Kayfabe USA
How Professional Wrestling Structurally and Conceptually Shapes Modern Times
Kayfabe’s Origins
To understand the world, you must understand professional wrestling. And to understand professional wrestling, you must understand how it communicates through managed deception. Professional wrestling is fake, everyone knows that—except it isn’t, and that contradiction is the point. That contradiction is known as kayfabe.
Kayfabe is wrestling’s social contract. It’s the consumer’s submission to the suspension of disbelief, the acceptance of the central conceit of the show. It’s fake, but I’m going to play along.
It’s also the code the labor lives by.
In the territory and early cable television eras of professional wrestling, wrestlers embodied their characters, twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week.
The “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was given large sums of cash to flaunt in public to maintain the appearances of his character’s wealth. David Schultz very famously assaulted journalist John Stossel on live television to protect the code that the violence was real.
Good guys (faces) and bad guys (heels) could not be seen together in public, or they’d risk banishment from the brotherhood. A most extreme example—Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods flew on a plane with a bunch of heels, including Ric Flair in 1975. It crashed, and the local media picked up the story. Woods, couldn’t walk without assistance after the crash, and had cracked ribs, but checked himself out of the hospital and immediately began making appearances to discredit the reports that he was on the plane. Why? He was a face, and couldn’t be on a plane with a bunch of heels.
Kayfabe, in those days, was the maintenance of fiction. But as professional wrestling’s reach shifted from regional to national to global, it evolved from guarded fiction into hyperreality.
Kayfabe’s Fracture
Vince McMahon admitted wrestling was fake, on the record, in 1989. He did so to avoid paying taxes to state athletic commissions, a story that barely registered in the news cycle. But it is ultimately the news cycle that would emerge within the closed world of kayfabe would distort it.
The rise of the internet in the 90’s completely rewired wrestling fandom. It evolved to consume the consumers of the product and repurpose them as active, but controlled participants in the narrative universe. And the person most responsible for that shift was Dave Meltzer, pro wrestling’s accidental post-modern theorist.
Dave Meltzer launched the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, humbly, in 1983. A superfan who created the star rating system for assessing match quality and artistry, Meltzer used inside connections to report on backstage drama and rumors to a small, devoted fanbase. Kayfabe purists were appalled. Derided as “dirt sheets,” many wrestlers and insiders felt that he was killing the business. Others who may have been more hip to where things were headed were loyal subscribers.
The newsletter eventually moved online and his reach expanded. Meltzer’s reporting on backstage drama, real life beefs and scandal ruptured the controlled narrative of kayfabe as greater numbers of fans became “smart.” A significant portion of the audience had changed with him by the late 1990s.
An entire ecosystem of message boards and websites emerged to advance and engage with these insider stories. The “smart mark” or “smark” was born—a fan, yes, but one who did not want to be “worked” anymore; they wanted to know how they were being worked. Who had heat backstage. Who was being buried. Who was headed to WCW. The spectacle shifted from the ring to the meta-narrative surrounding it. And the behavior of smarks often mirrored the mechanics of wrestling.
These mostly male, mostly teenage and twenty-something fans chased message board clout long before the influencer era, through debates and battles with forum members, trying to win battles amongst their fellow proto-incels. “E-feds” were rampant—a wrestling version of Dungeons & Dragons where posters become wrestlers and compete head to head in virtual promotions.
These fans were uniquely wired to participate in the ethos of kayfabe. And wrestling was ready to cater to them, by bringing the “dirt sheets” to the grand stage.
The Curtain Call was an incident where four friends, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall embraced in the center of the ring at the conclusion of a house show. It sounds innocuous, until you remember that faces and heels couldn’t even survive a plane crash together in earlier days. Hall and Nash were off to WCW, common knowledge to insiders, and they were also aware of their close friendship with Michaels and Helmsley. They were part of a notorious backstage faction, the “clique.”
