Pro Wrestling Terms

TERM	DEFINITION
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.
Baby face	A good guy.
Blade	The practice of cutting oneself or being cut with a part of a razor blade hidden in tights, hair, under the ring or wrist tape in order to produce blood. Usually cut on the hairline or in the upper forehead.
Blind	When a referee has his back turned while the other side is cheating. Usually done by heels in order to gain the advantage in a match.
Blow off	The big money match to settle a feud between two rivals. The tension builds until it needs to be blown off.
Blow up	To become very fatigued or exhausted, during the match.
Booker	The individual responsible for writing the angles, storylines, finishes of match. Also helps in the hiring and firing in a promotion.
Boy(s)	A wrestler. Being on of the boys, just means you're a wrestler.
Bump	A fall or hit to the mat which knocks the person down.
Card	The series of matches in one location at one time.
Cleans house	When a wrestler(s) eliminates every other man in the ring.
Comp	To be comped means you got a free ticket to a wrestling event.
Curtain jerker	Wrestlers who usually opens the shows up. Bascially the first match on the card.
Dark match	A match performed before the live TV/PPV show. Seen by the live crowd but not by the TV audience.
Draw	To attract fans. The popularity of a wrestler, the ability to bring in fans.
Dud	A particularly bad and totally uninteresting match.
Fall	A referee's count of three with the loser's shoulders on the mat.
Feud	A series of matches between two wrestlers or multiple groups. Many times they will interview and bad mouth the other wrestler(s).
Finish	The event or sequence of events which leads to the ultimate outcome of a match.
Garbage	Matches or promotions that have no wrestling but pure violence. Use of nothing but weapons and violent gimmick matches.
Getting light	To get light on your oponnent means that you try work with your opponent and get as light as you can so he can get you into in a move. i.e. posting your hand on shoulders for a gorilla press, or jumping up into a body slam.
Gorilla position	The area wrestlers wait their turn to come out for their match/run-in/interview. Most all the time it's the area right behind the curtains.
Green	Not good due to inexperience in the ring.
Hardway juice	Real blood produced by means other than blading. Done the hard way.
Heat	Enthusiasm, a positive/negative response from fans.
Heavy	The opposite of getting light. Basically being dead weight and not helping your opponent get you in any type of move.
Heel	A bad guy; rule-breaker.
House	The wrestling audience in the building
House show	A wrestling event that is not televised.
International object	Foreign object, something not allowed in the ring.
Job	A staged loss. A clean job is a staged loss by legal pin fall or submission without resort to illegalities.
Jobber	An un-pushed wrestler who does jobs for pushed wrestlers. Usually a wrestler who is on a long losing streak.
Juice	Blood. Also means steroids
Juicing	Means two things; A wrestler who is be bleeding. It also means a wrestler who is taking steroids.
Kayfabe	Of or related to inside information about the business. To break kayfabe is to break out of your character. It is also used by wrestlers to kayfabe each other, which means to keep quiet on certain things with other people and to not let them know.
Kill	To stop a gimmick or match that is not getting a good response from the crowd.
Mark	A member of the audience, presumed gullible. Basically a wrestling fan who attends all the shows, buys all the merchandise etc.
Mid-carder	A wrestler who wrestles on the under-card but is usually well known.
Over	When a wrestler's gimmick is well liked by the fans or he receives a great amount of heat whether it be cheers or boos. To be over is to get a big response from fans whenever a wrestler comes out.
Paper	Free complimentary tickets, given to fans and friends/family of wrestlers to make the arena look as if it sold out.
Pop	A loud 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 To injure a wrestler by hitting him on the head or causing him to hit his head on something. He is legitimately hurt from the move.
Powder out	to To powder out means either you get knocked out of the ring and leave, or you run out of the ring.
Push	When a wrestler starts to go on a winning streak and gets title shots. Also gets more interview time and TV time.
Psychology	To tell a story by working over a certain body part, making a series of moves make sense in the ring. Working the crowd at the right momen, and to sell a lot.
Referee position	Most wrestlers use this to start their match. It is the collar and elbow tie up.
Rest hold	When wrestlers need to take a rest during a match, or figure out the next series of moves, or they can't decide what to do next. They will apply some type of boring non-damaging hold. It only serves to stretch out the match and give the wrestlers time to breathe.
Rib	A rib is playing a practical joke on someone else. Many wrestlers do this to each other on the road.
Run-in	Interference by a non-participant in a match.
Save	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 due to factors outside the rules of wrestling.
Sell	Means to act hurt and use facial expressions when a move has been applied.
Shoot	The real thing. A match where the participants are really attempting to hurt another.
Smark	A smart mark. A guy who thinks he knows everything there is to know about wrestling. Doesn't care much for gimmicks or angles. Like good matches with psychology.
Spot	An sequence/series of moves which makes a particular match distinctive, the climax of a match.
Spot fest	A match with no psychology. Just high impact moves after high impact moves. There is no storytelling during these types of matches.
Squash	A totally passive job where one wrestler completely dominates another.
Stable	Multiple wrestler's united to form a group.
Stiff	A wrestler who cannot maneuver around the ring very swiftly. He doesn't have much flexibility or stamina. To get stiff also means that all your blows and moves are more physical and hurts more.
Stretch	A form of shoot where one wrestler dominates rather than injures the other as a proof of personal superiority. To stretch someone is to get a wrestler in a submission and stiff him by pulling back.
Tap out	To give into a submission maneuver
Turn	Change in orientation from heel to face or vice-versa.
Tweener	A wrestler who is part heel and part face. He isn't classified as a heel or face, he is more in the middle.
Work	A deception or fraud, the opposite of a shoot. Also to work the crowd means to get the crowd into.
Worker	Another term for wrestler.
Workrate	The approximate ratio of good wrestling to stamina in a match or in a wrestler's performance.