Here's what a pro-wrestling script looks like

Pulling away the fig leaf of kayfabe

WWE
(Image credit: (Chris Ryan/Corbis))

The WWE has an NSA problem. Someone is leaking scripts from backstage at the nation's largest sports entertainment company, and it is really pissing off the company's principal owner, Stephanie McMahon. As it should. Even though wrestling's staginess is now openly celebrated, the company has to keep a fig-leaf of kayfabe over their goods, if only for the sake of mystery and history.

Reading through the script is fascinating if you've ever wondered how the hetero-flexible male soap opera is put together. For one thing, the play-by-play of the matches themselves, i.e. the wrestling, are not included in the TV script. Instead, the actual matches are denoted by a single line, "Match." And then, referring to the series of moves and maneuvers that end the match, there's "the finish."

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.