Welcome to our Wrestling Dictionary terms page. In this section, we include over 50 insider-terms that wrestlers/managers/bookers use. You've heard these words being used hundreds of times by ring-announcers, and now you finally get to know what they actually mean.
Angle - A wrestling plot which may involve only one match or may continue over several matches for some time; the reason behind a feud or a turn.
Blade - The practice of cutting oneself or being cut with a part of a razor blade. Also known as juicing.
Blow up - To become fatigued or exhausted. The Ultimate Warrior was said to be one of a number of wrestlers who blows up on the entry ramp.
Booker - The individual responsible for angles, finishes, hiring and firing in a promotion.
Bump - A fall or hit done as a spot (see spot) which takes the wrestler (or other participant, i.e. referee, manager) out of the ring or out of action.
Card - The series of matches in a wrestling event.
Draw - To attract marks. n. the popularity of a wrestler, the ability to bring in marks.
DUD - A particularly bad and totally uninteresting match.
Face - A fan favorite. A wrestler who plays the good guy.
Fall - A referee's count of three with the loser's shoulders on the mat.
Feud - A series of matches between two wrestlers or two tag teams, usually face vs. heel though face feuds and heel feuds are not unknown.
Green - Not good due to inexperience.
Hard way - Real blood produced by means other than blading, i.e. the hard way. One of the possible outcomes of a shoot.
Heat - Enthusiasm, a positive/negative response.
Heel - A bad guy in a federation. A heel often breaks the rules and receives a bad poor/hated response from the fans.
House - The wrestling audience in the building said to be composed of marks.
International Object - Foreign object, something now allowed in the ring. Derived from an order not to use the world foreign by the Turner Broadcasting Company.
Job - A staged loss. A clean job is a staged loss by legal pin fall or submission without
Resort to Illegalities - To do a job. Sometimes combined with a descriptive adjective (stretcher job, rope job, tights job.)
Jobber - An un-pushed wrestler who does jobs for pushed wrestlers. Barry Horowitz is probably the best known of these. Sometimes known as fish, red shirts PLs (professional losers,) or' ham-and-eggers.' Steve Lombardi (Brooklyn Brawler) is also a well known jobber.
Kayfabe - Of or related to inside information about the business, especially by fans. Origin is carny jargon talk for fake.
Kill - Diminish or eliminate heat or drawing power. There are a variety of ways to do this, but mostly it is done by having a wrestler do too many jobs. A house can be killed by too many screw-job endings.
Mark - A member of the audience, presumed gullible.
Paper - Complimentary tickets. To give lots of complimentary tickets to make a house look good, particularly for a television taping.
Pop - Sudden heat from a house as a response to a wrestler's entry or hot move.
Post - To run or be run into the ring post.
Potato - To injure a wrestler by hitting him on the head or causing him to hit his head on something.
Run-In - Interference by a non-participant in a match. save n. a run-in to protect a wrestler from being beat up after a match is over.
Screw Job - A match or ending which is not clean (definite) due to factors outside the rules of wrestling.
Shoot - The real thing, i.e. a match where one participant is really attempting to hurt another. The opposite of work or fake.
Spot - An event or sequence of events which makes a particular match distinctive, a high-point of a match.
Squash - A totally passive job where one wrestler completely dominates another. v.t. to win a squash match.
Stick - The Microphone
Stiff Chops - Hits or moves which cause real injury (though perhaps not more than a welting up of the opponent.) Big Van Vader has a reputation as a stiff worker. Not a shoot, but almost.
Stretch - A form of shoot where one wrestler dominates rather than injures the other as a proof of personal superiority.
Turn - Change in orientation from heel to face or vice-versa.
Work - A deception or sham, the opposite of a shoot.
Workrate - the approximate ratio of good wrestling to rest holds in a match or in a wrestler's performance.
