In 1996, the WWF did a story about Shawn Michaels’ “boyhood dream.” Regardless of his characters’ shenanigans before January ’96, his new plateau was that he had always wanted to win the world championship. Let’s forget for a second that before he was positioned to win the title he never once seriously talked about it, and instead focus on the “always” part of that phrase. Michaels’ character had wanted to win the title ever since he was a kid, which is–presumably–why he got into wrestling in the first place. That is to say, he didn’t want to be a hockey player or a lawyer or a priest. One has to assume that Shawn Michaels, as a kid, might have quickly realized that wrestling was a staged presentation. This didn’t deter his dream. For whatever reason, Shawn Michaels, as a child, wanted nothing more than to win a trophy in a fake competition. What a peculiar kid, right? Yet, there are veritably thousands of pro wrestlers worldwide. A very high percentage of them never compete in the WWF. Do they all want the same thing? Does every man and woman who puts on wrestling tights dream of holding a world championship? To expand this idea, does every kid who grabs a bat wish to win the World Series? Does every actor wish to play Macbeth at the Globe? Does every inventor want to win the nobel prize? Of course not. There are a plethora of reasons people do what they do, and we must naturally include professional wrestlers in that spectrum. Regardless of what WWE dictate reads, not everyone wants to be the world champion.

Still, the world of pro wrestling is rife with championships. Every promotion has a good number of them.^⁠1 These championships, often manifested as a gold-studded belt much like boxing, represent the simplest of wrestling stories. At its most basic, wrestling is about power. The first thing to do in wrestling is to exert power over your opponent. How does one do this? By outwrestling him, naturally. But how does one show one’s power over another outside of combat? By acclimating prizes your competitor does not have. Championships are the currency of the wrestling stage, and while it seems like there are always too many belts in any one show, it is important to remember that there are never enough to go around. How does one determine a winner and, therefore, the holder of these titles in a rigged competition? The same way any decision in a rigged competition is decided. The next level of power is that of wrestling over its audience. Champions are chosen based largely on what the audience wants and is willing to pay for. That isn’t to say that whatever the audience says goes. In fact, one will often find a world champion the audience doesn’t particularly like. This is the next major wrestling story: the bad guy with power. The bad guy is whoever the fans, for whatever reason, don’t like. He or she will often come into power based solely on fan revile, and will usurp a fan favorite for the sole purpose of being defeated later on. For example, a bad guy will defeat the good guy and take his championship on a show where the fans paid $30 to see, only to lose to the good guy on a show in the future where the price is $60. Presumably, watching the fan favorite win the big fight and claim a championship is the greatest climax on the wrestling stage.^⁠2

But enough about championships. Everyone understands the idea of prizes in competitive arenas. A more pressing question is why pro wrestlers don’t become athletes. The money is better on average, the time at work is less, the career is shorter, and the health risks are relatively lower.^⁠3  The reason for this is that the lure of wrestling must go beyond that of pure physical exertion; there is drama in these waters, too. So why then don’t wrestlers choose to be actors?^⁠4 All of the reasons to choose sports apply here as well, with the exception of career span. There must be something innate in wrestling not found in the theatre, either.

The argument might be made that it is easier to be a successful pro wrestler than a successful actor or athlete. This argument is made by people who know nothing of the schedules of pro wrestlers. Unlike any other form of live media, there are no seasons in pro wrestling. Where football will run 18 weeks of the year, and a television drama will run 20 episodes, WWE’s Monday Night Raw has been running every single Monday since 1993 with nary a repeat. WWE’s schedule is considered to be one of the most grueling in the world; its performers are on the road some 200 days a year. While many acting troupes perform all year round, they are not inducing the same physical strain as a pro wrestler does. Unlike circus acts like Cirque Du Soleil, the canvas on which they tumble and fall is hardly a trampoline, and there are no safety nets in case of accidents. The list of injuries an average wrestler will suffer makes one wonder if they’re not all masochists.⁵

Of course, every wrestler will give you a different answer as to why they do what they do. However, to get to the crux of the matter, one has to certify in the mind that professional wrestling is an art form, and it is unlike any other. Much like writing a novel or painting a picture, pro wrestling is the art of creating something entirely new that has the ability to say something about the world. This isn’t to discount acting as an art, but it isn’t particularly qualifiable for this particular argument. The art of acting has become corrupt by money and fame in a way that literature, dance, painting, and sculpture never have. Much like a famous painter, a wrestler will suffer for his art beyond what some people may consider reasonable, and it is incredibly likely his art will go unrecognized. Naturally, some wrestlers are not artists. Some are bodybuilders looking to cash in on their protein investments. Some are physically deformed to the point where their only manner of celebration is to be put on display in a still-circus-oriented environment. Some are semi-retired athletes looking to spend the summer becoming more famous. But the majority of pro wrestlers seen on television, discussed about on the internet, and decried by various national media, are unrecognized talent performing to a largely naïve public.

