What is the difference between a shoot and a work in wrestling

They are conducted out of character with a wrestler generally being interviewed about their career and asked to give their opinion on other wrestlers and specific events in their past. While some wrestlers used these as an opportunity to insult people or promotions they dislike, many are more pleasant. These shoots are often released on DVD. Drawing from this related term, a shooter or shoot-fighter is not a wrestler with a reputation for being uncooperative but one who uses legitimate hooking skills as a gimmick.

A prime example of this tactic is Dean Malenko, who used "The Shooter" as a nickname see also legit. These wrestlers often gain their skills from martial arts Ken Shamrock , or amateur wrestling Kurt Angle. These kinds of shooters are sometimes referred to as stretchers from their ability to use legitimate holds on their opponents to stretch them. Despite the worked nature of the spectacle, shooters have been around since the beginning.

Originally, the NWA World Champion was typically a shooter or "hooker" Lou Thesz is the most famous example , in an effort to keep regional champions and other contenders from attempting to shoot on them and win the title when they were not scheduled to do so.

The use of the term "shoot" to describe a single or double-leg takedown attempt in legitimate fighting situations such as Mixed Martial Arts is inspired by early professional wrestling shooters, who would often utilize these basic wrestling moves when "shooting" on an opponent as opposed to the flashier takedowns used in worked matches, such as suplexes.

Example of spontaneous events that are not shoots include mistakes by wrestlers these are known as botches or matches where the wrestlers are good enough to not need to plan and rehearse beforehand and make it up on the spot as time dictates. The related term "shoot-fighting" also known as shoot wrestling is often used by wrestling fans to refer to mixed martial arts competitions, which, while superficially similar to wrestling matches, are actual athletic competition rather than scripted entertainment.

Generally refers to someone who is at the beginning of his career and more likely to make mistakes in the ring. Heat: When a wrestler is booed by the crowd or generally generates similar reactions. Heel: The bad guy. This would be the antagonist or villain in a novel or movie. In-ring psychology: Structuring a match so that it makes sense, is worked properly, tells a story and does not consist of random moves with no fluidity.

Jobber: A wrestler who almost always loses. His primary function is to make his opponents look good. Kayfabe: Keeping up the illusion that pro wrestling is not scripted. Mark: In short, a fan of the wrestling business. But it is more often used to describe a fan who treats wrestling as if it unscripted or is completely unaware that it is.

This could either be part of a gimmick or done as a sign of disrespect. Pop: The crowd reaction that a wrestler generates.

A crucial aspect to making scripted moves look unscripted. Shoot: Going off-script and making something real. A shoot can be a promo in which a wrestler says something unscripted generally something negative directed toward another wrestler or does a legitimate move that may be used in actual fighting. Spot: A scripted move or series of moves.

Marianna yelled "Chaz, we're live! In reality, Chaz actually thought the vignettes were amusing. The ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view plays it straight with one promo and subverts it with some commentary later on. The first instance was a Rob Van Dam promo where he claims he's shooting and talks about how important the night was and how to him, missing it is worse than missing WrestleMania.

Mick Foley points out it's a shoot which, as mentioned above, is typically a sign that it's a work , but Joey really did get in trouble for his comments after the show. He referred to the real life bullying he suffered in the locker room at the hands of JBL. His rant against Daniel Bryan on the August 23, edition of Talking Smack leaned into the Reality Subtext of The Miz being accused of wrestling like a coward and using the "soft WWE style", in contrast to Bryan being forced to retire from the ring as a consequence of the high-risk style he'd been using since his indie days.

The argument got so heated it caused news outlets to speculate on whether both men had gone off-script or not. The match was billed as an exhibition, but during the match, White supposedly "tried to turn it into something it wasn't supposed to be" and shoot kicked Shamrock, which caused Shamrock to snap and ground n' pound White unconscious.

The match was a work from top to bottom, though. Ironically enough, Shamrock was involved in a number of worked matches in Pancrase. He also tanked a match to avoid an injury before facing Royce Gracie in a rematch, and "carried" several other opponents to more exciting finishes than would have happened in a pure shoot. In fact, his experience fom works came from when he was a Pro Wrestler, it was at Fujiwara Gumi shoot-wrestling promotion where he met future Pancrase founders Funaki and Minoru Suzuki.

Which prevented indepedent people from promoting the combat sport and MMA legend back in the United States. His actual MMA record is a pitiful The Undertaker: While he was leading the Ministry of Darkness, the idea that Mark Calaway, the man behind the gimmick, was beginning to really believe in the Satanic cultist stuff was floated a couple of times. Most notably when Ken Shamrock cut a promo in the ring where he called "Mark" out and threatened to beat a sense of reality into him.

After Cody Rhodes was fired on Raw , the Professional Wrestling Syndicate announced that as soon as Cody's 90 day no compete clause ran out he would be competing for them, which Rhodes confirmed on his Facebook page while putting over all the PWS talent he wanted to face. Of course his "firing" didn't even last 90 days. While the whole promo was very obviously a work, it involved a lot of events that would normally be kept out of kayfabe.

An inadvertent one happened during the Elimination Chamber match for the Intercontinental Championship. When Sheamus was supposed to be released from his pod, the door got stuck, which visibly disrupted the match and led to wrestlers stopping and audibly directing each other as if improvising a new plan for the match. After throwing a fit for several minutes in his pod, Sheamus suddenly stops and lifts up his necklaces from the floor of his pod, as if he had deliberately gotten himself stuck in his pod.

On the Raw following the Elimination Chamber, Kevin Owens , after defeating John Cena cleanly, mentioned how despite all the years it took for him to make it to WWE, his son looks up to Cena as his hero. He also mentioned the issues Cena's detractors have against him. WWE realized that fans were starting to understand what the "X" sign means when a ref puts his arms in a cross above his head. So there have been a number of instances where it's fairly obvious the event was scripted but the ref still does the gesture anyway.

