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87 Slammys

Scott, 

I watched the 1987 Slammys the other day and noticed that credits list the director as "Kaye Fabe."  My question, does the term "kayfabe" come from an actual person, or is this just another case of people in the wrestling business trying to have a laugh?

-Jon

Short answer, yes, they were trying to have a laugh.

"Kayfabe" is a very old term from the carnival days, like early 1800s or so, which is basically pig latin for "fake" and was used as a kind of code word among early workers that someone not hip to the business was around and they needed to keep things quiet.  So like a couple of wrestlers would be working out the details on a match and a mark (fan) would be nearby and they'd say something like "Let's go see our friend Kayfabe" or just "Kayfabe" by itself to indicate silence was needed until they left.  

Later, into the TV era, the word "kayfabe" just came to mean maintaining character in general.  Now it basically means nothing since the fourth wall has been shattered anyway.  

Comments

  1. I thought it was kayfab?

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  2. Ah, yes. Kay Fabe. It reminds me of the great warrior, Sar. Sar's epic quest to cross a great canyon to land of smiling, happy people. Unfortunately, Sar was ill-equipped to cover the length of this great chasm. The land of smiling, happy people laughed while he plummeted to his death because they are smiling, happy people.


    This place and sequence of events later became known as Sar's Chasm. Then, truncated to sarcasm.


    That's the story I give to 8th graders who give me a sarcastic response while I'm teaching. And, yes, I let them know it's a bunch of BS at the end of my story.

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  3. I can't find it now, so maybe it's gone, but their used to be a pretty funny video on youtube of Vince announcing a jobber match with some guy who had the last name Fabian(?). Part way through Vince makes some jokes about not remembering his first name and asking the color commentator if it's "Kay."

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  4. So what IS the correct pronunciation of the word? I blame Joseph Park for confusing me.

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  5. Years ago I did a story for my local paper on an indie group based out of Oklahoma, and one guy would jokingly shout "KAY-FABE!" whenever he didn't want to do something, so that's how I learned to pronounce it.

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  6. Funny- I didn't think they'd get cute with it that early on.

    Though I always get annoyed when people whine about "kayfabe being broken" these days. I mean, are they joking? Did they possibly think that you could keep the secrets of wrestling hidden in this day and age? In the era of cellphone cameras, backstage access, and people willing to pay to see ANY secret spilled? I mean, once UFC came out, there was little question as to the veracity of pro wrestling in even the most gullible person. Christ, people make jokes about wrestlers "taking dives" in movies from the FIFTIES.

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  7. Barton Fink is to blame for the death of kayfabe!

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  8. You shouldn't let them know. That'll help you weed out the dumb ones.

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  9. Pretty sure Loony Tunes from the 30s were making "Wrestling is fake" jokes.

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  10. Had to much around in Daily Motion to find this. I feel so dirty.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7jy0t_vince-breaks-kayfabe_fun#.UMhaHru_E5c

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  11. I remember watching Wrestling Society X (anyone remember that?) and the ring announcer was called Fabian Kayeling.

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  12. i never thought about that but damn ur right.

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  13. I remember watching that video online.

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  14. Exactly the video I was describing upthread! "I think Mark has a brother Kay..."

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  15. WSX could've been something decent because MTV was ready to get behind it and put money into it, but they let Vampiro carny them into a position of power and his stupid ideas made the whole thing laughable. A lot of good indie guys pulled paychecks from that place though.

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  16. I hate hearing about wrestlers who still like to cling to kayfabe. Wrestling's been exposed for so long and so thoroughly that it's just meaningless now. And honestly, even the biggest complainers have weird rules about what they'll break for and what they won't (Cornette's griped about its death a million times and yet he does shoot interviews constantly). And for guys like Punk who get their nuthair in a braid over anyone using their real name, yeah, I can understand how you don't want someone to presume a familiarity, but for fuck's sake anyone can log into Wikipedia and find it, and they've used it on TV. I think the future of wrestling is a guy like Necro Butcher, who encourages his fans to call him Dylan Summers when he isn't in the ring because he's only Necro Butcher between the ropes.

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  17. I think it's more like WSX could have been something decent if MTV was never involved in the first place.

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  18. With kids these days, that would be all of them. Most schools are just glorified day care, kids come in, sit and stare at the board and go home, repeat for 12 years and we get a generation of dullards. Kids so stupid they can't figure out how to do change without a calculator.

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  19. Bullshit, Bugs defeated Crusher fair and square!!

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  20. Considering that Bugs has near divine levels of power, he probably could've.

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  21. I hope to God and high heaven that the future of wrestling is nothing like Necro Butcher.

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  22. Wouldn't pig latin for fake be "ake-fay"? Where does the "b" come from?

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  23. Watching the concert... John Bon Jovi and Chris Jericho could be twins. They even sound alike.

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  24. Yeah that's what I thought too. Possibly a different dialect of Pig-Latin. Maybe from a different region of Pig-Latinia.

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  25. I thought the same thing. Not sure if Jericho would rock a turtle neck at a concert though.

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  26. I seem to remember a fireball getting them in to a lot of trouble, and MTV losing interest from there.

    On a complete sidenote, I used to sometimes chat to commentator Kris Kloss. He ended up sending me about 4-5 DVD's (including the WSX set) for free (overseas, too!). Thought that was really classy.

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  27. It's actually carny, not necessarily Pig Latin.

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