WWE is a popular company that promotes various types of wrestling and martial arts entertainment.
Although many think of wrestling when considering WWE, it has sponsored and created many other types of shows, movies, and other business ventures.
When it comes to WWE wrestling or other martial arts shows under the brand’s name, some people might think it’s fake.
There’s a lot of hype and performance that goes into each show.
Here’s a look at whether all of WWE is fake or if any elements of the show are real or fake.
Is The WWE Fake?
The WWE is fake in the sense that the outcome of the fight is already known.
It’s better to think of WWE as fiction.
It’s entertainment.
It’s also scripted entertainment.
WWE doesn’t do much to keep its fans in the dark either.
It’s all in the name.
WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment.
While fans may not be sure which wrestler is going to win, the ones running the show do.
Even the wrestlers know who is going to win the match.
However, what is real about WWE is the fight.
That’s real blood and real wrestlers fighting in the arena.
While the wrestlers know who is going to win and have certain parts choreographed, no one knows exactly how much damage they’re going to take in a fight.
Each one tries to limit the damage to the other person as much as possible, but they are actually fighting.
They are kicking and punching and slamming each other on the ground.
The violence is real.
It’s just scripted violence.
As such, you can think of WWE as fake, but it’s better to think of it as fiction.
Do Wrestlers Actually Hit Each Other In WWE?
Yes, WWE wrestlers hit one another during the matches.
They just don’t hit as hard as they could.
If they did, the wrestlers wouldn’t be able to perform as often as they do.
They’d be too busy recovering from their fights.
Here are a few things you should know about hits in WWE.
1. They Try To Hit With Believable Impact
Wrestlers have to find a good balance between not completely injuring their competitor and selling the hit.
The audience is there for violence.
The best wrestlers know how to put on a good performance.
They know how to make their hits look like they’re hitting hard to the point where the audience can forget that they’re watching theatre.
That’s why some wrestlers rely on their partners to make their hits look good, too.
It’s a type of choreography that both need to know well to sell the performance.
If a wrestler hits too softly, it can look awkward.
The other player might try to oversell the strike to make up for the weak punch.
However, that can sometimes make it look even worse.
Wrestlers try to limit how much impact they make while still hitting the other wrestler.
2. Hitting Too Hard Leads To Serious Injuries
While most wrestlers try to limit how much damage they perform, there are a few cases where that doesn’t happen.
This tends to happen when the wrestler has an MMA background.
If they’re used to fighting in the UFC, for example, they’re used to hitting hard.
The UFC is a bit different in how they perform their entertainment.
It tends to be a bit more real since it’s a show of one’s strength against another’s.
Since they’re trained to hit hard and end the match as fast as possible, UFC and MMA fighters come into the ring with that sort of training.
They end up hitting their partners quite hard.
Sometimes, this means that the wrestler gets seriously injured.
Sometimes, it means the wrestler gets annoyed and ends up cold-clocking the MMA fighter to get them to stop.
Either way, a serious injury can occur.
This is problematic in the WWE because it relies on its stars to get in the ring often.
Some stars even have matches every few days, if not every other day.
They can’t afford to get a serious injury.
MMA fighters, on the other hand, schedule their fights with a lot of time in between them.
It allows them to heal up for the next fight.
WWE fighters have to be mindful of how hard they hit lest they cause a serious injury.
3. Injuries Remove Headliners From Shows
The fine line between hitting too hard and hitting too weakly can make or break a performance.
When wrestlers hit too weakly, then the audience remembers that it’s all a show.
When wrestlers hit too hard, it can cause a serious enough injury to take a wrestler out of the show.
This becomes a problem for WWE because it relies on its famous wrestlers to bring fans into the stadium.
Wrestlers each have their persona or character that they fight as in the arena.
Those characters gain fans.
When a character has to sit out due to an injury, the fans might not want to attend the show since they were only watching to root for their favorite character.
That makes WWE lose money.
