Being ‘real’ in a staged sport: the process and negotiation of authenticity in wrestling star images

ABSTRACT

Authenticity can be seen as a point of convergence between celebrity and wrestling studies and is considered to be a central concern to both. The elastic nature of authenticity has been discussed across numerous fields where it is recognised as being historically and contextually shifting, as well as potentially, constructed and performed. This article will use the findings from an audience study and analysis of the wrestling industry to argue that ‘authenticity’ needs to be considered as an ongoing process of negotiation between numerous, interdependent components (audiences, stars, producers). Within this negotiation, all three components must continuously shift to navigate the numerous strategies at play that are attempting to authenticate themselves and each other in various ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Celebrity
• wrestling
• audiences
• authenticity

The ubiquity of discussions around authenticity within the fields of celebrity, professional wrestling, audiences, marketing and branding as well as wider cultural studies speaks of its importance and value within the western world. This research combines these discussions to argue that, when thinking about celebrity, authenticity needs to be thought of as a live process of negotiation between interdependent components (producers, stars and audiences) who all utilise a wide range of strategies in an attempt to create a perception of authenticity around themselves and each other.

Scholars have argued that authenticity is not a singular attribute that is inherent in a person or object (Grayson and Martinec 2004, Peterson 2005) but a social construct (Peterson 2005, Marwick and Boyd 2011) that requires effort in the form of ‘authenticity work’ (Peterson 2005, p. 1086). It can be knowingly constructed through performances by celebrities (Tolson 2001), or marketing and promotion strategies by publicists and producers (Peterson 2005, Koontz 2010, Marwick and Boyd 2011). This paper will make clear that this process also involves labour on behalf of the audience who must continuously negotiate and balance the different authenticating strategies at play, many of which can often be working at cross purposes.

Despite being recognised as constructed images, authenticity and the search for the ‘real’ person behind the mask of celebrity remains a central component in the relationship between celebrities and fans (Holmes and Redmond 2006, Meyers 2009). The cultural importance of celebrities lies in their ability to act as simple ideological symbols of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality and more; which represent and help people to understand the social world around them and their place within it. However, these ideological representations can only carry meaning if they are read as being authentic and coming from a ‘real’ person.

The blurring of the lines between the seemingly authentic and inauthentic is part of what makes celebrity so alluring. Added to this are the numerous, and often contradictory, claims made by competing press and magazine outlets, gossip sites, and the celebrity themselves that claim to reveal the ‘real’ person. All with their own agendas and each as constructed as the other (Meyers 2009).

Meyers has argued that this wide array of contradictory versions of the authentic celebrity creates a space in which fans can negotiate the celebrity image in a way that is most meaningful for them. Fans can choose to celebrate and deride different aspects of the image to help them maintain their enjoyment of the celebrity and make sense of who they feel that star really is and what they represent. In turn, fans can make sense of themselves and the world around them.

While the negotiation of authenticity has long been recognised as central to the relationship between fans and celebrities, the scale and intricacies of that process have not received the same attention. This paper will unpick this process and detail what it entails through the case study of professional wrestling stars.

Wrestling producers and the stars, as independent contractors responsible for their own brand, are deeply aware of the added value and premium price subscribed to products deemed authentic. They employ a number of strategies to create a perception of authenticity, while audience members are negotiating these multiple strategies to read their favourite stars as being authentic. This involves a constant process of negotiation within and between the producers, stars and audience members. This is further complicated by a dual process, whereby each of these three interdependent elements are simultaneously trying to authenticate themselves as well as each other, a process that can create further conflict.

This paper proposes that, in order to bring the work on authenticity together from across different fields, authenticity should be thought of as a live, continuous process of negotiation within and between these three interdependent components. All three must constantly reconfigure and reposition themselves in order to maintain their authentic veneers and avoid undermining themselves and each other.

The findings of this article are based on a discursive analysis of 538 responses to an online questionnaire (2015) and the discussion generated by eleven participants across two focus groups (2016). The make-up of questionnaire respondents was 86.6% male, 72.5% aged 22–39, 69.8% British and Irish,¹ 82.7% white. The two focus groups were made up of British students and a lecturer across two universities with an age range of 19–36 with 3 females and 8 males. These were recruited independently from the questionnaire. The use of the term ‘fan’ was avoided when publicising the questionnaire to recruit a wide range of audience members of different investment levels in professional wrestling. However, the focus group participants should be considered to be, what Barker et al. (2016) called, ‘invested audiences’ with a high level of investment at the time of the groups.² This research was coupled with a detailed textual analysis of numerous wrestling materials (both official and unlicensed), from the TV shows themselves to magazines, internet sites, podcasts and autobiographies and a political economy/labour analysis of the working patterns and economic structure of the wrestling industry.

