Lies, Trust, AI, and Professional Wrestling

One of Aesop’s Fables is called “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” In it, a boy lies to his village, telling them that he’s seen a wolf. They all freak out…but there’s no wolf. Then the boy does it again, to the same result. But then a real wolf shows up, and when the boy tells the village the truth…they don’t believe him.

When someone proves themselves to be a liar, we don’t trust anything they have to say, even when they are telling us the truth.

In professional wrestling, the relationship between lies and truth, fact and fiction, is complicated. In wrestling language lies are called a “work” and the truth is called “shoot.” A work is a singular example of a lie. The network of lies and unreality that wrestling creates is called kayfabe.

For example, when the wrestler best known as The Big Show was introduced to television, the audience was told he was Andre the Giant’s son. This wasn’t true. It was kayfabe. It was a work. But fans would come up to that wrestler, real name Paul Wight, and tell him how much his dad (Andre) meant to them. And Paul had to pretend like the wrestling story was still real. That’s a work.

A shoot is something real and unplanned. For example, if a wrestler actually punches someone in the face and knocks them out and the match has to stop, that’s a shoot. If a fan runs into the ring (and then is forcibly removed), that’s a shoot.

Wrestling toes the line of lies and truth, of work and shoot all the time. Part of the game of watching wrestling is trying to figure out what is real and what is not.

A common storyline in a wrestling match is for a wrestler to be dealing with an injury. The story of the match centers around broken ribs that are taped up, a bad ankle or knee with a brace, etc. This is generally a work. The wrestler is seldom actually injured. And fans can generally recognize when wrestlers are “selling,” that is pretending to be hurt when they are just fine.

Sometimes, injuries really do happen and wrestlers are out for months. And every once in a while, fans are completely fooled by an injury.

A recent example occurred with wrestler Seth Rollins. Seth injured his knee in a match. Fans argued online for weeks about whether or not it was a work or a shoot. WWE executives talked about it as if it were a real injury. Rollins went around on crutches on TV and in real life for weeks. Until…just watch.

At just the right time, Seth threw away the crutches and the knee brace and used the element of surprise to win the championship belt. It was all a work. It was all a lie.

This has caused countless fans to distrust everything. They refuse to believe anything is real. They believe everything is a work, everything is a lie.

At WrestleMania a couple of weeks ago, Brock Lesnar had a match in which he lost to an upcoming talent named Oba Femi. After the match, an emotional Lesnar took his boots off and left them in the ring, the symbol of retirement.

Fans are split as to whether Brock really retired or if this is a work. The WWE executives have come out and said they didn’t know about Brock’s retirement. That it was unplanned. But many fans believe Brock’s actual final match will be this summer in his home state of Minnesota at SummerSlam.

Just this week, several wrestlers were let go from WWE. Their contracts were expiring and they were not renewed. This happens every year, often twice a year. But some fans have grown so distrusting that they think at least one of those releases is a work, that it’s part of a storyline. Fans who fall for a lie end up becoming conspiracy theorists about everything.

This is what happens when people habitually lie. Other people stop trusting anything they have to say.

In professional wrestling, that’s part of the entertainment. Trying to guess what is reality and what is unreality is part of the fun. Fans know that is the world they are entering, and every once in a while we will be fooled. And honestly, most of us professional wrestling fans like it when we do get fooled. We tip our cap to the writers for creating such a convincing ruse.

But there are some realms in which we expect to be told the truth. And when we are lied to, it degrades our trust in that person or in that entire sphere of life.

I see a fair number of cat videos in my feed. Recently, those cat videos have been doctored by AI to create lies. I am having to learn how to discern when I am being lied to in such instances. But it’s getting to the point where my default is to expect the videos are lies.

And that’s not only happening with innocuous things like cat videos. AI is being used to lie about things that are much more serious. And it’s not just AI that is generating lies.

In politics and news, I have come to expect that people will seek to focus on what is good about themselves and what is bad about their opponents. To spin situations to their advantage whenever possible. If there is a tragedy, those in charge will focus on the heroic efforts made to save people from it. Those not in charge will focus on the failures that led to the tragedy in the first place. This sort of spin plays out every day 100 times a day. Spin is not always an outright lie, but it’s also not outright truth.

The existence of spin means it is good for us to have a variety of sources to aid in our discernment of the truth. Also, it is good to find as unbiased of organizations as possible (which feels like it is getting more and more difficult).

The bigger problem I see happening now is that there is so much spin and so many fabrications of the truth, that when truly important factual things happen, many people don’t believe they are real. People have gotten so used to spin and being outright lied to, that even when the truth is presented, it feels like a lie. It feels like the boy who cried wolf. Distrust is sky high. And conspiracy theories abound in realms where the truth is very important.

So, what are we to do in such circumstances? How should the church handle this? How should Christians continue to engage with the world, news, politics, and cat videos?

Well there is a lot to be said for discernment and learning how to consume news responsibly with proper fact checking etc.

But honestly, I think the most important thing we can do is tell the truth. In a world of spin and kayfabe, it is a radical thing to be honest, to not lie to each other. To build trust with real people so that we are not swept away into a world of constant disbelief and distrust.

Thanks for reading. Honestly. Truly. Thank you.

Andy