When these faces and heels embraced in the ring, they breached the code of kayfabe in WWE’s cathedral—Madison Square Garden, an arena that holds special reverence for the company. This wasn’t only a breach, it was a fourth-wall breaking admission that the business itself was changing.
A year later, Vince McMahon changed the script live, ringing the bell and screwing Bret Hart out of the WWF title, live on Pay Per View, against his will, at an event that would come to be known as the Montreal Screwjob. That the documentary crew for Wrestling With Shadows was there filming Hart in the months and weeks leading up to the event, could’ve been coincidence or not.
Either way, it ushered in a new post-structural era in wrestling because it proved kayfabe could be broken, filmed, documented, and then folded back into narrative. And that’s wrestling today— the blurring of the lines between truth and fiction. Vince McMahon emerged from Montreal, as a hyperreal version of himself. Everyone knew he was the evil boss, and he just legitimately screwed over the biggest fan favorite of the 1990s, live on Pay Per View. And he embraced that character on screen, ushering in the most successful period in wrestling history, the Attitude Era.
Kayfabe as Simulacra
The smark voice has become the de facto voice of professional wrestling fans in modern WWE. Wrestling is about manipulating crowd reaction, and today’s chants are more critical assessment (“THIS IS AWESOME,” “YOU F*CKED UP”) than rallying behind the good guy or the bad guy. The smark infiltration reached its apex in 2011, where CM Punk aired his, and their grievances on live television.
On June 27, 2011, CM Punk sat cross-legged on the Raw stage and spoke directly to the camera. He mocked WWE’s corporate structure. He praised Ring of Honor and New Japan—WWE always had a rule, never mention the competition. He name-dropped Colt Cabana, a star on the independent screen. He spoke about John Cena as a corporate avatar. He mentioned being held down because he “didn’t look like a star,” and criticized some of Vince McMahon’s more controversial decisions as showrunner.
This “pipe bomb” was unprecedented—not because it was honest, but because it weaponized insider knowledge.
Punk spoke in the language of internet forums, dirtsheets, and message boards. He addressed smarks directly. This was Dave Meltzer discourse translated into promo form. It was postmodern wrestling at full maturity: the audience didn’t just know kayfabe was fake, they knew how it was fake, and the show acknowledged them as co-authors of meaning.
Kayfabe, Knowledge Power and The Era of Post-Truth
This is an incredibly seductive and engaging way of communicating with an audience. And while fans are active participants in the show, the narratives they consume have been propagandized through the monopolization and imperial status of its biggest player, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE.)
After Montreal, the WWE realized that they could control the narrative history of professional wrestling. Wrestling’s Berlin Wall fell when Shane McMahon walked out to the ring at the final WCW Nitro, and what followed was WWE’s era of post-war hegemony.
The tape libraries of WCW, ECW, AWA, World Class, Mid-South—entire regional histories of wrestling’s past were absorbed and retrofitted to WWE’s chosen narrative. WWE doesn’t preserve wrestling history; it curates it, producing glossy documentaries that blur fact and fiction while always centering WWE as the inevitable endpoint of wrestling evolution.
The good guys, spreading freedom and democracy. WWE’s narrative is the accepted truth, control of the wrestling world through sheer knowledge-power.
The show no longer plays out only in the ring, but within wrestling’s media cycles, newsfeeds and documentary series like Dark Side of the Ring. The characters became more real, and wrestler’s real life personas increasingly became their characters. The excitement is less about the drama in the ring, but more centered on meta-narrative. Is it a work (fake) or a shoot (real?)
Kayfabe is no longer simply about concealing the truth; it is about organizing belief, disciplining perception, and training audiences to live comfortably within this contradiction. It is a way of knowing the world rather than a lie to be exposed. This transition from protecting trade secrets into meta-narrative aligns closely with the evolution of the overall media landscape and the world it constructs.
The wrestling ring is not a mirror of the world. It is a model for how our world functions in the era of “post-truth.” Like the truth, kayfabe didn’t die, it evolved into something more insidious—a layered simulacrum where truth is absorbed and then repackaged and perverted by the most powerful entity in the room.