In the initial stages of the analysis all of the questionnaire responses were coded and three main recurring themes (discourses), that participants chose to talk about when thinking about their favourite wrestler were identified.³ One of these groups was labelled ‘the authenticity group’. This included references to respondents’ favourite wrestlers as being ‘real’, ‘authentic’, ‘tangible’ etc. Furthermore, these links to authenticity also surfaced as key discursive patterns across both focus groups and the textual analysis. This article begins by exploring the contradictions that emerge when authentic claims are made through the perception of a star’s distance from the corporate mainstream, seen in this instance through the dominant wrestling organisation, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It then goes on to outline the three key types of authentication identified through my audience research (through physicality, performance and private lives) and the tensions that can exist within and between these. Throughout these sections there will also be a consideration of how and why some audience members employ different strategies to authenticate themselves.

Authentication through distance from the mainstream

The most common discourse throughout the data set (32.5%) was around notions of authenticity where there were signs of a constant negotiation between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ as well as competing perceptions and portrayals of ‘authenticity’. What emerged from the analysis was how participants needed to be able to authenticate stars as both legitimate representations of what they embody; that they are strong, athletic, tough and representative of other distinct qualities such as ‘rebelliousness’, ‘arrogance’ or being ‘cool’. While on a second level they need to be authenticated as being legitimately extraordinary.

This dual level of authentication could be seen in operation through the way participants discussed the difference between wrestlers working on the ‘indy/indie scene’ (for independent promotions) which they perceive as being more authentic and less controlled, and in the larger/global companies such as WWE or, now defunct, Joint Promotions in the UK.⁴ These are consistently labelled as being inauthentic, corporately micro-managed companies that produce ‘cookie cutter’ wrestling stars. As found with film stars from the independent circuit (Negra 2004, Egan and Thomas 2013) the independent scene in wrestling is perceived as being an arena where wrestlers are more technically gifted, harder working and perhaps most importantly, ‘self-made’:

His [CM Punk] backstory was very compelling, he was a self-made indy man who rose through the WWE ranks, doing things his own way, with a unique look, a brash FU attitude … It’s well documented a lot of higher ups saw nothing in CM Punk and tried to have him released …Male-British-white-22–29

Participants, such as the one quoted above, distinguished between what made a wrestler popular on the independent scene from what made them popular in the mainstream WWE. Being ‘talented’, ‘distinctive’, ‘unique’, ‘technically gifted’ is linked to the independent circuit and to notions of authenticity. These organisations are also interpreted by the ‘authenticity group’ as an arena where wrestlers can develop their own personalities, such as CM Punk ‘doing things his own way’, as opposed to the more manufactured stars developed in the WWE. Coming from the independent scene also appears to encourage a sense of the star being an ‘underdog’ and therefore more ordinary and ‘one of our own’ (male-Irish-white-30–39) where the respondent clearly connotates the independent companies/wrestlers and audience as being one of the same but separate from the corporate mainstream.

The independent scene is also closely associated with, what participants labelled, ‘internet fans’. The insinuation here is that independent wrestling is something only the true (internet) fans watch and are knowledgeable about and this authenticates the stars as an ‘internet’ fan’s wrestler. Something similar comes across in a response which describes Daniel Bryan as an ‘indie darling’ (Male, British, Bangladeshi, 22–29). Giving him this title suggests that he is a niche star who is appreciated by those who really understand wrestling. References to indie/indy stars and wrestling is also notable as an example of participants using discourse associated with film stardom; where independent film is often seen as differentiating itself from mainstream. There are connections here to Diane Negra’s discussion of how independent stardom centres around discussions of craft rather than the private lives of mainstream stars (2005, p.64), similar to the ‘work rate’ or ‘ethic’ (mentioned by numerous participants) and ability to put on ‘five star matches’ (Male-22–29-British-Bangladeshi) of the independent stars discussed by the participants of this study. The independent scene imbues wrestlers with a number of qualities that are recognised as being more ‘authentic’, as Egan and Thomas (2013), Banet-Weiser (2012), Koontz (2010) argue regarding cult film stars, marketing strategies and other commercial products respectively, due to it being distinct from the mainstream.

However, we begin to see the complexity of negotiation involved when audiences have to also authenticate the wrestlers as being truly special and worthy of their star status. In order for wrestlers to be legitimised as stars, they need to break out of the independent circuit and be successful in the very same mainstream that they have been differentiated from. The importance of the WWE to a wrestling star image can be seen in how some participants compared it to ‘your favourite football team being promoted or competing in Europe’ (Male-Irish-White-30–39) or how:

Watching him [Kevin Owens] stood opposite [WWE Star, John] Cena after years of paying for ROH and PWG⁵ dvds and ippvs [internet pay per views] to see him finally get there just felt good.Male-British-white-19–21

These participants saw their favourite wrestlers moving into and succeeding in the WWE as validation of their standing as a star. It can also be observed how this crosses over to the participants as well, where the stars’ promotion and success in the mainstream also validates their own knowledge and judgement while justifying their investment, in time (‘after years’) and money (‘paying’). The importance of seeing a favourite wrestler in the WWE also became evident in an exchange within one of the focus groups:

J (Male-20) Like, I got really surprisingly upset when … because I used to really love John Morrison when he was in the WWE and I was so upset when he left.

I (Female-22) Yeah, yeah.

