Got rejected from Disney's most recent casting call? Have bulging muscles and know how to ham it up while people are throwing you? Are you great at trash-talking your opponents and thinking up wacky names like the "Stone Cold Stunner?" You should head on over to World Wrestling Entertainment.

Like right now.

The pay can be up to hundreds of thousands of dollars (though is usually closer to $50,000) (source), the outfits are even skimpier, and as a professional wrestler, you'll still get to use your acting chops.

That's because, ladies and gentlemen, the world of professional wrestling is less about the wrestling, and more about the entertainment (and profit). It's just another branch on the show business tree. Yeah, it's funny to think about wrestling being in the same general category as musical theatre, but both jobs exist to create fantasy stories and entertain the masses.

When you think "wrestling," you might think of macho, seven-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound men trying to beat each other to a pulp. We're here to tell you that when you think "wrestling," you should think of macho, seven-foot tall, three-hundred-pound men who are really good at looking like they're beating each other to a pulp. Wrestlers are professional(ly ripped) actors before anything else.

 

Mm-mmm, biceps. Not just for show. (But mostly for show...) (Source)

This is the logic behind the concept in wrestling called "kayfabe," which basically means treating the events represented on television as though they're real. For the most part, they're not. But as a professional wrestler, it falls to you to "sell" the show, as it's called—without doing too much damage to you or your opponent.

Sometimes this means using your beefy, bodybuilder forearm instead of your bony, knifelike elbow. Sometimes this means executing a body slam so that it spreads the force of the impact over as wide an area as possible. Or it means punches that turn into slaps at the very last second (source). You know, just your standard tips and tricks to make it through a day at the workplace intact and injury-free....

But, hey, perfect, rocklike abs aside, a wrestler's not perfect. And sometimes they "shoot," a.k.a. break "kayfabe," a.k.a. break their character. In the infamous "MSG Incident: Curtain Call" episode, a bunch of wrestlers who are supposed to hate each other group-hugged, which was not cool of them.

Acting skills are a must. Not that you need to be the next Meryl Streep or anything. In fact, it's probably better that you aren't.

 

Pro wrestler: a wrestler who can also act. Not an actor who can also wrestle. (Source)

Which brings us to the next thing you need: a killer body. We're talking pecs as hard as rocks, biceps bigger than your head, and well, if you don't have a six-pack, you're clearly not in it to win it. But beware. Even though you have a killer bod and the acting skills of a lead actor at a small town theater company, you still need to keep a small head, and recognize that winning your twenty-minute match is never as important as playing the character assigned to you and following the script.

Yes, it's true: The matches are literally scripted. A creative team sits down, creates characters, hashes out a plot, and decides who will win and who will lose.

Losing's actually not so bad. Some wrestlers, like Triple H, have totally made careers out of losing. Every match needs its "heel." That's WWE slang for a bad guy.

Alongside a ridiculously ripped body and a taste for melodrama, you're going to want some business smarts so you can score deals with promotions (that's slang for wrestling federations) that can...you know...promote you. There's a reason so many successful pro wrestlers have college degrees.

Finally, you need as much luck as you can get. In comparison to entering the wrestling world, becoming either a football player or basketball player is a walk in the park. There are only slightly more than 100 wrestlers with a professional contract (source). Those odds are crazy bad.

 

It's not a sport until there's blood, body slams, and face masks. You hear that, basketball? (Source)

Training at a wrestling gym with a big-name wrestling guru as your coach costs hundreds of dollars per session. That might up your odds of one day seeing your big, mustached, and tatted self up on the WWE screen one day. But if that doesn't work out, or if the insanely bad odds of getting in already have you thinking, "Um, maybe not," consider investing in a bachelor's degree in personal training, or in a series of bodybuilding competitions. You'll be able to keep big, muscle-bound men and women in your life without worrying quite so much about the odds of being successful.

But hey, if WWE's what you really want, we're not gonna stand in your way. Your biceps and rippling thigh muscles look scary to us.

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