Kayfabe in Wrestling: Stories Fans Shouldn’t Know

Description

To lift the veil on the world of professional wrestling, we need to take a look at the term: kayfabe. Kayfabe is an industry term for staying in character all the time. It was done to maintain the illusion that the babyfaces (good guys) and heels (bad guys) truly hated each other. Back in the day, wrestlers had separate locker rooms, and most traveled on their own or with fellow babyfaces or heels, so the fans wouldn’t get wise. “Kayfabe” is a wrestling word coming directly from the early carnival days of wrestling for the word "keep," originally used as "keep quiet" or "keep secret." Kayfabe is often seen as the suspension of disbelief used to create the non-wrestling aspects of the business, such as feuds, angles, and wrestling gimmicks (a wrestler’s on-screen persona from their personality down to their attire). In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to an actor breaking character on camera.