J - … and people said ‘he’ll do other stuff and he’ll go on and do other stuff’. Like, now ‘ooh, he’s in Lucha Underground’ and still, to this day, I think it’s not the same … It’s not the same as him being in WWE doing it because he was one of my favourites and …

I – It’s like when Bubba Rey came back to WWE for a little bit and then went back to TNA and I was like ‘ohhhh … .!, please’ (laughing)

This exchange demonstrates the two participants’ unhappiness that their favourite wrestlers are not currently working in the WWE or have failed to maintain their position there. In being unable to compete in the WWE, it appears they have been stripped of their star status or unable to claim it in the first place. Although these wrestlers are still active on televised wrestling promotions (TNA Impact Wrestling and Lucha Underground) there is sense that they have failed and cannot be held in the same regard and thus, not provide the same level of enjoyment or authentication of the audience member and their investment.

In order to maintain their perception of authenticity granted by an independent background while operating in the WWE, wrestlers and producers promote, and the participants read them, as being in opposition to the WWE and succeeding there in spite of the corporate powers that be. As Michael Newman (2009) identified when looking at comparisons between the mainstream and independent music and cinema scenes, ‘Indie’ and therefore, authentic credibility depends on a ‘perceived hostility to the mainstream’ (p.20) which can allow bandmembers, film directors and, in this case, pro wrestlers to maintain that credibility even after crossing into the mainstream. This involves strategies that can be read as oppositional to corporate culture while operating within it (p.20). Both CM Punk and Daniel Bryan achieved acclaim in the WWE, becoming world champions. However, the participants perceive the stars to have done this based on their natural talent and popularity, overcoming a corporate machine that did not want them to succeed. Participants regarded Punk and Bryan as being ‘written off’ and not achieving any real success because the WWE saw nothing in them, even trying to get Punk released from his contract. By reading their favourite stars as succeeding in the top tier by working against the wishes of the WWE decision-makers, these stars can be seen to have legitimised their claim to stardom without compromising their authentic, independent images. The repeated use of the same narrative involving former independent wrestlers facing off against the established WWE stars (often WWE poster boy, John Cena) suggests that this is also a very deliberate creative and marketing strategy employed by the WWE.⁶

Some participants interpreted stars in a way that allowed them to sustain a belief in the wrestler’s star status, even when they failed to make it in a top organisation. When this occurs, the blame was placed firmly with the producers rather than with the wrestler:

[Wild] Angus is an example of a change that often occurred when a wrestler moved from the independent promoters to Joint Promotions. Joint Promotions failed to maximise the character already created … [his first] match was so tame compared to the Angus matches I had seen in the independent halls. Not surprising because independent shows were often more exciting than joint promotion shows …Male-British-white-60–69

The failure of Angus to succeed in the British mainstream is perceived to be due to the organisation denying him the opportunity of being his authentic self from the independent scene. Joint Promotions are seen as having handicapped Angus through their resistance to present (‘maximise’) him as he had been on the independents, presenting a tamer, less exciting (read as inauthentic) version of the wrestler and his matches through the restrictions they imposed upon him.

Another authenticating strategy is seen in how a small number of participants continued to use the wrestlers’ names from the independent circuit rather than the new name assigned to them after they joined the WWE. While this is, in part, an attempt to assign a value of authenticity to a wrestler now operating in an inauthentic (mainstream) environment, there is also another level of authentication taking place. The participants are looking to authenticate themselves (or hold on to their own sense of authenticity) and perceive a sense of cultural capital through their own detachment from the ‘the soul destroying’ WWE. This strategy allows them to continue to distance themselves and the wrestler from the mainstream despite the star working there and them still watching WWE shows.

As well as a separation from the mainstream, the research uncovered a number of other authenticating practices used by audience members in relation to their favourite wrestlers. These can be labelled as:

• Authenticating through Physicality – what was perceived to be legitimate athleticism and toughness.

• Authenticating through ‘Private Life’ – how some wrestlers are understood to be playing ‘themselves’ or at least using aspects of their ‘real’ lives.

• Authenticating through Performance – through the portrayal of a believable character.

A wrestler may be authenticated using either one or a combination of these modes.

Authentication through physicality

Holmes and Redmond (2006) identify the importance of the celebrity body as a site for authenticity, with pictures of celebrities without makeup or enhancements working to strip away the artifice associated with the female celebrity image. The wrestler’s body is cited by participants as a key area through which to spot a sign of the ‘real’, although, unlike the female bodies described by Holmes and Redmond it is the body that reveals the artifice while ‘smaller’ physiques are often appreciated in contrast to the less authentic bodies on display.

Participants reinforced their displeasure at what they perceived to be artificially enhanced bodies through the use of negative terms such as ‘roid monkey’ (Female-Canadian-Chinese-30–39) or ‘roided up monster’ (Male-American-White-30–39).⁷ Against these larger, artificially enhanced physiques, a smaller stature becomes a sign of authenticity. Participants noted how they liked ‘smaller’ wrestlers who were more ordinary and like themselves.

