A shoot in professional wrestling is any unplanned, unscripted, or real-life occurrence within a wrestling event. It is a carny term shortened from "straight shooting", which originally referred to a gun in a carnival target shooting game that did not have its sights misaligned. Terminology such as this reflects the professional wrestling industry's roots in traveling carnivals.
Initially, the term referred to practice or ability in catch wrestling as a legitimate sport. It has since come to mean any legit attack or fight in professional wrestling regardless of the combat system employed, and its meaning has broadened to include unscripted events in general. The opposite of a shoot is a work which take place in kayfabe. 'Shoot' may also refer to legitimate 'shooting' for a takedown, as in interscholastic, amateur, and Olympic wrestling.
Occurrences Professional wrestling is staged entertainment rather than a sports competition. As such, virtually everything in it is worked (part of the show), and shoots rarely occur. Shoots in general are against the nature of the business, similar to an actor ad-libbing or dropping character during a performance. Performers who shoot during a wrestling event are often punished (often by lower pay or relegation to opening bouts) or even fired, since they cannot be relied on to act according to the bookers' wishes. Shoots can also occur when wrestlers stop cooperating in a match. This may occur to teach one of the wrestlers "a lesson" for whatever reason, or if a wrestler has an issue with the promoter and intentionally makes the match look bad.
Some of the earliest instances of shooting during a match were double-crosses. On April 15, 1925, Stanislaus Zbyszko faced Wayne Munn for the World Heavyweight Championship in Philadelphia. Munn, a former college football player with comparatively little legitimate wrestling experience, had been made champion earlier that year as part of a promotional plan by Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Billy Sandow and Toots Mondt. Zbyszko had previously agreed to lose to Munn and had done so in an earlier match, but during their championship rematch he abandoned the planned result and legitimately wrestled Munn instead. Munn was unable to counter the veteran wrestler, and Zbyszko defeated him in two straight falls to take the championship. Wrestling historian Neal Pease described the match as one of professional wrestling's most notable early double-crosses, with the referee ultimately having little choice but to award Zbyszko the victory. Contemporary reports recorded Zbyszko winning the first fall in 8 minutes 11 seconds and the second in 4 minutes 53 seconds, describing Munn's defeat as a major surprise.
Another major double-cross occurred on March 2, 1936, when Dick Shikat challenged Danno O'Mahony for the World Heavyweight Championship at Madison Square Garden. Although Shikat was expected to lose, he instead began legitimately wrestling O'Mahony and repeatedly trapped the less experienced champion in painful holds. After approximately 19 minutes, Shikat applied a hammerlock and threatened to break O'Mahony's arm unless the bout was stopped, forcing O'Mahony to submit and the referee to award Shikat the championship. The result caused considerable disruption to the group of promoters who had controlled the championship, and subsequent litigation over Shikat's contract exposed details of the predetermined nature of professional wrestling. Shikat testified that he had been instructed to lose to O'Mahony but had deliberately disregarded the arrangement and wrestled to win. The promoters associated with O'Mahony subsequently disputed Shikat's claim to the championship, with some jurisdictions continuing to recognise O'Mahony as champion.
On November 25, 1985, Wendi Richter lost the WWF Women's Championship to The Fabulous Moolah at Madison Square Garden in a double-cross. Richter had been scheduled to successfully defend the championship against a masked wrestler known as the Spider Lady and was not informed that the title would change hands. Moolah instead performed under the Spider Lady mask and, during the match, caught Richter in a pinning combination while referee Dick Kroll made a rapid three-count despite Richter raising her shoulder after the count of one. Richter immediately continued attacking her opponent after the bell and removed the mask, revealing Moolah. Richter later recalled that she had realised before the match that the wrestler beneath the mask was not the usual performer portraying the Spider Lady, but did not know that she was going to lose the championship. She left Madison Square Garden immediately afterward and did not wrestle for the WWF again. WWE has retrospectively referred to the incident as the "Original Screwjob", predating the better-known Montreal Screwjob by twelve years.
On April 29, 1986, during a New Japan Pro-Wrestling match between Akira Maeda and André the Giant, the wrestlers ceased cooperating and the bout developed into a legitimate confrontation. André repeatedly refused to engage normally with Maeda, while Maeda responded with increasingly forceful kicks to André's legs and several takedowns. André eventually remained on his back and appeared to invite Maeda to pin him, but Maeda refused, and Antonio Inoki came to ringside as the match ended without a conventional finish. Contemporary explanations for the incident have remained disputed; later accounts have variously attributed André's behaviour to intoxication or to an attempt to discipline Maeda, but no definitive explanation has been established.
