wanted to see him finally win the big one, like I believed he deserved at the time. But WWE had done a very good job, via dirtsheets and so on, of planting doubt in the fans' minds that he would ever get to, and there was even rumour that he wouldn't win at WM. 

The longer Triple H spent in that Crippler Crossface, the more my heart sank, because, as we know, in a multi-man match, the longer someone spends in a submission, the more likely it is to get broken up by the other competitor. When Triple H finally tapped, I jumped off the sofa and punched the air with a yell. Last time wrestling ever got me to do that. (Obviously, it makes me angry and sad that that memory is now tainted.)

As regards Cena at the Rumble, I think that's a valid one - insofar as any works are at all possible these days, I think that counts as a fair example. 

[BomberPat]

I think the problem of the past decade or so has been that "working" someone has been conflated with trolling them, in the social media sense. When WWE are all patting each other on the back for that Seth Rollins injury angle, the thing they're proud of is that they made people think something was true and then revealed that it wasn't. But there was no sense of how that furthered the story, made more people tune in, or sold a single additional ticket. Just, "we worked you, bro". Not a million miles away from Vince Russo's approach of thinking that a "swerve" was always the best option, because the worst thing you could be is predictable. It's learning the wrong lessons from what worked in the past.

I think the criticism that wrestling is too focused on "good matches" and "stealing the show" is outdated, to be honest. The biggest stories and biggest matches in wrestling for the past few years have been about Cody Rhodes "finishing the story", about the constant drama and in-fighting of The Bloodline, and of people really rooting for babyfaces to win, whether that was Sami Zayn or Hangman Page. People might get excited by good matches, but I see far more people getting invested because they want to see their favourites win than I have in a long time. And I don't think having the stated goal of having good matches or stealing the show is inherently bad, the problem is when it isn't matched by the logic of kayfabe; Kenny Omega calling himself "The Best Bout Machine" while putting on great matches and winning all the time is very different to Dolph Ziggler calling himself a "show stealer" when he's losing more often than he's winning.

 

The stuff @Carbomb mentioned is why I think that these days it is much, much easier to "work" an audience who thinks themselves smart, well-informed, and beyond being worked than it is a "casual". A casual audience knows that wrestling is fake, and you're not going to convince them otherwise. But a "smart" audience has this other layer of knowledge for you to play around with - they are more likely to bite on a well-executed false finish, because they know what the end of a wrestling match is "supposed" to look like, they're more likely to believe there's some truth to a story if you lean on things they know from social media or the dirtsheets, because you're flattering them by making them feel like they have access to some forbidden knowledge. Kayfabe has never died, it just shifts and mutates, and finds new ways of working - after all, wrestling has been exposed as a fix since the 1800s, and as a work since the 1920s, yet we still kid ourselves that people used to think it was real in far greater numbers than they do now, or that they used to buy into it more wholly than they do now, when believing it to be real has never been a requirement for watching or enjoying wrestling.

[waters44]

I'm bending the question here a bit but talking about works / shoots etc always makes me think of the crowd riot from Ring of Honor at their 1st Anniversary show. It's scary as fuck to watch even today so I can't imagine what it must have been like for the normal fan stood in the crowd. It's an absolutely chaotic few minutes and an extremely risky thing to attempt in Queens in the early 2000s! 

The first time I saw it I couldn't really believe what I was seeing and for years I thought it was real. Even today there's part of me that still wonders if it was part shoot part work because it's so good (and Low Ki was involved!)

Whilst I don't think the riot really achieved much for them it did add to their reputation of being something different to the mainstream, and probably helped to attract a few of the old ECW fans. 

[organizedkaos]

1 hour ago, Chico Torres said:

Not to sound too glib about it but yes basically the entire point of wrestling prior to the mid 1990s was based on getting fans invested enough in the work in order for them to pay money. 