However, this smaller, more ordinary size also potentially undermines other aspects of the wrestlers’ ‘authenticity’ such as appearing realistically tough or believably extraordinary. There is evidence that viewers feel the need to immediately counterbalance the pleasure in these smaller physiques with evidence of how this does not undermine other elements of the wrestler’s star image or authenticity:

He [Jim Breaks] was small and mean.Male-British-white-40–49Danielson [Daniel Bryan] has a real technical skill allied to an intensity that makes it believable that a man of his size could be physically tough.Male-British-white-30–39

This is an example of the negotiation taking place within the participants’ own readings of their favourite wrestlers. They will immediately highlight other aspects of the wrestlers’ image such as their ‘technical skill’ or how ‘mean’ they are to counter the problems caused by their more ‘authentic’ smaller physiques that could, otherwise, make them seem less believable as tough, fighters who can compete against much larger men.

In another aspect of physicality, Hunt (2005) discusses how the displays of athletic ability without the aid of editing, special effects and safety wires/nets, authenticates a performance and sets wrestling apart from other more ‘manufactured’ forms of entertainment such as film acting. As part of this, some participants note how they look for tangible signs to reinforce the idea that wrestlers have really gone through a tough, physically exerting ordeal. One focus group participant explained what she liked about her favourite wrestlers, Kevin Owens and Charlotte Flair:

F (Female-36) … They both look really different [compared to other wrestlers] at the end of their matches and they look like they have sweated and they have worked hard, and you know, there’s something about the way … over wrestling history … back to the Ultimate Warrior and the smearing face paint. There’s something about those people who look like they’ve worked hard.

I (Female-22) … Yeah, like Charlotte’s got her makeup smeared.

These can be linked to the observations of Holmes and Redmond (2006) where the live peeling away of the veneer (makeup) reveals the flawed and authentic body beneath. Other references such as Mick Foley’s ‘missing teeth grin’ (female-Canadian-white-30–39) or Chris Benoit’s ‘ugly missing tooth’ (male-British-white-20–29) can be seen to reveal the real authentic person while also legitimising the hard-athletic labour, physical toughness and legitimate punishment. These comments are clear examples of participants searching for signs of the ‘real’⁸; where they look for affirmation that, despite wrestling being staged, it is still a physically gruelling and athletically demanding practice. However, this is sometimes threatened by other wrestlers:

F - I think that’s one of the reasons why, like a Roman Reigns or Cena get booed … it’s because they look like they just rolled up and …

I - They’re still too pretty.

For these participants, Reigns and Cena threaten to expose the illegitimacy of wrestling by challenging viewers’ defensive reading of wrestling as a tough and athletically demanding performance, despite its inauthenticity as a competitive sport. Cena and Reigns are seen to make wrestling look too easy and challenge not just the believability of the fighting on show but also the authenticity of the wrestlers as being great athletes and tough men/women engaging in a physically strenuous performance.

Hunt (2005) outlines how the intensification of physical risk within wrestling has been used to compensate for the illegitimacy so inherent within it, by demonstrating how wrestlers can and do become legitimately hurt and injured. Ward (2013) developed this argument to examine how the documentation of legitimate danger is enmeshed with the ways in which wrestlers also authenticate their masculinity whereby they legitimise themselves as both real athletes and ‘real men’ through the giving and receiving of pain (p.80). The appreciation and importance of self-endangerment could be seen in participant responses through, for instance, ‘His [Mick Foley’s] willingness to perform horrendously dangerous feats in the name of entertainment’ (male-white-Irish-20–29). However, this argument does not account for the respondents who noted similar appreciation for female wrestlers such as Akira Hokuto ‘For enduring and inducing physical and psychological hardship beyond the limits and capabilities of what a regular person should be able to take’ (male-American-Indian-30–39) or criticising Charlotte Flair for hesitating when performing a stunt where she crashed through a table (male-white-British-20). This suggests that there is an appreciation of authentic toughness and dedication whatever the gender of the performer.⁹ These examples are all used by participants to reinforce that, while wrestling may be staged, the wrestlers are still true to what they represent; legitimate tough athletes who can really fight.

Within these statements there is also a clear appreciation of the punishment the wrestlers are prepared to take for viewers’ entertainment and the benefit reaped by the wrestler’s opponent. Lawrence B. McBride and Bird (2007) note how high-risk stunts are valued by ‘smart’ fans (those who are knowledgeable about the inner workings) as an act of ‘generosity’ whereby the wrestler will give a ‘spectacular’ performance for the fans (p.172). This appreciation can be seen in participant responses such as in the way Mick Foley ‘puts his body on the line, ripping his ear, having his tooth knocked out, he proves he is willing to take that step and go beyond just to entertain people’(male-white-British-21). However, the research revealed how badly received some moments can be when wrestlers show an unwillingness to perform these dangerous feats. During a focus group, one participant described a moment she witnessed at a live event when a wrestler looked ‘half hearted’ while performing a stunt where he fell through a table and how it ‘took away from the match’ (female-white-British-22). This led to a further discussion around a similar situation during a WWE pay-per-view match where a participant noted how ‘Charlotte [Flair] did not look like she wanted to go through that table’ (male-white-British-20) and how ‘it broke … from making it seem real’ (male-white-British-23). Both wrestlers are condemned in a similar fashion to Cena and Reigns, for ruining a moment that usually guarantees ‘authenticity’. For these participants, the unwillingness of the stars to perform these stunts laid bare the artifice and prevented them from appearing like legitimately tough fighters.