In January 1987, during a steel cage match in Florida between Bruiser Brody and Lex Luger, Brody abruptly stopped cooperating with Luger and began refusing to sell his offence. Luger continued attempting to work the match, but Brody largely ignored his punches and later took him down legitimately, leaving Luger visibly confused about how to proceed. Referee Bill Alfonso eventually called for a disqualification after Luger shoved him during an improvised ending, after which Luger climbed over the cage and left the ringside area rather than continuing the bout. Luger later said that he had been genuinely frightened because he did not know what Brody intended to do, while accounts have differed over why Brody stopped cooperating; proposed explanations have included frustration with the inexperienced Luger and dissatisfaction with the promotion, but no definitive motive has been established.
On April 1, 1991, during a Super World of Sports event at Kobe World Memorial Hall, former sumo wrestlers Kōji Kitao and John Tenta faced each other in a match that deteriorated into a legitimate confrontation. Kitao became increasingly uncooperative, repeatedly leaving the ring and at one point throwing a ringside table, before the two men began threatening one another with legitimate eye-gouging attempts. Kitao eventually kicked the referee and was disqualified. After leaving the ring, he took a microphone and repeatedly called Tenta a yaochō yarō ("fixed-match bastard"), publicly breaking kayfabe by accusing professional wrestling of being fixed. The incident led to Kitao being dismissed by SWS and became one of the most notorious controversies of his professional wrestling career.
In May 2001, during a match taped for the WWF programmes Jakked and Metal, Perry Saturn legitimately attacked enhancement wrestler Mike Bell after Bell mishandled several moves and caused Saturn to land on his head. Saturn responded with a series of stiff strikes before forcefully throwing Bell from the ring, causing Bell to land awkwardly on his head and neck, and subsequently sending him into the steel steps. Saturn later told Sports Illustrated that Bell had not hurt him deliberately, but that the impacts had left him "out on [his] feet" and that he blacked out before attacking Bell. He said WWF management was angered by his actions and later characterised his subsequent comedic storyline involving a mop named "Moppy" as a form of punishment for the incident.
During the third season of Tough Enough in 2002, Hardcore Holly took part in a training match with contestant Matt Cappotelli in which Holly legitimately struck Cappotelli with unusually stiff offence, leaving him with facial injuries and visibly distressed. WWE later described the encounter as one of the programme's most infamous moments, while Holly defended his actions as an attempt to test Cappotelli's toughness and argued that physical punishment was an inherent part of professional wrestling training. The incident was subsequently revisited on WWE programming and was later incorporated into an Ohio Valley Wrestling storyline in 2003, culminating in a match between Holly and Cappotelli.
At ECW One Night Stand (2005), JBL legitimately attacked The Blue Meanie during the mass brawl that closed the event, repeatedly striking him in the face and reopening a wound that had been closed with 14 staples the previous day. The incident stemmed from genuine animosity between the two men dating to Meanie's earlier tenure in the WWF. Meanie later acknowledged that, after leaving the company, he had publicly criticised JBL in interviews, including calling him an "asshole", because he believed JBL had bullied him backstage; he later said that he had misinterpreted some of JBL's behaviour, which JBL characterised as the kind of ribs and "ball-breaking" he had experienced while playing football. Accounts of what immediately precipitated the attack differ. JBL claimed that before the closing brawl Meanie had delivered an unscripted promo accusing him of causing his WWF release and advancing his own career by ingratiating himself with Vince McMahon, and that after JBL initially struck him "snug", Meanie began throwing heavy punches, causing JBL to retaliate. Meanie, by contrast, described being caught off guard by JBL's attack and said JBL shouted about comments Meanie had made about him on the Internet while striking him. Meanie subsequently considered taking legal action, but when he returned to WWE several weeks later, he and JBL met privately and agreed to turn their legitimate dispute into an angle, with JBL telling him that they could either "fight or make money". On the July 7 episode of SmackDown!, Meanie reunited with Stevie Richards and Nova as the Blue World Order, interrupted JBL using his own limousine and spray-painted "bWo" on its hood before Meanie challenged him to a No Disqualification match. During the match Richards struck JBL with an extremely forceful chair shot that legitimately bloodied him, before Batista also interfered and helped Meanie pin JBL. Meanie subsequently described the attack on JBL as a wrestling "receipt" for what had happened at One Night Stand.
On February 22, 2015, during a Stardom event at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Yoshiko's defence of the World of Stardom Championship against Act Yasukawa deteriorated into a legitimate fight. Yoshiko repeatedly struck Yasukawa in the face with punches and palm strikes, leaving her badly swollen and bleeding before Yasukawa's second, Kyoko Kimura, threw in the towel and the match was stopped. Yasukawa was taken to hospital and was subsequently diagnosed with fractures of her cheekbone, nasal bone and left orbital floor, as well as retinal concussions in both eyes. The incident became widely known in the Japanese media as the "seisan match" (凄惨マッチ), variously translated as the "ghastly match" or "gruesome match". Stardom president Rossy Ogawa said that the match had gone beyond the bounds of professional wrestling, and the promotion later changed Yoshiko's victory to a no contest, stripped her of the World of Stardom Championship and suspended her indefinitely. Yoshiko publicly apologised for injuring Yasukawa.