Working Class Theater
The structure of wrestling, with WWE at its focal center, mirrors the structure of Post-War American hegemony. The content of wrestling naturalizes capitalism through constant competition by its very nature. Someone must always be on top. Success is framed as personal merit rather than structural advantage. There are factions, but it’s the triumph of the individual that is awarded the glitziest prizes. Wrestling has advanced these and uglier concepts to the working class, very effectively, for decades.
When analysis is done by theorists on the erosion of the American left, I invite them to look no further than how the right has communicated to people effectively through the closed circuit of professional wrestling. The problem is not that the working class does not understand politics. The problem is that much of leftist discourse about the working class does not understand how to speak to them, while wrestling’s morality plays and conflicts do, in forums that are engaging and accessible. And when access to information changed the game and altered reality, wrestling was quick to pivot to maintain control, even as more and more fans forced their way into the tent.
For decades, left theory has diagnosed exploitation with extraordinary precision. But it has done so largely inside elite institutions, in a language inaccessible to the very people it claims to defend. This is not a moral failure. It is a structural one. Where theory fails, wrestling succeeds, on grand stages, cable television, message boards and social media feeds.
Academic Marxism, cultural studies, and left-liberal policy discourse are overwhelmingly written about the working class rather than for them. They circulate within universities, journals, and conferences that presume prior literacy, leisure, and symbolic capital. The politics are often sound, but the mode of address is exclusionary. Wrestling, by contrast, never abandoned address and in fact reconstructed it. The politics on the other hand…
Wrestling as Imperialism
You cannot talk about wrestling as political ideology without starting with Hulk Hogan, the most successful nationalist fantasy ever put into spandex. Behind the scenes, he was a union-busting racist, infamous for telling tall tales, pumping himself up with steroids and cocaine with delusions of running for the highest office. In the ring, the “Real American” promoted Regan-era neoliberalism and global plunder.
Hogan’s entire first WWE run was a Cold War morality play. His body was America: massive, disciplined, white, and morally pure. His enemies were explicitly foreign, coded as threats to the nation rather than competitors in a sport.
The Iron Sheik wasn’t just a heel—he was Iran. Nikolai Volkoff sang the Soviet anthem to nuclear heat. Kamala, the “Ugandan Giant,” was portrayed as savage and barely human. Yokozuna, billed as Japanese despite being Samoan, was framed as an unstoppable foreign force. The Gulf War did not take place, it was a battle between Hulk Hogan and Iraqi turncoat Sgt. Slaugther at Wrestlemania 7: Superstars and Stripes Forever.
This wasn’t subtle. Hogan didn’t just win matches; he restored order. The leg drop wasn’t a move—it was a flag being planted. And crucially, Hogan never challenged power structures. He embodied them. He was the boss’s favorite worker who told kids to “say your prayers” and trust authority. He was Reagan-era masculinity with a Rick Derringer theme song.
Wrestling and the Culture Wars
If wrestling teaches audiences how to recognize power, it also teaches them who does not belong. Racism, xenophobia, and homophobia in professional wrestling were never incidental excesses or products of a less enlightened time. They were structural narrative tools, used to convert diffuse class antagonism into legible enemies—foreign, racialized, queer, or feminized bodies upon which violence could be safely discharged.
When WWE actually allowed black wrestlers some sort of stage instead of being portrayed as bizarre, racist caricatures by white people, it was mostly to reinforce social hierarchy and demonize black progressiveness. Virgil, the Million Dollar Man’s total subservient. A tag team called Cryme Tyme that perpetuated racist stereotypes.