 

This is such a weird blind spot around wrestling, especially these days. You can't go anywhere on the internet without finding people who are really really invested in fictional media. No-one thought Marvel had killed half it's cast but people paid a lot of money because they were invested in seeing how that story played out. Loads of people right now are very very invested in whether two fictional hockey players will ever be able to declare their love for each other. Franchises are super profitable because they have built in investment - existing characters and worlds that people want to pay to return to. Nerds throwing their toys out of the pram because they didn't like how Luke Skywalker aged? Investment (I'm not saying it's always a good thing). 

Stories are quite often based on wanting to see the hero triumph, especially TV shows. Yet mysteriously we know they're fake and yet they're still really popular? It's almost like human beings naturally gravitate towards stories and the empathetic nature of our consciousness means that even when we know a person isn't real we can emotional connect to them?

Despite all these big profitable pieces of fictional media you still have loads of wrestling people (especially the old school wrestling) who believe the only way you can be invested in wrestling is if you think it's real, or at least can pretend to yourself it's real. I get that there's some romantic mystery to the old days but even the most effective of these neo-works are like Tom Cruise aping Harry Lloyd, it's cool that something harkens back to those old days but my enjoyment and spending habits aren't predicated on a buisness model which is nearly half a century past it's sell by date.

Then you get to the Cornette nonsense that anything which might break your illusion fundementally undercuts your investment. The majority of people are invested in performers and stories they enjoy. The sheer volume of fantastical media throughout human existence proves that plus these days we live in post/meta modern society... As much as he's maligned here those Ryan Reynolds Deadpool films do pretty amazing buisness, because even though the main character is breaking kayfabe people enjoy it (possibly moreso because the breaking of kayfabe connects them to the main character)

(and yeah this is before you get into wrestlings more unique qualities where a performer you like getting a push means you'll see more of them so you are also invested in it on a meta level)

[JNLister]

2 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

Not to sound too glib about it but yes basically the entire point of wrestling prior to the mid 1990s was based on getting fans invested enough in the work in order for them to pay money. The sad part is that it is a foreign concept now when the selling point of a (spoiler) fake sport is shite like athleticism or explicitly having the stated goal be a great match or “stealing the show” or fulfilling a dream or some other nonsense.

So…what’s the point of wrestling any more?

 

To get money from businesses and governments by working them into thinking that by giving money to WWE, they'll make more money (or positive exposure) back from another source.

[Carbomb]

53 minutes ago, organizedkaos said:

Then you get to the Cornette nonsense that anything which might break your illusion fundementally undercuts your investment. The majority of people are invested in performers and stories they enjoy. The sheer volume of fantastical media throughout human existence proves that plus these days we live in post/meta modern society... As much as he's maligned here those Ryan Reynolds Deadpool films do pretty amazing buisness, because even though the main character is breaking kayfabe people enjoy it (possibly moreso because the breaking of kayfabe connects them to the main character)

Thing about Deadpool and the movies is that they're still in kayfabe - like Pat says, kayfabe just mutates. Deadpool has a kayfabe of his own - essentially, he breaks that of the rest of the MCU, but he still stays within his own limits. He's not making any reference to the fact that Welshpool is actually Paul Mullin, for example, but he's happy to keep up the (well-deserved) lambasting of Rob Liefeld's inability to draw feet.

With wrestling, it ultimately comes down to where the criteria of kayfabe are drawn. Promotions like Kaiju Big Battel or Lucha Underground's "worlds" are pretty well preserved, which may be one of the reasons why people like them. WWE, and wCw back in the day, shifted the boundaries around a bit too often, and people didn't like it. 

But, even after all that, I've yet to meet anyone who enjoys wrestlers talking on screen, in character, about jobbing to another one, and not selling because they don't like the politics of it.

