Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling

WikiProject Professional Wrestling
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Am I imagining things?

Am I imagining things after my 15+ years (wow) on this wiki, or did the PPV event infobox have the theme song parameter removed at some point? And if I am, I feel like this should be in the infobox. TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 03:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Galatz removed a bunch of parameters in February 2019, claiming consensus from a discussion in this talk page. I faintly recall seeing such a discussion, but can't confirm as my available time for this project continues to diminish. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 14:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I found the discussion, and the "consensus" was that of like 4 or 5 members. I don't agree with any of the three parameters being removed. The Infobox is meant to be a quick reference to the article. Details like this really should be in it. I move they be re-added. TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 05:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Bump? TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 17:40, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Support theme songs being re-added. I don't believe taglines were removed, but if they were then I support those being re-added as well. --  THE $R$. _Habla!  ^Hancock!  23:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, any other input? I don't want to act on a flimsy consensus. TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 04:32, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

How is it not WP:TRIVIA? - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 16:15, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Because the link you provided refers to lists of miscellaneous information, whereas this would be a single sourced piece of information. GaryColemanFan (talk) 03:03, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, it's no different than listing the theme song of any other program. TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 06:26, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Sponsor is a no-go to retain. We don't overemphasize sponsorship deals. I don't have... Too much of an issue with "theme song", so long as it's well sourced. It does feel like a reasonably engrained piece of information, especially when the music is either created for the event, or increases its visibility. It'd need to be an event long and specific piece of work though.

"Tag lines" are pure TRIVIA. It has about as much encyclopedic justification as to name the first thing the commentary team say in the infobox.

Infoboxes aren't supposed to be a long list of things about the event, it's supposed to contain items that are elsewhere in the article, but given prominence to be quick reference. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:43, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

So can we say this is a consensus to re-add the theme song parameter? TrueCRaysball | ^#RaysUp 01:39, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

KO & Zayn was on Sunday?

WWE recognizes their reign starting April 2 (Sunday). We add least need to add a note, because we recognize it as starting April 1. Or was it really Sunday? Mania ended a few minutes after midnight eastcoast time. WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 18:33, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The event took place in California, and it ended at around 9PM Saturday for them, so the reign began on April 1 Drummoe (talk) 10:24, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

But we should add a note saying WWE recognizes it as beginning on April 2? We always do it like that. WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 20:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I added notes and fixed the amount of days for both Raw and SD tag titles. WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 21:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Have WWE acknowledged the date, or days held, outside of their title history page? I ask because those pages are notoriously inconsistent in many ways. What they recognize on their television programs, and in actual articles on the website, should take priority over the title history page (or, at least, the inconsistency should be noted). Prefall 01:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is tangential, or if it's what you mean, but PW articles sometimes use the "future" class. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:13, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

What happened to this WP?

Used to be way more active. Now I can create threads where nobody responds. Where did all the contributors go? Is there a new pro wrestling WP? WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

• I got a promotion in my job, so I can't spend too much time here. However, I'm always open for colaborations. My main focus is to avoid IN-UNIVERSE and week-per-week prose. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 07:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but a number of regular editors (myself included) lost interest after the blanket removal of the 'In Wrestling' sections a few years back. Duffs101 (talk) 00:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  Where can I look that removal up? And what was the In Wrestling section? WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  It was a section on each wrestler's article dedicated to miscellaneous information such as finishing moves/signature moves, nicknames, entrance themes, etc. However it was deemed too difficult to provide reliable sources and became overrun with OR so was scrapped in mid 2018.

  I can't find the full discussion that was had at the time but it was around Archive 102 if you want to look back. Duffs101 (talk) 00:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

You can see the RfC on its removal here and our past style guidelines on it here. Ridding ourselves of that editorial mess is one of the best things this project has accomplished. Hopefully the people who enjoy that database type of content successfully moved it to a fan wiki as we recommended at the time. It certainly has its value, just wasn't appropriate—or easy to maintain—on Wikipedia. Prefall 00:50, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The in wrestling section was a real nightmare. I didn't participated in the discussion, but I don't miss the section. Also, as mentioned, anyone can include the style and persona, where you can include sourced information about moves. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 07:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