The Nation of Domination is a key example. Ostensibly inspired by the Nation of Islam, the stable featured Black wrestlers framed as militant, threatening, and anti-American. While the group did provide visibility and a platform for performers like The Rock, Ron Simmons and Mark Henry, it did so by associating Black political consciousness with menace and criminality. They were pitted against D-Generation X, a group of white dudes obsessed with dick jokes who thought this was a good idea:
Current WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque has a long history of participating in racist storylines, including one that headlined a WrestleMania, against Booker T.
Despite Booker T’s credibility, popularity, and momentum, the storyline leaned heavily on racism—invocations of criminality, a lack of intelligence, and “knowing one’s place.” The good guy usually triumphs at WrestleMania—it’s where long story acts reach their climaxes and conclusions, and generally, the fans are sent home happy. The good guy prevails. It seemed a foregone conclusion that Booker T would triumph over the racist Triple H.
But that’s not what happened. Booker lost. The decision to have Triple H win at WrestleMania 19 was not a booking error, it was ideological discipline. The system reasserted itself. The message was clear: recognition is possible, but only within limits. White supremacy reigns supreme.
LGBTQ+ characters in WWE were almost never allowed dignity. Instead, queerness appeared as punchline (Billy and Chuck) or menace (early Goldust.)
Goldust is instructive. While the original character flirted with subversion, it was framed through excess and revulsion. Queerness was not normalized—it was weaponized as psychological warfare against heterosexual men, reinforcing the idea that masculinity is fragile and must be defended through violence. This aligns with wrestling’s broader function: to shore up a narrow, aggressive masculinity at moments when it feels threatened by social change.
If racialized and queer bodies were used to absorb displaced class rage, women’s bodies were used to naturalize domination itself. The WWE Divas era was a masterclass in sexism and misogyny. Women were framed primarily as sexual objects, accessories, or humiliation devices. Their athleticism was secondary to their “T&A.” Their matches were short, poorly promoted, overly sexualized and gimmicked, and often interrupted by commentary from accused pedophile Jerry “The King” Lawler about appearance rather than skill.
No example is more revealing than Vince McMahon’s on-screen treatment of Trish Stratus. In one infamous storyline, Trish was scripted as McMahon’s sexual subordinate and mistress. She was ordered to crawl, bark, and submit publicly, framed as a “gold digger” whose degradation was portrayed as justified and entertaining.
This was not accidental cruelty. It was instructive (and behavior McMahon was alleged to be participating in, outside of the show.) The audience was trained to associate power with sexual entitlement and humiliation with justice. Misogyny was not just depicted, it was performed as a legitimate expression of authority by the boss. When the left later asks why misogyny persists among working-class men, this history matters. These narratives were not fringe. They were mainstream, repeated, and rewarded.
Wrestling and Controlled Opposition
Even dissent and civil disobedience is carefully manicured and cultivated to control the wrestling fan’s Overton window. Stone Cold Steve Austin feels like rebellion. That’s why he’s so dangerous.
Austin flipped off his boss, chugged beers, and generally raised hell. On the surface, this looked like class war: worker versus billionaire owner. But Austin’s rebellion was entirely hollowed out of material politics.
Austin (who doesn’t believe in CTE, a side effect of WWE’s labor exploitation) didn’t want better conditions. He didn’t organize the other wrestlers against the oppressive boss or institution. He didn’t represent other workers. He just wanted to be left alone to do his thing the way he wanted to do it. DTA: Don’t Trust Anybody, was one of his core mantras.
This is neoliberal masculinity perfected—freedom defined as individual grievance, not collective struggle. Austin never challenged the system. And when Vince needed him to, he became management, when he turned heel at WrestleMania X7. The audience ultimately didn’t witness working class triumph over elites. They learned to fantasize about becoming untouchable within the system.
The Greatest Heel of All-Time
Donald Trump is a WWE Hall of Famer, the host of two WrestleManias and the winner of the Battle of the Billionaires at WrestleMania 26. And he has demonstrated a keen understanding of professional wrestling’s ethos from the moment he entered public consciousness in the 1970s.
