How Pro Wrestling Vernacular Can Teach Basic Critical Thinking in Media

Professional Wrestling has an amazing vernacular that I've often used in my own life to describe various different things I encountered. For instance, when something is proven to be legitimately popular or universally unpopular but intentionally, in wrestling talk, that entity is 'Over.' It's won over the crowd. Not every wrestler can get 'Over' its a status conferred on those performers who hold command over the audience whether it is to get cheers or boos.

Speaking of cheers and boos, there are actually sub-types of being over or not over. Heat is a term that can describe some who is on the rise, they've got some heat with the crowd, indicating that they are getting over. Heat also can mean that you've found yourself in trouble back stage as in this person has heat backstage, but I only mention that for the pedantic wrestling fans eager to correct me. There is another sub-type of heat called 'Go-Away-Heat,' which is a way of describing a performer who is not only NOT getting 'OVER' but rather, the audience genuinely wants the performer to go away. A friend of mine was once complaining about hating the character Skyler on Breaking Bad even though the character wasn't intended to be hated. I replied that she had 'go away heat.' And then I explained what that meant and it made sense.

Go-Away-Heat can also be referred to as 'X-Pac-Heat,' among wrestling fans. That is named for the crowd reaction earned by the character X-Pac, aka Shawn Waltman, from WWE's Attitude Era. After his most successful run in WWE with the stable Degeneration X, Waltman's X-Pac fell out of favor with fans so much that he went from being 'Over' to being over as in done, fans hated him and he could not win them back. This was not a reflection on Waltman's in-ring performance, merely the character he played and how the company used him.

People began to find X-Pac/Shawn Waltman obnoxious and not in any kind of fun or funny way. They just wanted him to go away. You've probably felt this way about a character on TV like the child characters on The Walking Dead or the less effective characters on Game of Thrones who pulled focus from the more interesting and compelling characters. Those characters had 'go-away heat.' It's an indication that the character is perhaps not well written or not well performed by the actor. This type of assessment is a good way to determine critically what you like and don't like about a particular piece of media.

Other professional wrestling terms that I find myself using regularly include 'work' and 'shoot.' A work is when a wrestler does something that is merely part of a story, something scripted. A 'shoot,' on the other hand is real. Thus you might here a wrestler or a fan ask if something was a work or a shoot. Often on YouTube you might see an interview with a wrestler referred to as a 'shoot' interview. This indicates an interview that is being done out of character with the wrestler giving their actual opinion and not the storyline 'work.'

I like to look at documentaries through the lens of a work and a shoot. Take for instance, Joe Exotic, The Tiger King. Most of what Joe Exotic did was a work, he was working the audience, working his employees, fooling them with what appeared to be his deep commitment to something that wholly wasn't true, his lovable persona was a lie. Carole Baskin meanwhile, was a bit of a tweener character, but one with go-away heat. She was shoot not someone who had killed her husband but she was not above trying to work the audience in the same way Joe Exotic was.

Shoot isn't just a term for interviews or out of character moments. Sometimes you will hear about a wrestler 'shooting' on another wrestler. In that context, a wrestler has set out to legitimately harm their in ring opponent or backstage co-worker, or even a fan. Wrestling, for the uninitiated, is not 'fake,' its scripted. The performers do their best not to legitimately hurt their opponent and the outcome of their fight is pre-determined. That is unless the wrestler in question 'shoots' on his opponent and a real fight breaks out. If a wrestler is particularly good at 'working' they can cause their opponent to, in the words of well-known superstar Hulk Hogan, to 'Work themselves into a shoot,' wherein the wrestler forgets that what is happening is scripted.

The terms babyface and heel date back more than a century. When wrestlers were trying to work a crowd, one of the wrestlers would act as the 'Babyface,' the guy who follows the rules, he's more often than not, handsome and likable, they want the crowd to cheer for him. In movie terms, consider Luke Skywalker an example of a 'Babyface,' he's the hero. The 'Heel' is the baddie, he's the dastardly one, they guy who cheats to get an advantage. He seeks to have the crowd boo him when he's successful. To borrow from Star Wars once again, Darth Vader is a great 'Heel,' he's a bad guy, the antagonist. Through his heelish actions you come to root for Luke Skywalker to overcome him.

Star Wars is actually a great movie for the use of Wrestling Vernacular. Think about it, few movie heroes were ever more 'Over' than Luke Skywalker. The same for Darth Vader, he was 'Over,' as the hated villain. His villainy was never in question but then, when he had an 'Angle,' aka a storyline, opposite Luke's mentor, Obi Wan Kenobi, he got 'Over' in a big way, earning your disdain just as he was intended to do. Vader's storyline then becomes one of going from bad to good. By the end of Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader 'turned Babyface.' There are three distinct types of characters in the broad sense of pro wrestling, Babyface, Heel, and a 'Tweener.'