[organizedkaos]

Fair, although my wording was maybe deliberately contentious rather than actually conveying the point you made.. Deadpool does stuff that traditionally hasn't been done (much), playing around with the reality of the world yet people still find a connection and investment in what is happening. Arguably it works as an analogy for some of the nobbier wrestling stuff that makes Cornette sad - it's drawing attention to the fakeness whilst paying respect to the world (see.. Invisible wrestlers)

Regardless, this idea that the only way wrestling can make money or be good is if fans genuinely want to see the heel lose with respect to the original idea of kayfabe is basically stupid. It doesn't work, it ignores how we consume all other media that isn't wrestling and it also attempts to embrace something that, in my opinion, isn't very good It's also mostly used as an argument to cover for bias. As others have pointed out, old wrestling isn't very realisitic either. It's like someone complaining that an action movie with a female leads is unrealisitc because she's holding her own in fights against men. In the world of that film the realism holds and realism in media is relative to itself. Action movies are also generally unrealistic due for a multitude of reasons.  That's why they're great. 

[Callum1993]

Would the Brock/Jericho situation at Summerslam 2016 count? Brock faced Orton and the match ended by referee stoppage with Orton bleeding a gusher. This was around the time Lesnar was back in UFC. Jericho thought it was a hard way and wanted to fight Brock backstage even though it was revealed after that it was pre-planned. Rare that one of ‘the boys’ gets worked but Jericho is an idiot so that’s fair. 

[RedTwoster]

3 hours ago, waters44 said:

I'm bending the question here a bit

I’m going to do the exact same thing.

The first time I was genuinely ‘worked’ was during the Brock Lesnar/Big Show match in 2003, when the ring collapsed after a suplex from the top rope.

I was a child at the time and while I knew wrestling was pre-determined, I genuinely thought this was real and had to go online after the show to find out if they were both OK - it was the fact neither of them moved after the spot that sold it to me, and the way it seemed utterly chaotic - like none of the officials knew what to do. In my mind, if this was deliberate, Lesnar would have crawled over to pin Big Show, but he didn’t. They just lay there.

I was absolutely certain they had been seriously injured and even searching on Yahoo for updates brought me no comfort!

[JNLister]

Not exactly the most recent of examples, but WWF making the Giant-Sized title belt before WrestleMania III in case Andre won apparently fooled some people who should have known better because they assumed they'd never waste the money doing that and not use it.

Best part of the Rollins deal is him obviously not stepping back for a moment and realising the company was effectively saying "You know what's a brilliant idea? If we trick people into thinking you won't be on one of the biggest shows of the year?"

[garynysmon]

13 hours ago, thatvinylgeek said:

Jarret and Russos Bash at the Beach "shoot", I initially believed this, probably more because of Hogans reputation that it actually being convincing

This may be a false memory on my part but didn't it take quite a while for the story to unravel and that it was generally considered to be a shoot at the time, at least for a few months? 

Granted it did nothing for business, but in fairness nothing would have by that point (even though the WWF had started to disappear up its own arse and drank its own kool aid by having the audacity to present that godawful WM 18 card).

Edited February 9 by garynysmon

[Supremo]

The UKFF asks, “what was the point in The Sandman pretending he cannae see?”

The Universe responds with the most obvious pay off. Three decades in the making. Long term storytelling!

*An actual match, actually happening, I actually cannot wait.

Edited February 10 by Supremo

[mrtrickio]

On 2/9/2026 at 6:34 PM, RedTwoster said:

I’m going to do the exact same thing.

The first time I was genuinely ‘worked’ was during the Brock Lesnar/Big Show match in 2003, when the ring collapsed after a suplex from the top rope.

I was a child at the time and while I knew wrestling was pre-determined, I genuinely thought this was real and had to go online after the show to find out if they were both OK - it was the fact neither of them moved after the spot that sold it to me, and the way it seemed utterly chaotic - like none of the officials knew what to do. In my mind, if this was deliberate, Lesnar would have crawled over to pin Big Show, but he didn’t. They just lay there.

I was absolutely certain they had been seriously injured and even searching on Yahoo for updates brought me no comfort!

I was there. Just happened to be in Orlando at the time. Got my ticket signed by Lesnar beforehand. Always kept hold of it as thought it might have value one day (particularly given what happened that night!) It's not the prized possession it once was anymore.

Edited February 10 by mrtrickio