Trump constructed a character rather than a biography. That character—brash, hyper-wealthy, omnipotent, constantly winning—operates according to wrestling’s logic: credibility is not earned through evidence, but through assertion, repetition, and crowd reaction. His wealth functions like a championship belt: symbolic, exaggerated, and constantly displayed.
For decades, Trump’s actual finances were opaque, unstable, and heavily leveraged. But within kayfabe, none of that mattered. He was “the billionaire.” Gold fixtures, his name in giant letters, the private jet—these were entrance props, not proof. Just like Alberto Del Rio’s rented cars or Ted DiBiase’s belt.
Like a wrestling promoter protecting a top star, the media largely played along. Forbes negotiated his net worth annually in public, treating Trump’s self-reported figures as a starting point rather than a claim requiring verification. This is classic worked reality: everyone knows it’s exaggerated, but no one breaks the illusion because the spectacle is more profitable intact. Trump’s wealth was not a fact; it was a storyline.
The Apprentice is perhaps the clearest example of Trump’s wrestling ethos. The show presented Trump as an infallible judge of merit, intelligence, and value. Contestants competed for his approval in artificial tasks designed to simulate capitalism while obscuring its structural realities. This is exactly like wrestling matches staged as fair competition within rigged conditions. “You’re fired” functioned as a finishing move.
Crucially, the audience was never meant to believe the show reflected real business practice. They were meant to feel that Trump embodied decisive authority. This is kayfabe: the truth of the character matters more than the truth of the world.
Trump’s political rise is incomprehensible without understanding his instinctual use of feuds. “Crooked Hillary,” “Sleepy Joe,” “Lyin’ Ted.” These are not insults; they are wrestling nicknames designed to fix an opponent’s identity in the audience’s mind. Once assigned, they are never abandoned. Trump repeats them relentlessly, the way a heel hammers an insult to generate heat. Policy disagreement is irrelevant. What matters is emotional alignment: who is weak, who is corrupt, who deserves humiliation. This is pure wrestling psychology.
It’s no secret that Vince McMahon and Donald Trump have been very close friends for years. Like Vince McMahon, Donald Trump is sexual predator, shady businessman and a shameless self-promoter, who understands power not as governance or management, but as control over narrative, attention, and humiliation. And both rose by exploiting a central contradiction of American culture: people know it’s fake, and they don’t care.
Vince McMahon’s genius was recognizing that wrestling wasn’t about sport—it was about myth maintenance. Trump’s genius was realizing the same thing about politics and media.
One of the most consistent defenses of both men is dismissal. “It’s just wrestling.” “It’s just Trump being Trump.” This is not accidental. This is protective camouflage.
Wrestling was allowed to traffic in racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and brutality precisely because it was deemed unserious and unworthy of engagement. Trump benefited from the same indulgence. He was treated as trash entertainment long past the point where he was exercising real power.
Liberals failed to understand this because they confuse tone with impact. Working-class audiences never needed Trump to be respectable—quite the contrary, in fact. Really, all they needed, was for him to be legible to them. And wrestling trained them to read this language, and to speak it fluently.
Vince McMahon and Donald Trump speak to the working class. Not about policy—but about grievance, humiliation, hierarchy and subservience to strong men. Wrestling crowds understood exactly who Vince was supposed to be: the evil boss who dominates, the rich asshole who cheats, humiliates workers, assaults women, and rigs the system. And they love him for it. They say the best wrestlers are themselves, turned up to 11. The real Vince McMahon is far more evil than its corresponding kayfabe doppelgänger—exploiting workers, covering up a murder, sex trafficking, rape, playing a role in a cabal of pedophiles.
Sound familiar? Trump has done all of those things, and is loved despite and often for them. He doesn’t offer his followers material improvement. He offers strongman worship and narrative revenge. He offers them a perceived seat at the table, a voice in a movement. He pointed at elites—not capital—and said, they’re laughing at you. Which, crucially, is often true.
“YOU watch wrestling? Don’t know know it’s FAKE?”