Are you expected to show up in character? I like to think if I was interviewing for a job as a wrestler with the WWE I'd show up at Vince McMahon's office and start screaming and throwing office furniture around. On the other hand, it would also be funny if job interviews at the WWE are like regular job interviews: just imagine Brock Lesnar in a suit and tie politely explaining where he sees himself in five years. What do you even put on a resume when you're applying for a job as a wrestler?

your wrestling experience

If I was interviewing for the WWE I would start of the interview being super polite and courteous, but then halfway through I would take a heel turn and spit in the guys coffeecup. Just to show the kinds of surprise storyline twists that I can do.

Loius Theroux has an excellent wrestling documentary in his weird weekends series or whatever it's called iirc. Might be illuminating.

Obviously the OP was done tongue in cheek but pretty sure most of these guys go to wrestling school to learn kayfabe and how not to hurt people. The wrestling schools are like real schools where they are either directly paid by the promotions like the WWE to funnel the top end talent into their development programs, or they will run shows themselves to promote the students.

Not vastly different from other trade or performing art schools. Guys find their way into schools or development territories usually through body building and low rung martial arts or ultimate fighting type hobbies.

Also I don't know what goes on today but 10-15 years ago and before, the big promotions had creative teams with per-fabricated gimmicks ready to stick on guys. I think infamously, the Undertaker (the costumes, the music, etc.) was developed by the WWE (then WWF) creative team and sat in the hopper for a year or something before they stuck it on Mark Calaway. Vince McMahon infamously wouldn't tell Ted Dibiase what his gimmick would be (the Million Dollar Man -- the arrogant rich guy trope) until after he signed his contract.

At least back then, the promotions had ideas and storylines and the wrestlers were basically just independent contractors they would stick into outfits and storylines and weren't expected to contribute to booking and character development, although obviously this was fluid and not always true. Also all the promotions mercilessly stole from each other. The Demolition characters were just grifted almost wholesale from the AWA/NWA Road Warriors before the WWE/WWF ended up just signing them themselves.

Wow I had no idea there's an actual wresting school, that's funnier than I could have imagined. I know sumo has college programs akin to baseball in the US.

Are there any good memoirs from ppl in the wrestling industry? I'm fascinated by this whole enterprise of pro wrestling.

I imagine the first thing they teach you in wrestling school is that wrestling isn't real, bc you know every incoming class there's that one goofball who totally doesn't realize it's a kayfabe.

This must mean there are wrestling professors? And classes where you learn to cut promos? Netflix should do a documentary on wrestling school, this is amazing stuff.

People audition for the WWE much like actors audition for a movie

These are probably some of the more reputable schools:

http://www.ovwrestling.com/beginner.html
https://www.neprowrestling.com/info

A lot of scams and stuff out there though.

Getting to your question about cutting promos: the schools exist largely to round out a personality, not make one. I'm gonna sound like a veteran of the industry (I'm not) but as I said, most people who make it to the top promotions like the WWE were already huge dudes with a background in athletics or body building, and some measure of charisma or understanding of the business anyway. Hulk Hogan was an accomplished baseball player and a professional musician before he got into wrestling. Randy Savage was a minor league baseball player and the son of a wrestler. The Rock was a football star at Miami and a 3rd or 4th generation wrestler. John Cena and The Ultimate Warrior came from professional body building. Brock Lesner and Kurt Angle came amateur/Olympic wrestling. All of them were naturally huge or got that way outside of professional wrestling and brought with them a knowledge of the industry or at least showed commitment to excel at athletics or whatever.

Point is: 95% of the bums off of the street would get nothing out of wrestling school because they aren't going to make you sit in a gym and get yoooge, they aren't going to make you 6'5, how to be a top tier athlete, and they won't teach you much how to be compelling on camera. The schooling is really just to teach the kayfabe stuff (e.g., how to do the physical moves and stunts and not kill each other). It won't teach guys to be huge, interesting to watch, funny/charismatic, etc. Most of the superstars that make millions are already naturally talented or have a stage presence or a history or some stuff that make them unique.

That said, the cutting promos stuff -- the schools I think work on that, and work on putting the guys on a microphone in front of people. Even at the top end of the market, there's still some guys who are largely boring/bad and much of what separates the greats from the rest are the guys who are simply naturally gifted at gab and cutting promos on their own without much direction.

Maybe, but you're better off listening to shoot interviews on YouTube imo (search "wrestling shoot interview"). That's usually better than an edited memoir that are sometimes just promotional vehicles rather than sharing genuine behind the scenes stories. A lot of washed up wrestlers will do anything for $50 and tell you whatever you want to know, so it's a popular/cheap YouTube video to find washed up stars, give them pocket change and let them talk.

Having said that, I like this:

The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling

Not a memoir but a good read for amateur fans.

I read the occasional rock/heavy metal memoir, I have to believe the life and times of some of these wrestlebros in the 80s would make for a compelling read.

George the Animal Steele had a book out a few years ago. Haven't read it, but his interviews were excellent - if he's as good as writing them down as telling them, then it's worth looking up.

As I said, YouToobz has just thousands of hours of interviews with old wrestlers, promoters, industry people, etc. that have nothing to lose by gossiping and telling old stories from the road. Usually a book is going to go through an edit and be ghost-written by a professional, which often misses the point.

The editing and professionalization of the modern product is also worth noting, and why I find the more unvarnished interviews far better than what I assume most books and memoirs are.

I don't watch any modern wrestling and haven't in like 15 years, partly because it's a really glossy professional product instead of more like a traveling road show circus. The stories from the 70s/80s speak to the transition of the era from its origins as a carnival show to a television product. Listening to the old school guys defend the old strict babyface/heel booking and how they would have to tell a story without television and without a weekly soap opera type medium, without professionally written comedy skits, to get the audience to buy into it and come back every week or every month -- that's the fascinating stuff to me.

I suppose the modern audience and the kids are used to the super professionalized product today and that's fine or whatever, but it's not for me. It's minor but I think the interview/book discussion here is part of the same dichotomy: wrestling is first and foremost a visual and verbal thing. It is very much low brow kitsch art but it's like you say, a lot of these guys are good at interviews, they're good at talking and telling a story and I think something gets lost when you write it down.

For Trolly:

I'm really looking for a book, tho. I don't do YouTube.

ahem

It's too bad you don't do utoobz cause there's some killer **** on there!

I got a copy of George the Animal Steels' memoirs for my Kindle, I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Oh look at you too good for utoobz but does ebooks

So according to The Animal's biography, the way to get a job is to get drunk at a bar and call up a wrestling promoter at 1:30 AM.

I remember MTV's series True Life had one about people trying to become wrestlers. This would've been like '01 or '02.

One dude who was a slacker from at least a little money entered one of those schools and you saw what DVaut was speaking of.

eta: looks like it was '99

Apparently his name was Matt Taglia.

https://411mania.com/wrestling/down-...wrestler-1999/

I think this is the same guy:

$250K bail for parolee suspected of attempted store, bank robberies

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...709-story.html

Seems about right.