However, this form of authenticity once again, threatens to contradict another. The excitement in participants’ voices and the use of exaggerated descriptions of how they felt watching dangerous stunts such as how ‘I lost my mind’ and how they thought the star had ‘died’ exposes the thrill they feel when watching these ‘exhilarating’ moments. At the same time, some participants highlight how the dangers of wrestling are not something that should be encouraged and how ‘sometimes you just have to take yourself away from it and be like, no … this could go wrong’ (British-Male-White-19). Another participant noted how they ‘get really frustrated … with wrestling fans’ when they are ‘egging’ the wrestlers on to do ‘something really stupid’ i.e. dangerous (British-Female-White-36). Participants seemingly respond in this way to show their greater understanding of wrestling and how they are more aware than other viewers of the true dangers. This hierarchical distancing can be seen in the way they ‘other’ themselves where they are not like ‘a lot of people’ or general ‘wrestling fans’ and take a superior position. The way this technique is used independently by different participants across the focus groups, suggests that this is learned and recognised as an appropriate response, and hence becomes more about authenticating themselves as viewers rather than the wrestlers. However, there is clearly a duel here between needing dangerous stunts to authenticate the wrestlers while also demonstrating a reluctance towards these moments in their own public performances as ‘authentic’ fans.

This contradiction, where audiences both desire dangerous stunts while also demonstrating distaste and concern for them, involves audiences constantly repositioning themselves through their discourse in order to keep these opposing positions in balance. Authenticity is too fluid, multi-faceted and contradictory to be thought of as a series of singular attributes. Authenticity needs to be thought of as a process, one that is live and ongoing, where numerous components employ several reading and promotional strategies to authenticate themselves, and those components attached to them, in various ways. This web of negotiation often includes these contradictions that must be constantly kept in balance through an ever shifting of position. It is only through this live process that each individual component (audience member, producer, star) can maintain their own perception of authenticity and that of the others which are so dependent on each other.

Authentication through private life

The findings in this section fall more in line with traditional ideas of ‘authenticity’ associated with star studies, where audiences desire to discover the ‘real’ person behind the performance. There were numerous responses that stressed the importance of the wrestlers appearing to be truly representative of the things they stand for on screen, such as the anti-drug/alcohol ‘straight edge’ lifestyle of CM Punk. However, the constant negotiation between the authentic and inauthentic continues when, while reading these elements of the ‘real’ person in the performances, the participants remain aware of the constructed nature of professional wrestling. This can be demonstrated in the way a respondent who chose Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts attempts to balance these two aspects. They comment on how ‘It’s interesting to see the correlation between he as Jake the wrestler (to me this indicates someone with a borderline personality disorder) and that of Jake the public man (indications of bi-polar and substance misuse)’. The respondent uses information about the private life of Roberts to draw parallels with his on-screen characterisation in an attempt to match the two. He later notes that: Jake’s ‘face equates to more of a monster than any full-on gimmick I have ever seen. When I think of Jake, I see the best man-made character ever created. He fits his gimmick better than anyone’ (Male, British, White, 30–39).

These comments are full of contradictions, shifting between describing Roberts as both a construct through words such as ‘man-made’, ‘gimmick’¹⁰ and ‘created’, while also distancing Roberts from that notion by comparing him against other more exaggerated and obviously constructed ‘full on gimmick[s]’ (constructed character). Furthermore, in his reading of Roberts, he draws on the wrestler’s personal, physical appearance such as his ‘face’, which is given greater agency than constructed ‘gimmick’ elements. This respondent looks to conflate the private and public personas. Through this marrying of the private and public the respondent can perceive the depiction as being an authentic (albeit constructed) representation of the ‘real’ Jake. He foregrounds the elements of Roberts’ private life in his appreciation of the wrestler and authenticating him, hence making him ‘10× the monster of Kane, abyss, boogyman etc’ who can be read as examples of the ‘full-on gimmick’ characters who do not contain any element of their ‘real selves’.

Producers, wrestlers and audiences have developed a range of strategies to help negotiate the difference between fact and fiction in a wrestling star image:

I like the balance that’s been struck between the established ‘Rainmaker’ Okada character, and Okadato himself … Rainmaker Okada started out as a solid heel character who was poised to take over the promotion as its top wrestler- … however, it came to light that outside of the ring, Okada was donating most of his earnings to children’s cancer research and volunteering at children’s hospitals. The promotion seized his opportunity to humanize Rainmaker Okada and turn him into a face character without sacrificing the cool/aloof image he had cultivated as a heel.Female-American-mixed ethnicity-20–29