The "In Wrestling" discussion was a misguided decision to burn down the entire house because a few rooms were messy. It was overly wide in its focus. For examples, editors were concerned about whether a list of theme songs was appropriate for Wikipedia or whether something should be classified as a "signature" move because a wrestler used it regularly but no reliable sources had used the term "signature" in describing it. This was used as justification to delete unrelated content, such a list of wrestlers managed from manager articles. Project members who voted for deletion were adamant that the content would be restored in well-sourced prose, but few, if any, had any intention of doing so. It was a knee-jerk reaction, akin to de facto vandalism, that led to deletion of sourced information from well-maintained articles. It was also used to stir up a hierarchy in which long-time editors bullied newer editors, discounting their contributions in order to protect their position as Wikipedia's gatekeepers. It was ill-informed that made the encyclopedia worse. GaryColemanFan (talk) 18:16, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• Sorry, but what does week per week prose and In Universe mean? Do you have an example for that? WrestlingLegendAS (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  • In Universe means that the fictional events are presented as reality. Per Wikipedia rules, we can't write storylines as real events, since it makes very difficult to read. For example, you can read thing like "John Cena was stabbed by Carlito", which is fiction, but also "Bruiser Brody was stabbed in Puerto Rico", which is real. Or, recently, "Minoru Suzuki attacked Okada after the title match" and "The Elite attacked CM Punk after the title match". --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 07:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• Cena was stabbed by Jesús, Carlito knew nothing! In all seriousness now, besides the ill fated "In Wrestling" discussion mentioned above and the biting of newbies (I agree on both accounts), in its attempt to be perceived as "serious" (after a PW article was slighted as "unworthy" of being featured in the Main Page, IIRC) this WP tied itself up in knots and -in the process- killed its drive. Sure, WWE-related content can be widely sourced from mainstream media given the change of posture by ESPN, SI and the like. However, this dynamic is ineffective when it comes to the independent circuit. And never mind any place where English is not the main language, except Japan and Mexico. Have you seen how pitiful the Titanes en el ring page is despite being considered the lucha show for decades in South America (and parts of Central America, with presence in the Caribbean as well)?

I am talking by experience as well, a while ago I tried to have Puerto Rico's oldest PW website included as a "limited reliable source" for use in articles discussing the results of events that took place during the late 1990s-mid 2010s. I distinctly remember that conversation flopping and going nowhere. The ultimate issue back then was, and still is, that since mainstream media in PR shunned PW for decades (only very recently luke warming to it again), the only plausible third party source for this time period is this kind of website. If we don't allow it to be included as a RS, albeit in "limited" fashion, the possibility of improving these articles to GA (never mind FA or FL) is zilch.

To put it in perspective, that means that a place that was once a Top-5 territory in terms of ticket sales, is doomed to linger with mediocre pieces, obscuring the exposure of wrestlers that were notable during the NWA era and, ironically, pigeonholing PR as only the place where "Bruiser Brody was stabbed". If that is the case for a place where PW has been active and relatively healthy for decades, what exactly can we expect with markets that ran notable events and were hot tickets during the 70s, 80s, 90s? Think about the Dominican Republic, where Dominicana de Espectáculos ran and prospered. Can anyone here really say anything about that promotion beyond the Ric Flair incident? No? Well, that will remain as so because not only does it not have a piece despite being one of the wealthiest companies in the DR during the territory yeas, and the few sources that can be used to elaborate such a piece are Spanish blogs and sites that would likely fall outside the rigid standard being used.

Another issue is a lack of adaptation. In recent years, former professional wrestlers have been hosting podcasts which include interviews with some of those older veterans, but these are hosted in YouTube (despite having production teams and QC) and AFAIK we don't have a stance on how to deal with that kind of reference. There was a time where Podcasts were largely shunned throughout Wikipedia and virtually all links to YouTube were removed on sight with a shallow edit summary just saying "copyvio" and a link to some user-written essay about YT being inherently unreliable even when quoting content... Even when that content was generated by and curated by third parties and was not just some random kid uploading a clip. Times have changes, and now the reliability of such content is weighted on its source. Accordingly, we should adapt our stance on using Podcasts as RS for PW articles.

TL/DR: Now that most legacy articles for the current "main" promotions in the globe are in fighting shape, the odds of growing for this WP are slim due to a failure to understand the reality of the industry in jurisdictions where there is little to no mainstream coverage. That is, the world beyond WWE/AEW/Mexico/Japan/Europe. (Sorry for the text wall). - Old School WWC Fan (talk) 08:30, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

• My absence is a combination of being busy in real life, not having watched wrestling in many years and not being terribly happy about the political bullshit going on within Wikipedia. I'll check my watchlist periodically but can't imagine ever being as active as I once was.LM2000 (talk) 10:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Aiden English

If somebody wants to give their 2 cents, there is a discussion for a name change in Aiden English. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 06:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

So about that new championship

I don't watch WWE weekly shows, so I'm relying on other editors here to fill in the gaps for me. Last night Trips introduced a new World Heavyweight Championship. There are a few questions I have that will influence our current articles. I'm unsure if these were addressed on Raw (if they weren't, we might be in for some editing disputes).

1. Should the new WHC revive the World Heavyweight Championship (WWE) article, or should there be a new article (perhaps WWE World Heavyweight Championship (2023 version))?
2. Are the WWE Championship and Universal Championships still separate titles, or have they been officially unified?
   1. If the answer to this question is yes, what is its new name? Is it still "Undisputed"?
   2. Additionally, we will require edits to the following articles to reflect this: WWE Championship, WWE Universal Championship, Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. The latter I would propose should simply redirect to whatever the "unified" championship article is.

