Professional wrestling slang
Professional wrestling has accrued a considerable amount of slang, in-references and jargon. Much of it stems from the industry's origins in the days of carnivals, and the slang itself is often referred to as 'carny talk'.
In recent years, widespread wrestling discussion on the Internet has corrupted and broadened some of these terms.
List of terms
- Angle, a fictional storyline
- Babyface, a good guy (compare "tweener" and "heel")
- Blade, a sharpened object used for "blading"
- Blading, the act of cutting oneself open in order to bleed, usually on the forehead (compare "juicing")
- Blown Spot, see Botch
- Booker, the person in charge of setting up matches
- Booking, what a "booker" does
- Botch, a scripted move that failed
- Brock, to blow the biggest move in the biggest match, also to double-clutch on the top rope (see Double-Clutch)
- Bump, when a wrestler hits the mat
- Bury, when a wrestler loses popularity by forced losses (compare "push")
- Card, the lineup of matches
- Cheap Heat, when a wrestler (often a heel) incites a negative crowd reaction by insulting the crowd (for example, by insulting the city, or a local sports team) (compare "cheap pop")
- Cheap Pop, when a wrestler (often a face) incites a positive crowd reaction by "kissing up" to the crowd (for example, mentioning the name of the city, or complimenting a local sports team) (compare "cheap heat")
- Dark match, a non-televised match at a televised show (compare "house show")
- Dirtsheet, a newsletter, magazine, or website that portrays wrestling as scripted entertainment, rather than portraying it as a sport.
- Diva, a female involved in wrestling, either in a bit part or as a wrestler
- Double-Clutch, to hesitate and bounce before jumping off the top rope, resulting in limited airtime and height
- Face, short for "babyface"
- Feud, a battle between "faces" and "heels"
- Finisher, a wrestler's trademark move
- Gimmick, a unique trait that defines a wrestler's identity, or an implement used to cheat i.e., William Regal's gimmick was to knock out opponents with his brass knuckles (brass knucks were a "gimmick").
- Hard-Way Juicing, bleeding that is not self-inflicted (compare "blading" and "juicing")
- Heat, a wrestler getting a crowd reaction (also "cheap heat", "canned heat", "dead heat")
- Heel, a bad guy (also "monster heel", "egotistical heel", and "traitor heel"; compare "tweener" and "babyface")
- House show, a non-televised show (compare "dark match")
- Indy
- Job, a scheduled loss (also "jobbing", "jobber", "jobroni", and "job cleanly"; compare "screwjob")
- Juicing, bleeding (frequently, but not always, self-inflicted) (compare "blading" and "hard-way juicing")
- Kayfabe, pretending that events are not staged
- Mark, a fan who believes wrestling is real (compare "smark")
- No-show, when a wrestler doesn't show up for a match
- Over, popular
- Promo, a promotional interview (also "cutting a promo")
- Pop, a crowd reaction (also "name pop")
- Push, when a wrestler gains popularity by forced wins (compare "bury")
- Rib, a joke played on a wrestler by another wrestler
- Run-in, when unscheduled wrestlers join a match
- Screwjob, when a wrestler scheduled to win loses instead
- Sell, making the action seem unstaged (also "oversell" and "no-seller")
- Shoot, an unplanned event in the show
- Smark, a fan who knows wrestling is staged but enjoys it anyway (compare "mark")
- Smart, someone who has inside information on the wrestling business
- Spot, planned set of moves, usually resulting in a climax
- Squared circle, the ring in which matches are held
- Squash, an extremely one-sided match
- Stable, a group of wrestlers
- Swerve, a surprise (and often unexplained) plot twist
- Tag-team, a pair of wrestlers working together
- Turn, when a wrestler develops a new "gimmick"
- Tweener, a morally ambiguous wrestler (compare "babyface" and "heel")
- Undercard, a match-up between less-popular wrestlers
- Work, a staged event
- Workrate, a wrestler's talent level
- Wrestlecrap, a hall of shame website for professional wrestling