The research revealed how the respondent is looking for those glimpses of the wrestler’s life ‘outside of the ring’; where aspects of the wrestler’s ‘private’ life bleed into the performance on screen or even take over, leading to a change in presentation, while still recognising constructed elements of the ‘cool/aloof’ image’ and taking great appreciation in this balance. This can be seen as a strategy, where both producers and wrestlers promote the idea of using parts of themselves within their characters. This seemingly allows some participants to enjoy the extraordinary aspects of a wrestler by knowing that they are still grounded in something ‘authentic’. This is driven largely by the prominent idea that the best wrestlers are the ones who play themselves ‘amped up’, ‘tuned up to a hundred’ or are seen to be ‘accentuating’ who they already are. The promotion of this idea can also be seen in a 2017 promo¹¹ delivered by wrestler John Cena:

You ask anyone of the greats, you ask HBK, Ric Flair, Steve Austin, Triple H, The Rock, hell, you ask me. All different paths to success, they’ll all tell you the same damn thing. Their two feet step into the ring and they are just themselves with the volume as high as it can go and that’s why they believe.¹²

Wrestlers regularly employ these phrases on the shows, and through public appearances/interviews, podcasts, on social media and in autobiographies. This admission of playing an exaggerated and therefore inauthentic version of their authentic selves is negotiated through this strategy of foregrounding the authentic, ‘them’ or ‘him/her selves’, without directly acknowledging the inauthentic elements of ‘performing’, ‘playing’ or ‘exaggerating’. As identified by other scholars, this is a common tactic used by other television celebrities where performative aspects are ‘downplayed’ and ‘glossed over’ by an emphasis placed on their ‘authenticity’ (Bennett and Holmes 2010, p.74). However, due to the myriad performative strategies on display within professional wrestling, the downplaying of wrestlers’ performative skills does not apply to them all. This has allowed other wrestlers to be perceived as authentic in another way altogether.

Authentication through performance

The third type of discourse that was consistently used to ‘authenticate’ the wrestling star acts as a counterpoint to the previous types, whereby focus is placed on the constructed performance. In this regard, it is not only the ‘real’ displays of athleticism or complementary aspects of the private persona that are appreciated, but favoured wrestlers’ ability to create the illusion of a ‘believable’ fight or characterisation. For these participants, authenticity does not originate from the ‘real’ life persona but through the credible portrayal of a constructed character that can be perceived as ‘believable’ within a fictitious world. While these participants acknowledge that wrestlers are performed characters, they discuss how Kane still has ‘credibility as an indestructible monster’ (female-Welsh-white-20–29) or Mick Foley could play at being ‘convincingly unhinged and menacing as a heel, lovable and goofy as a baby face’(female-Canadian-white-30–39).

Cynthia Baron and Sharon Marie Carnicke look to address the performative aspects of stardom and challenge the perception of film stars just ‘representing themselves’ with their performances being created through editing and other cinematic techniques (2008 p.3). They do this through an in-depth evaluation of how performative gestures, mannerisms, facial expressions and vocal rhythms chosen by actors, work with other filmic techniques to help create what appears as ‘natural behaviour’ (ibid p.32). Interestingly, this aligns with the findings of Barker et al’s audience study (2017) on the film Alien (Scott 1979) which highlighted the importance of performance in creating a sense of ‘realism’ for the audiences. This was found to be particularly true of the famous, special effect laden ‘chestburster’ scene. The authors acknowledge that factors such as special effects and extra-textual knowledge played a role in the appeal of the scene, but ultimately found that the scene’s resonance hinged on how the audiences perceived it in terms of ‘realness’ and ‘believability’ of the actors’ (particularly John Hurt’s) performances (p.121).

Much like the participants in Barker et al’s study who ‘unambiguously labelled’ the performance of John Hurt (p.132), the wrestlers’ ‘acting’ is given precedence by some participants. They note how CM Punk ‘was a terrific actor’ (male-British-white and black African-20–29) and ‘made a lot of his feuds very believable’ or that Edge was a favourite ‘mainly because of his acting, his commitment to character and willingness to really get a crowd to despise him’ (male-white-British-20–29) The importance of acting ability to authenticity of and pleasure taken in wrestlers by some audiences can be seen in detail in the following statement:

[Eddie] Guerrero conveyed emotion better than perhaps any other wrestler. He could wrestle a serious, technical style bought [sic] … He could get involved in a heated and violent feud, and you felt like nothing mattered more to him then hurting his opponent. He could wrestle a comedy match and either play the straight man tired of being goofed on (see his AAA work for this) or play the clown who is just out there having fun. He could not only perform in all the different roles he excelled at them through his timing and ability to tell a story in his face and eyes.Male-American-white-30–39

Here we can see the importance of Guerrero’s ability to portray different aspects of his character to stir different emotions from serious to comedy via his performative abilities, most notably through his ‘timing’, facial expressions, technical wrestling ability and logic. What is appreciated about a number of wrestlers is the ‘realism’, and thus craft, of their performance and their ability to make the inauthentic feel authentic. A good example of how authentication through performance is perceived in contrast to authentication through ‘physicality’ and ‘private life’ can be seen in this description:

… Mainly because he’s [Bubba Ray] gone through, not loads of gimmick changes, but obviously you’ve gone from tie-dyeesque (laughing) and you’ve got kinda like metal, get out of my way, type of gimmick and he’s always been convincing … Like when he had the stutter … if you only just started watching wrestling, you would never believe at all that he was once this guy who came across like a bit of a dweeb, who had like a stutter and stuff. But, when you watch the Attitude era¹³ and stuff like that … You’re like, oh yeah, he must have had a stutter and he must have overcome this … And obviously, it is something put on but he’s just so believable in his character that you’re kinda sat there and … You’re kinda feeling bad for him almost in that gimmick because you’re like arrrh, he’s really trying and people are going to make fun of him (laughing) … Just the way he performs those characters are like really … You’re kinda like, yeah, that’s the real person, that’s what he’s really like.Female-British-white-20

This participant is clearly aware of the numerous scripted aspects of the Bubba Ray character which has gone through numerous incarnations. However, the participant is still able to read the key performative aspects such as his ‘stutter’ as something that is authentic and key to her engagement with him, because of how believable his portrayal of it was. The participant is aware that this is a crafted performance but still takes pleasure in how natural it appears. This has allowed her to form an attachment and recognise his performed condition and how others respond to him (laughing at him) as an authentic representation of what might occur in the real world.

Many participants discuss how they also take pleasure in wrestlers who can make the matches appear ‘real’. Unlike ‘authentication through physicality’, the authentic value is not granted here via genuine athleticism or danger, but instead through the ability to create the illusion of legitimate sporting contest. This was particularly noticeable in discussions around the wrestler Bret Hart. These participants described his ‘realistic style’ that made ‘his matches so engrossing’ (male-white-British-30–39) and noted how ‘there wasn’t much suspension of disbelief watching his matches in thinking they were real’ (male-British-white-30–39).

Comparisons can be drawn here with the findings of Grayson and Martinec (2004). Their research focused on the responses of visitors to two different tourist locations in London, the birthplace of the real historical figure, William Shakespeare and the Sherlock Holmes Museum that recreates the home of the fictional character. Despite this difference, Grayson and Martinec found that both locations were judged heavily on their ‘authenticity’ by the visitors. Despite knowing Holmes was a fictional construct, visitors still employed hypothetical judgements of authenticity based on how realistic it would seem if he had existed, suggesting that ‘people can sometimes, even temporarily, take the perspective that a fictional world is an actual one’ (p.301). The findings of this research echo those of Grayson and Martinec, where the hypothetical perceptions of authenticity can come into play. As one participant described when discussing the female wrestler Paige:

With Paige it’s believable though because she came out to congratulate AJ and she took the title sort of underhandedly because she was like, fight me now, and she did and she lost. It’s believable in that sense it wasn’t just she wandered in and [said] I’m just going to have a title shot … So in the realms of how wrestling works, like so … um … AJ Lee’s character was a bit unhinged … she’s been confronted by this underdog and she thought, obviously I’m going to win because I’m the champion and she didn’t. Like, I think that’s believable, Like in the realms of wrestling obviously.Female-British-white-20

The respondents’ observations demonstrate the continued negotiation between the inauthentic and authentic. There is an admission of wrestling’s staged nature in the ‘realms of how wrestling works’ and yet it is still judged on its logic in terms of its believability, achieved here by reading the wrestler’s performance and fictional narrative as being representative of how a person would act and feel if this were in-fact a real situation/legitimate sport.

Another example of the negotiation between the different authenticating practices is the pleasure a small number of participants take in the noticeable contradictions between the character and the performer behind the image. Participants note how they enjoyed discovering how different Mick Foley was behind the camera to his ‘good and silly’ portrayal of Dude Love or the ‘evil and demented Mankind’ (female-Canadian-white-30–39). The respondent took delight in knowing ‘that the man behind the act loved his wife and kids’. Another respondent who spoke about the wrestler Kane (a character in the vein of masked horror monsters Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees), described how ‘the first thing I think of now is his interest and activity in American politics. Having watched a few of the interviews he has conducted in “real life”, I find the juxtaposition of the “scary” wrestler and intelligent, well-read human being interesting’ (female-white-Welsh-20–29). The semi-fictional status of celebrities and the knowledge audiences have of the production process and management stars go through provides a lot of freedom to audiences to negotiate the authentic value of a star even when these contradictions arise. Dyer (1991) outlines how the belief in there being a ‘real’ behind the surface that is ‘unquestionably and virtually the definition the truth’ (p.136) had led to magazine features on movie stars not being as they appear on screen becoming a way of reinforcing the authenticity of the overall star image by exposing the ‘real’ person against their on-screen image. In this way, stories of wrestlers being very different, such as in the Kane and Mick Foley examples, can be seen to reveal the truly ‘authentic’ being at the heart of the image.

