Completed: 25. Kayfabe for a Week
“Kayfabe” is a term in the wrestling industry use to describe scripted events and the status of the company. Anything seen on TV is kayfabe. For example, The Undertaker is kayfabe but in real life, he is Mark Calaway. For The Undertaker to be called Mark Calaway on TV is called breaking kayfabe.
I’ve been a wrestling/sports entertainment fan since I was five years old. I still remember watching Wrestlemania 1 with my dad on beta-max. Needless to say, I’m still a fan — a massive fan actually. I watch anywhere between 5-15 hours a week of WWE programming, steadily increasing because of the WWE network.
One thing I wanted to try this year was to go “Kayfabe” for a week. I’d have to refrain from reading the spoilers or “dirt sheets.” I wanted to refrain so I could feel like a little kid again and be surprised by what happens because at this point, very little surprises me.
On a daily basis, I check wrestling websites at least 20 times, so to say this was hard to accomplish is an understatement. This was difficult. Real difficult.
As fate would have it, something huge happened during my off week from wrestling news. A huge story arch was developing and I couldn’t check the internet reaction. There’s a wrestler named AJ Styles who worked for a different company. He was leaving his current wrestling company and joining the WWE. I saw it when I received an alert on my phone.
I’ve wanted AJ Styles in the WWE for over a decade and it was finally happening, but I couldn’t read about it. Along with AJ Styles, a famous group called the “Bullet Club” looked to be joining the WWE as well. I wanted in on this news!
I made it through the week! It was really tough, but it was nice to test my self control. As much as I thought I’d like to be surprised, I’d rather be in the know and I won’t be doing this again.
-Kris