Ziggler, being no stranger to working fans himself, later tweeted that after No Mercy he would accept bookings through an outside agency. Between this and The Miz's repeated potshots at Ziggler's entire in-ring career, including his time in the Spirit Squad and near-forgotten stint as Kerwin White's caddy, this seemed to imply that his exit from WWE was legitimate.

It wasn't. Ultimately, Styles and Orton had a match to determine the true contender, which AJ lost. Frustrated, he lashed out backstage at Shane McMahon , going as far as driving him head first into his car's window. After that Shane challenged AJ to a match at WrestleMania 33 , "reinstating" him as an active superstar.

The face-off during the contract signing between John Cena and Roman Reigns in the lead-up to their match at No Mercy saw both men cutting promos on each other laden with reality subtext, as they brought up pretty much every real life issue fans have with them that make them such Base Breaking Characters.

Cena called out Reigns for being a half-baked, corporate-manufactured Expy of him, Reigns criticised Cena for burying the careers of other young up-and-comers, Cena criticised Reigns for being given all the opportunities in the world but not managing to even get as over as him, and both men used booking terminology such as describing each other and even themselves and being "protected".

It's uncertain exactly how much of the promos were scripted and approved backstage in advance and how much saw them improvising; certainly a part where Reigns visibly forgets his lines and Cena rips into him with "It's called a promo, kid, if you wanna be the big dawg you gotta learn to do it" wouldn't have been preplanned, but Dave Meltzer was thoroughly convinced that pretty much all of it had been personally cleared by Vince in advance.

It was unquestionably given away to be at least mostly a work when John rebutted Reigns' accusations of him having a "golden shovel" by saying "they the fans hold the keys, they always have, they always will". In the build-up to Wrestlemania 34, Roman Reigns cut several promos on his opponent Brock Lesnar , calling him out for several issues fans and other wrestlers have had with him having no passion for the business or respect for the fans, working a part time schedule, only caring about getting paid , being protected by the management.

A few weeks before Summerslam '18, Carmella delivered a heartfelt, emotional speech to Becky Lynch about how the latter always helped her out in NXT and that it was an honor to wrestle against her at the PPV. She then offered a handshake In a promo designed to echo the original pipebomb , Kevin blasted Shane for taking up television time over the actual wrestlers on Smackdown.

Shane played along by cutting both of the microphones off well, until Kevin stole commentator Byron Saxton's headset , and finally had KO escorted from the building. One of the persistent conspiracy theories about the Montreal Screwjob is that it was a worked shoot for one simple reason: The camera feed never cuts away from the chaos in the ring, even as Bret Hart was drawing big 'WCW' letters at the WWF-operated camera.

While Hart's story that this was a legitimate betrayal has been consistent over the years, proponents such as Scott Hall have maintained that there was something fishy about the whole affair being just a little bit too convenient. Pillman said and did things that seemed specifically designed to tweak the noses of management, such as when he ended a PPV match an "I Respect You" match against booker Kevin Sullivan about a minute in by shouting, "I respect you, booker man!

Sullivan was from wrestling's old school, and he made sure that Woman and Benoit traveled together, were spotted entering each others' hotel rooms, and otherwise spent a lot of time together in public, just to drive the angle home. The problem? After spending all that time together, Nancy fell in love with Benoit , and left Kevin for real to marry him.

This led to Woman being moved into a non-speaking role as a valet for Ric Flair , and Benoit kicking Sullivan's ass in match after match, along with fighting his way through Sullivan's Power Stable the Dungeon of Doom , culminating in Benoit defeating Sullivan in a "Career vs. Sullivan was replaced as booker in late by Kevin Nash , who gave the world the Fingerpoke Of Doom and roughly a year of terrible booking.

Benoit left the company in January when Sullivan re-gained the head booker position, as Benoit feared that Sullivan was still holding a grudge. To Sullivan's credit, Benoit said on the Hard Knocks DVD that for all the animosity he held toward Benoit, Sullivan remained a consummate professional in the ring and never tried to hurt Benoit in any of their matches. The worst-ever Worked Shoot for WCW was when the company started shooting on itself , complete with the user of insider terms during the show.

There was also rather explicit mentions of predetermined match finishes on purpose while the cameras are still rolling during the show. Midway through the match, Goldberg "stopped co-operating" and walked out on the match, with the announcers criticizing his lack of professionalism.

Nash and Steiner then proceeded to "improvise" a finish, with the announcers praising how professional they were. Soon after, they ran Fall Brawl promos talking about how Goldberg "refused to follow the script".

This was one of the factors that led to WCW going out of business less than a year later. Bash at the Beach was almost as bad. Hulk Hogan was pulling his creative control card and insisting on beating Jeff Jarrett for the title while Vince Russo and Creative were set on Booker T ending up with the belt.

The negotiation between Hogan and Russo ended with this: Russo would tell Jarrett to lay down in the ring to make Hogan win in a way that would make Hogan look bad, Hogan would leave in a huff, and then Russo would come back out by himself and reveal everything that went on backstage to the fans just so he could nullify Hogan's win and put the belt back on Jarrett - with no one but Russo and Hogan actually knowing it was all a work.

As a result, Jarrett was obviously incensed but went along anyway, but the end result in not telling the announcers was them actually saying on the air "This is not part of the script! Most sides involved have essentially admitted the whole thing was a worked shoot turned half-work half-shoot, but it doesn't help matters that multiple people involved in the angle have provided different accounts of how what happened in the ring came to be: Hogan in his book and Russo have given different accounts where the only agreement is the finish was agreed to hours before the match took place, while Eric Bischoff has stated the decision was reached days earlier.