Conclusion

Within the focus group discussions, participants demonstrated that they held a very negative perception of how wrestling, and they themselves, are thought of by wider society. This can be linked to what Ien Ang, in relation to viewers of Ang, (1982) calls the ‘ideology of mass culture’ (p.94). Within this ideology, mass culture is often considered as ‘bad culture’ through its associations with the emotional rather than intellectual attraction and its simplistic and broad commercial scope. This leads to a scenario where people invested in mass culture will feel a need to defend themselves. The most cited criticism of wrestling is that it is ‘fake’, labelling it with the worst of cultural sins in the western world, being inauthentic. Numerous participants discussed how they perceive wrestling to be viewed by others as ‘fake’ and therefore, ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’ and how viewers like themselves were seen as childish due to their inability to ‘grow out of it’; although, I have argued elsewhere that links to childhood are also heavily imbued with authenticity (Alcott 2019). It is perhaps, therefore, no surprise that these participants as well as the wrestlers and producers feel a need to heavily promote elements of authenticity to counter these accusations and defend themselves and each other. This can also be linked to the desire to be seen as separate from the corporate mainstream.

King (2016) notes how ‘authenticity emerged as a core value in celebrity culture because it was also a core value in public culture’ (p.317) and this continues to be true to this day. The research findings stress not just the elasticity of authenticity, but also the elasticity of people to be able to continuously re-position themselves, thoughts and feelings to enable them to authenticate both their own private (how they see themselves) and public (how they feel others perceive them) selves. To do this, they must feel that their tastes and the texts they invest in, emotionally and financially, reflect this authenticity. The producers and stars recognise this demand and the consequent financial rewards of being able to produce an authentic veneer.

The amount of ‘authentic work’ needed on behalf of the audiences is clear, although the process itself is murky. Audiences are constantly having to re-position themselves in order to maintain the authenticity of both themselves and their favourite stars. They like wrestlers to have an attachment to the less manufactured, independent scene as this allows them to perceive their favourite star as a truly hard-working talent; but also to authenticate their own position as ‘real’ fans who couldn’t possibly be seen to invest in a manufactured ‘puppet’ from the mainstream WWE. At the same time, if their favourite wrestler fails to succeed at the highest level then it threatens the star’s status as someone who is legitimately extraordinary and the viewer’s position as someone who is knowledgeable enough to spot a true talent in the lower leagues. The wrestler’s failure to succeed in the mainstream can threaten the audience members’ own sense of authenticity by seemingly having developed an attachment to a star without authentic merit. The audiences need to see signs of legitimate danger to prescribe genuine toughness to the stars while not condoning danger as that is not what a true wrestling aficionado would do. The wrestlers need to be small and ordinary but still believably tough and extraordinary.

The stars are not the only construct that needs to balance a number of dichotomies, the audiences must as well. However, the two are interdependent. The audience member needs the star to seem authentic in order to authenticate themselves, while the wrestler must be able to ensure that the audiences’ authentic needs are being fulfilled in order to maintain their own position as a star. Yet, there are numerous contradictions that arise that must be constantly juggled.

This research has unveiled a complex web of interdependent components with numerous promotional and reading strategies at play, to authenticate themselves and each other. The scope of these strategies can lead to sprawling lists of authenticity types and authenticating work. This article argues that in order to bring work on authenticity together from across different fields, authenticity needs rather to be thought of as a large ongoing process. A process that is constantly at work, balancing perceptions of authenticity with the inauthentic and juggling strategies that can threaten to undermine one another; while authenticating (in various ways) themselves and those linked to them in a symbiotic network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Alcott

Thomas Alcott is a lecturer on Film and Television Studies and Media and Communications at Aberystwyth University. His PhD research focused on the relationship between audiences and their favourite professional wrestlers. His research interests continue to be in the three-way relationship between audiences, celebrity/star images and industry. He is also interested in continuing to work on interdisciplinary projects to bring fields together and create a fuller understanding of this relationship across time, platforms and entertainment fields.

Notes

1. A range of global nationalities were represented across the questionnaire but most with a very small percentage. The next significant was United States and Canada 21.2%.

2. ‘Respondents’ will be used to refer to questionnaire respondents while ‘participants’ will be used to denote questionnaire and focus group participants.

3. The other two main discourses were ‘childhood/nostalgia’ (see Alcott 2019 for more on this) and ‘iconography’ (catch phrases, special manoeuvres, costumes, props, entrance music etc.)

4. Joint Promotions is the company associated with ITV’s World of Sport and was the dominant wrestling promotion in the UK until the mid 1980s.

5. Ring of Honour (ROH) and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) are independent wrestling organisations.

6. CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles have all been placed in familiar narratives with John Cena.

7. ‘Roids’ is a reference to steroids being used to artificially enhance their physique.

8. Also discussed by Mazer (1998), Hunt (2005) and Ward (2013).

9. The low percentages of female respondents (13.4%) and those who selected female wrestlers (1.9%) makes it impossible to make any firm claims about differences or similarities in gendered authenticity of wrestlers or audiences but, within this study, there is evidence of many consistencies in how ‘authenticity’ is used by both female and male respondents about female and male performers.

10. Gimmick in wrestling parlance refers to the character the wrestler plays.

11. A promo is when a wrestler speaks on the microphone to talk about themselves, their feelings and move the narrative along.

12. Smackdown, 01/03/2017 Sky Sports 5 in the UK.

13. The Attitude Era refers to the most successful period in WWE than ran from the mid-90s until the early noughties.