That’s why WWE encourages its wrestlers to have fun but not to hit too hard.
4. Wrestling Is A Mix Of Scripted Choreography And Improvisation
The main confusion that people have when it comes to WWE and its authenticity is when the fighting looks to be real.
For example, when someone gets a broken nose or a bleeding ear, the audience has an easier time forgetting that that was probably supposed to happen.
A large part of wrestling is either choreographed or scripted.
The wrestlers know what the other is going to do or say.
However, some of it is improvisation, too.
Sometimes the wrestlers will take cues from the audience and do what they want instead.
This revs the audience up even more and makes the show more successful.
Things can sometimes get a little hairy when a wrestler improvises too much, but it can lead to some memorable moments.
Ultimately, when it comes to the fighting in WWE, wrestlers are mindful not to harm one another too much, but they’re certainly going to try to draw blood for the audience’s benefit.
Was The WWE Always Scripted?
WWE has always been a scripted show.
It doesn’t consider itself a competitive sport.
Instead, it focuses on violence as entertainment.
Before WWE, however, wrestling was facing a problem.
It was losing popularity because people believed that the managers had rigged the game.
This was particularly prevalent in the 1920s.
Wrestling then was more of a competitive sport.
You’d have big names going up against one another.
People would place bets on who they believed would win because of their size or skill.
When that wrestler lost, when they clearly should have won, it started to make people lose interest in the game.
There were two mindsets about wrestling.
Some saw it as entertainment and others saw it as a sport.
Those who saw it as entertainment saw an opportunity to make money through rigged games.
The emphasis was more on the show and performance rather than the skills of both fighters.
Those who saw it as a competitive sport wanted the sport to remain true to its roots.
It was ultimately a test of strength, agility, and endurance between two fighters.
Whoever trained the hardest was likely the one to win.
Because wrestling games were becoming rigged more often, fans started to stop tuning in or watching.
Then the WWE formed and brought a new kind of wrestling to television screens.
They emphasized that the wrestling they displayed wasn’t competitive.
Instead, it was purely for entertainment.
WWE left competitive fighting to other networks and sports.
Instead, it focused on creating compelling storylines surrounding characters, or wrestlers, that would make viewers tune in each week.
Not unlike other scripted shows, WWE counts on fans to watch the show because they want to know what happens next.
WWE has always had a scripted show, but the sport of wrestling wasn’t always purely entertainment.
It was once a competitive sport and still is on certain networks or during certain games like the Olympics.
Is The Blood Real In WWE?
Since the fighting follows a script in WWE, you may wonder if the blood that you see is fake, too.
The blood on WWE is not fake.
In most cases, it’s real blood.
There are a few occasions when the blood might not be real.
For example, if a wrestler bathes in blood before getting into the arena, then the blood probably isn’t real.
However, when it comes to the actual fighting, any blood that appears is more than likely real.
That’s because wrestlers don’t carry ketchup packets or any other type of special effects on them.
If their competitor hits them hard enough or hits them just right, they’re bleeding of their own accord.
This is the part of WWE where the entertainment starts to feel quite real.
It’s easy to forget that the fight follows a script when someone gets a bloody nose.
That’s because blood isn’t always in the script.
Several factors can lead to a wrestler getting a bloody lip or a bloody nose.
Since WWE has a ban on blading, it means that any blood you see in the ring was likely on accident.
What Is Blading?
Blading refers to the process of hiding a small blade that’s tapped into your fists.
In wrestling, it allows the wrestler to cut their opponent and produce blood.
Back before WWE banned blading, some wrestlers used it as a way to bring some dramatic blood to a match.
The blade, itself, was quite tiny.
It was usually a small part broken off of a razor blade.
The wrestler would then tape it to their fists or hide it somewhere.
When they punched their opponent, then the blade would cut the skin and force them to bleed.
The most common place for a wrestler to strike was the forehead.
That’s because the forehead area has a ton of blood vessels.
When that area gets pierced or cut, it bleeds a lot.
