Fictionary: Wrestling’s Honorable and Dishonorable Terms

Brian Damage

To make it as a pro wrestler is hard. To become a championship caliber wrestler is even harder. And then there are those few wrestlers and wrestling personalities that leave such an indelible mark…they are honored forver. No, I am not talking about the Hall of Fame, but wrestling terminologies that reference particular wrestlers. Here are a few of those wrestling terms that I speak of….

The Freebird Rule

Named after the devastating trio of Terry Gordy, Buddy Roberts and Michael Hayes aka The Fabulous Freebirds…The Freebird Rule is when a team of 3 or more members are allowed to defend tag team titles. The Freebird Rule was used as recently as 2006 when The Spirit Squad won the WWE tag team titles.

The Dusty Finish

The Dusty Finish is when a wrestler (most likely a babyface) seemingly wins a big match or a title…only to have the match result reversed due to outside interference by a manager or a heel faction…or gets reversed later on by an authority figure. While Dusty Rhodes didn’t invent such a booking technique…many believe Eddie Graham did in the Florida territories…Dusty certainly used it often as a booker in the NWA/WCW. So much so, it was named after the American Dream.

The Muta Scale

The Muta Scale is an unofficial way to judge how good or bad a wrestler bleeds during a match. For instance, a 0.0 Muta is no blood…0.2 Muta is pretty weak blade job and 1.0 Muta is pretty damn bloody. Why was it called the Muta scale? It is in reference to a bloody match between The Great Muta and Hiroshi Hase in 1992. Muta cut himself so deep, his blood was all over Hase, the mat and the referee.

Here is the match that created the Muta scale in its entirety…

The Gorilla Position

The Gorilla Position is a section of backstage…behind the curtain…where top management will sit to watch the show and direct backstage traffic. It was named after the late Gorilla Monsoon who would always sit in that spot back in the 80’s and 90’s until his death.

The Thesz Press

The Thesz Press is named after its inventor, the legendary grappler Lou Thesz. It’s a move where a wrestler whips his or her opponent off the ropes and jumps up and falls full body into the running wrestler.

The Okerlund Position

The Okerlund position was named after ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund and is a position in an arena…usually towards the back or in a corner that is raised. It is where an announcer can conduct interviews with various wrestlers much like Gene Okerlund did for years. The position isn’t used much anymore as interviews are done backstage or in the ring.

X-Pac Heat

I’m not really a fan of this term…but it does indeed exist and is in reference to Sean Waltman aka X-Pac. It’s basic meaning is when a heel wrestler turns babyface and gets a negative reaction from that turn. It was named after X-Pac after he had temporarily split from DX and went on his own path. Randy Orton’s babyface turn in 2004 can also be considered X-Pac Heat or Ryback’s initial face turn.

The Andre Shot

The Andre shot is of course named after Andre the Giant and is a camera technique used to make wrestler appear larger/taller than what they may actually be. A cameraman will shoot a wrestler up from below giving a wrestler a more ominous appearance.