— Czello ^(music) 08:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Here is Triple H speech. [1] Reigns is gonna be drafted and he will stay in that brand as Universal Undisputed champion. The other brand would crown a new World Heavyweight Champion. [2] [3] Neither PWInsider or Fightful mention anything about an unification between wwe and universal championships. They didn't confirmed that the title is a new title or the old title reactivated. Neither WWE. The old WHC is listed as retired [4]. Also, WWE includes Reigns as WWE Universal and WWE Champion. So, I think this is a wait until it happens scenario. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 08:48, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

As I feared - I suppose we're going to have to deal with a degree of editing disputes and WP:OR (especially by passing IPs) as people try to speculate on how we should represent these championships. — Czello ^(music) 08:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Protect articles from IPs and WP:OR... It sounds like a regular day for us XD --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 17:39, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Worth pointing out that Undisputed WWE Universal Championship has just been turned into a redirect to Undisputed championship (professional wrestling).[5] I think this might require further discussion from the WikiProject. — Czello ^(music) 09:12, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I watched Raw. Could be something new or just the revival of the old one. We should wait for Darft and Night of Champions. --Mann Mann (talk) 16:05, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

"X is currently a free agent"

Per WP:PRECISELANG, we should "avoid using statements that will date quickly." I noticed this edit to Omos today and it got me thinking: Should we be using the opening paragraph of an article to state that a wrestler is a "free agent" in WWE's storylines? I have not followed the current draft at all (or wrestling in general much at all lately outside of the major WrestleMania storylines going into it and the Brawl Out hilarity) so I don't know if anyone is meant to be a "free agent" (outside of special attractions ie John Cena) or if it's just a holding title until they are drafted in-story.

Regardless, I'm not sure we should be PROMOting which TV show each wrestler performs on in the opening sentences to begin with. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  19:31, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

In-kayfabe terms like "Free agent" should absolutely not be used to performers who are, in reality, completely under contract to their respective promotions. CeltBrowne (talk) 23:04, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree the term shouldn’t be used unless it plays a significant role in the storyline. For example it makes sense to use the term in Montel Vontavious Porter#Feuding with Kane (2006–2007).--65.93.193.94 (talk) 16:05, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Lead. No, since it's fiction. Prose. only if we mention that's storyline.--HHH Pedrigree (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Better argument. WP:INUNIVERSE: "An in-universe perspective can be misleading to the reader, who may have trouble differentiating between fact and fiction within the article." If we write "Omos is a free agent", readers will think he is a free agent. The lead part isn't necessary. The body part, only if it's notable (like Heath Slater, since he had an entire storyline around it) and mentioning that it's part of the character. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Count me in on "free agent" being a no-go in the lead. It's fine to mention that in the article body if it is of storyline significance, though. Prefall 17:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

If a wrestler is under exclusive contract to a promotion they're absolutely not a "free agent" no matter what short-term, transitory, in-universe storyline they've got going on. And no matter what sort of spin they do to get out of treating wrestlers as employees, WWE contracts are exclusive. oknazevad (talk) 18:16, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

There's probably never any reason to use this term in the lede of a WWE wrestler's article, and it should be worded carefully in the body to avoid in-universe problems.LM2000 (talk) 22:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Support removing "free agent" from the lead section. --Mann Mann (talk) 15:03, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Since we are talking about free agent. What do you think about articles like 2023 WWE Draft? The article includes a section called "free agents". As you know, per MOS:INUNIVERSE we should avoid "Describing aspects of the work as if they were real." Lesnar, Corbin, Ziggler and the rest aren't free agents, since they are under contract with WWE, so we shouldn't label them as free agent, it's just fictional terminology from WWE storylines. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I would be okay with renaming the section to "unassigned wrestlers" or something similar with (if possible) a note in the prose that WWE refers to these wrestlers in their kayfabe as "free agents" using appropriate wiki-voice. ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  17:06, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

FAR For CMLL World Heavyweight Championship

I have nominated CMLL World Heavyweight Championship for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm _Talk 20:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this kind of sub-section acceptable?

An example: Mayu Iwatani
As you see the sub-sections of Mayu Iwatani's Stardom career are just pure years. It seems this format has been used for some other articles about Japanese female wrestlers; e.g. take a look at Hazuki, Koguma, and Nanae Takahashi. Those sub-sections look lazy in my opinion. --Mann Mann (talk) 15:41, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think using chronological subsections is problematic, particularly for wrestling promotions which are less "storyline" driven. CeltBrowne (talk) 15:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem. Better than the usual "various storylines". --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2023 (UTC)