A 'Tweener' is a character who exists between Babyface and Heel. Han Solo starts out in Star Wars as a 'Tweener.' He's not a good guy yet, he's not a bad guy. His story is about turning Babyface, becoming one of the good guys. Back to Darth Vader for a moment, we can explain the 'Heel Turn.' In the second Star Wars trilogy, Darth Vader starts out as a 'white meat Babyface,' an absolutely unquestionable good guy. Then, as his story progresses he slowly turns into a Tweener while under the influence of Palpatine before solidifying his 'Heel' status by turning on Obi Wan Kenobi.

Of course, the creation of these stories is kept under wraps by the creators. You could say that George Lucas maintained 'Kayfabe' by making sure no one knew where the story was going. Kayfabe is a wrestling term for wrestlers who make sure the fans don't know what is real and not real. It's a mostly outdated term today but as recently as the late 80s and early 90s, 'Kayfabe' was such an important element of professional wrestling storytelling that Heels and Babyfaces could not be seen together in public under penalty of being FIRED.

A famous story from the Kayfabe days of the WWF/WWE happened back in the 1980s when Babyface good guy Hacksaw Jim Duggan and bad guy Heel, The Iron Sheikh, were pulled over by police and arrested for having drugs in their car. Yes, the arrest and the drugs had a role to play but, Duggan and Sheikh would tell you still today that their biggest sin was breaking 'Kayfabe.' The two were rivals in the ring at the time and if fans were to see them being friends, it would break the illusion. Crowds would no longer believe that they wanted to fight each other if they were buddies. Imagine seeing Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader laughing together over a cup of coffee in between scenes, they've essentially broken kayfabe, they've revealed that what they are doing is a 'work.' You don't need to be a wrestling fan to understand that, but it's a good illustration of the terminology.

As I mentioned however, Kayfabe is mostly not a thing these days in professional wrestling. Social Media has ended the practice for the most part. Today, you're likely to see Babyfaces and Heels playing videogames together on Twitch or dating each other's female valets who are also supposed to be there sworn enemy. That literally happened when a character named Rusev announced he was marrying a valet named Lana. Lana was his ex-girlfriend in a storyline where she was aligned with Rusev's rival, Dolph Ziggler. In a shoot on social media, Rusev and Lana announced their engagement on Instagram while they were supposed to hate each other on the show.

I should say again, that was a shoot engagement, not a work. Marriage is a bit of a trope in wrestling with wrestlers marrying valets as part of storylines dating back to 1970s. These marriages were often just works, parts of a story being told. Such was the case of the marriage of Macho Man Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. That marriage got over so big that the couple, who had been married in real life, and then separated, were married again in storyline after Savage turned babyface again, following a few years of dastardly villainy. Fans cried in the crowd over the reunion of Savage and Elizabeth in an example being tremendously over with the fans.

Then again, that brings us to another bit of wrestling vernacular, plants. A plant is defined as a member of the crowd at a wrestling show who is put in place as part of a story. A plant might, perhaps, cry on command just as the camera lands on them when Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth reunited. A plant is used to create heat, more often than not for heels. In the 60s and 70s a plant might try to start a fight or argument with a heel that would draw the ire of the crowd. A wrestlers shoot family can act as crowd plants, especially on television where the commentators can call attention to them and the heels can get into it with them for heat. It's a classic trope and it works to this day.

So, yeah, wrestling vernacular is fun but it's also a valuable tool for discerning media in the most basic form of media literacy. Think about something like The Last of Us, the popular new show on HBO. On that show you have babyfaces, heels, tweeners, some people are trying to work the heroes and take advantage of them, while others are shoot trying to be of help or harm, their good and bad intentions made plain by their actions. Characters you like one moment become heels later via the story being told. That manipulation of your trust is part of the drama and excitement in all of your favorite shows. Wrestling just does that in a sports competition environment.

I could go on about wrestling vernacular and get into 'Ribs' or 'Blowoffs,' or 'burials,' and other such terms but I think my point is made. Wrestling vernacular can be used to understand other forms of media in very simplistic fashion. If you want to get to the bare bones of a piece of media, consider who is working who, who is shooting on who? Who is the Babyface? Who is the Heel? Who is that lovable Tweener that you hope will turn one way or another in order to progress the story you are enjoying? Kayfabe may be dead in wrestling parlance but is it really anything more than the kind of willing suspension of disbelief required of any piece of media?