I understand that this may be a difficult idea to grasp at first. Turn on any wrestling program and you will really only see one of two possibilities: either one wrestler is physically assaulting another wrestler, or one wrestler is threatening to physically assault another wrestler. That appears to be it. It might seem that the people involved in this may only be in it for the instant gratification of talk leading to action in a pretend world where it’s okay to fight your way through your problems. But that theory falls on its face as soon as you realize that there is no real goal in wrestling. Winning a wrestling match only leads to more wrestling matches. Winning a championship only means having to defend it on a nightly basis until someone takes it from you. Losing a championship rarely leads to anything other than a quest for another championship. Retiring from wrestling often means returning six months later, until you die. The world of professional wrestling is so circular that one might confuse it for a world of pretend-violent purgatory. Naturally, this makes little sense as a lifestyle choice. Why would anyone ever commit themselves to a life of continuous, vacuous, and irredeemable acts of pretend violence? Why would Shawn Michaels dream about this life as a little boy? Why would the entire Hart family fall into wrestling? Why would the Von Erichs plunge, one by one, into tragedy? Why would Ric Flair, unarguably one of the top wrestlers of all time, still be performing in his 60s? Why would any young and talented athlete ever want to enter this world, knowing that they will almost surely suffer a long list of serious injuries, not to mention an extremely high chance of forming an addiction to painkillers, steroids, and drugs, and especially with the formidable statistic that over 60 wrestlers have died in the last ten years who were under the age of 50?

The more complex answer, and one that may be difficult to explain, is that professional wrestling is an art form, and its artists, like many other art forms inevitably suffer in order to perform. There are prevalent examples of painters, sculptors, novelists, and dancers suffering great lengths to contribute to their art form, whether it be physical or mental anguish. There is no end to the list of artists who are troubled by their art, and find little in terms of reasonable explanation as to why they find themselves compelled to create. Why does a graffiti artist constantly place himself in the way of criminal litigation? Why do novelists sometimes retreat from society? Why do any of these people push themselves into areas of creation in which there is almost no guaranteed money? Professional wrestlers make less money and work more than any actor or athlete, and perform for arguably less recognition and almost certainly less respect by their contemporaries. Professional wrestling, as an art, is tolerated by the general public just slightly more than graffiti. It is placed in the same pile of society-destroying examples as violent video games, hate-speech fueled pop music, and the drug culture. Of course there is a market for the art, but there is obviously a market for these other examples as well. The point is, while other artists may go unrecognized for their work, the general opinion of visual art, literature, and dance are all considered noble pursuits. Pro wrestlers feel the same unreasonable push to perform their craft, but get no recognition that what they are doing is anything but a mockery of proper sport. Wrestling has never been perceived as a particularly intelligent pursuit. In fact, it’s extremely likely that many wrestlers don’t consider themselves artists. Many wrestlers will still defend the integrity of what they do in the same threatening manner that their early 20th century counterparts would have. Have many wrestlers themselves looked deep enough into their craft to fully understand it? As well, it’s more than likely that the producers and writers of wrestling programs don’t consider that what they are hosting is an art form. The evidence of this is in the style of broadcast. Instead of portraying wrestling as a unique creation in human expression, most wrestling programs imitate the presentation of football games or boxing contests. A pair of announcers provide commentary on the events in and around the stage, aided by instant replays and summary videos of previous altercations to provide context and analysis. Wrestlers assemble backstage and are often interviewed in locker rooms. As well, no wrestling program exists on a different time frame than that of real life.^⁠6 Finally, wrestling is almost never presented in a theatrical setting, instead feeling most comfortable in massive sport complexes with corporate prefixes.

In summation, wrestling is an art form often misunderstood and misrepresented by its audience, the media,^⁠7 and even the wrestlers themselves. If that is the case, is it an art at all? Graffiti artists are misunderstood by authorities, but they as a community and its fan base recognize its artistic properties. As difficult as it is to be a novelist or dancer, there is a vast community of supporters for these arts. But there are no government grants for pro wrestlers. There is no grassroots campaign for artistic recognition. There isn’t even a single website dedicated to heightening artistic recognition in pro wrestling. Even if a wrestler realized that what he or she was doing was a form of artistic expression, there would be nearly no forums for them to be heard. Why do wrestlers do what they do? Apparently, nobody knows.

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¹ Arguably, there is one title for every “division” in a wrestling roster. TNA divides this nicely, having one title for its stars, one title for its most impressive generally young athlete, one title for the women, and one for tag teams, though lately they’ve muddled this by adding a women’s tag team title and a “Legends” title that would eventually become the “Global” title, then the “TV” title.

² There are major holes with this argument, of course. Often, the moment of defeat for the hero is far more profound. Sometimes, it is the quiet moments between climatic showdowns that deliver the most emotion in a story. It all depends on how awake the writers are that day.

³ Somewhat ironically, the amount of pro athletes who have become wrestlers far outweigh the number of wrestlers who become pro athletes.

⁴ Some wrestlers have tried to be actors, but only one—The Rock—has successfully made the transition to bonafide movie star. Hulk Hogan may call himself a movie star, but he is lying through his teeth (not unusual for him).

⁵ Mankind, a troubled character wonderfully played by Mick Foley, was one of the most emotionally impacting characters because he acknowledged and drew from this suffering in his monologues.

⁶ Whereas in a soap opera, a 1pm program may actually be nighttime in the programs’ world, a wrestler is experiencing 9pm on Monday at the same time as the viewer, just like a football player or a newscaster.

⁷ The media have never had any idea how to deal with wrestling. In fact, it was their inept attempts to frame stories around wrestling that first tipped me off that there might be more to it than advertised.

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K Sawyer Paul is an author and publisher living in Toronto. He tweets and tumbls. In the wrestling world he is known for This is Sports Entertainment and The Footnotes of Wrestling. 

Edited by Mitch and Jason.