Since wrestlers are sweating from physical exertion, the sweat mixes with the blood and makes it look like they’re bleeding more heavily than they are.
The idea behind blading, however, is to make it look though as if the wrestler hit the other wrestler hard enough to draw blood.
Despite being theatrical and driving the audience wild, there have been problems with blading before.
One issue is scarring.
If a wrestler gets hit with a blade often enough, the continual healing can sometimes leave serious scars behind.
Another major concern is when the blade hits an important artery.
This occurred in 2004 during a match between Eddie Guerrero and JBL.
Guerrero received a cut to an artery and lost so much blood that he had to receive medical attention after the show.
Because of its dangers, the WWE has banned blading in its show.
Blood doesn’t occur as frequently in the show anymore because of the ban, but when it does show up, it’s not because of blading.
Are WWE Weapons Real?
One of the most enjoyable parts of a WWE match is when a wrestler pulls out a weapon.
It’s usually some form of melee weapon that they use to fight their opponent with.
Sometimes the weapon might be part of their theme.
For example, The Undertaker has his famous shovel.
Others get weapons from the area.
Sometimes the show, itself, features the rotation of different weapons that wrestlers can use against one another.
Since it includes weapons, you may wonder if those weapons are real or if they’re made with soft materials to lessen the impact.
As with everything else on WWE, it all depends.
In many cases, the weapons are 100% real.
They use real materials and are authentic.
In this case, the showrunners rely on the wrestlers to use their own judgment in using the weapon safely.
Sometimes, the show will modify the weapon to make it a bit safer.
They don’t want a wrestler to suffer an accidental death because a weapon went wrong.
For example, sometimes they might modify a table or chair to make it easier to break.
Not only does this make it look like the wrestler is receiving more damage from the object, but it also lessens the damage that they take.
As with everything else in WWE, the weapons are sometimes fake and sometimes real.
What Weapons Does WWE Allow?
Although some of the weapons used on WWE aren’t real, there is a list of weapons that the WWE allows its wrestlers to use.
The list becomes expansive when considering hardcore wrestling.
Hardcore wrestling permits the use of the following weapons:
- Ladders
- Tables
- Chairs
- Thumbtacks
- Barbed wire
- Light tubes
- Shovels
- Baseball bats (with barbed wire)
- Golf clubs
- Hammers
- Ax handles
- Chains
- Crowbars
- Wrenches
- Tongs
The WWE prefers blunted weapons that cause more bludgeoning damage than slicing or cutting damage.
The major exception to that is the use of barbed wire.
While WWE might modify some of those weapons to lessen their damage output, these are all weapons that wrestlers can bring to a fight.
Are WWE Wrestlers Real Wrestlers?
Since WWE has scripted entertainment, you may wonder if its stars are real wrestlers.
They are real in the sense that they’re extremely athletic.
They spend a lot of time in the gym growing stronger and maintaining muscle.
If it came down to an actual competitive wrestling match, some of the wrestlers could probably hold their own.
Not only do they look the part, but all the muscles and strength are authentic, too.
Since WWE wrestlers move around a lot doing show after show, staying fit isn’t always easy.
One of the first things that they do when they arrive in a new city is to find a gym.
There are two main things that they need to do to stay fit.
They have to work out and they need to eat well.
While some of the wrestlers find working out to be the easiest part, it’s maintaining nutrition and eating enough that is the hardest part.
Wrestlers are usually quite large.
They don’t gain that sort of muscle mass by watching their calories.
They often have to eat more than usual to keep adding to their mass.
Like any other athlete looking to gain muscle, they have to pick out grocery stores or eat certain foods at restaurants that help complement their workouts.
While they may not be competing in wrestling, WWE wrestlers eat and train just like competitive wrestlers.
Conclusion
WWE uses scripted entertainment to put on wrestling shows.
Each wrestler is a character on the show that follows a particular storyline.
While certain parts follow a script, many other parts are real.
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