Wednesdaymania 7

I use a lot of wrestling terminology (sometimes incorrectly, I'm sure), but I'm sure some of you guys aren't fluent in Carnie or wrestling-ese, so I think that from now on, I'm going to be making a list of wrestling terms I come across and putting them in a public place for everyone to read. I'm also sure that better bloggers have done something similar with a Wrestling-to-English dictionary or something like that.

Still, I'd feel better if I had a document that both you guys and I could refer back to when I bring up weird terms like "Shakespear" or "Kizzash" or stuff like that. I'll probably start working on the document itself tonight and post it as its own separate page. Then I'll link to it at the end of every Wednesdaymania. Eventually, I'll figure out how to link from a particular word to its entry in the post/document.

You can tell that I'm not much of a planner...

But what is Carnie, anyway?

Carnie, it would seem (from an outsider's perspective) is a language not entirely unlike Cockney Rhyming Slang - a language derived from English for the purposes of holding conversation in a particular group without unwanted listeners understanding you. In this case, the conversationalists are the guys you see at the fairgrounds operating rides and staring at you like you're the scum of the earth even though you're a paying customer. They're Carnies. The language is Carnie.

If you've seen that one episode of the Simpsons, you've already had a glimpse into what Carnie basically sounds like.

That's Homer as a "pigeon" - someone the Carnies can take money from.

Wrestling Carnie, meanwhile, is its own beast. You've still got derogatory ways to refer to people - fans are Marks (another way of saying that they're "marked" as people they can take money from), amorous fans are Rats or Ring Rats or Rizzats (girls they can get anything from sex to laundry done from) - but there's also a lot of stranger words.

The weirdest words I've encountered barely count as Carnie, in my mind. They're just normal words that the wrestlers have added "izz/iz" to. Kizzash = money, Rizzat = rat/ring rat, Mizark = mark. Do not look Mizark up unless you want to see that time in the 90s that WWE decided it'd be funny to use frigging black-face in a segment making fun of the Nation of Domination stable (another wrestling term), including wrestler and legit world's strongest man Mark Henry...

What the heck.

I'll expose you now so you don't get shocked later. Sorry.

Billy Gunn (Godfather), HHH (the Rock), Chyna, Road Dogg (D'Lo Brown), Jason Sensation (Owen Hart), X-Pac (Mark Henry). Vince McMahon OK'd this idea. They still show it on their site and seem proud of it. Never forget. Never forgive.

Wrestling is weird. Here's the actual members of the Nation of Domination before I get really upset with myself for giving more airtime to this awful idea.

The Godfather aka Kama aka Papa Shango

The Rock hamming it up at an In-Your-House PPV

D'Lo kicking butt. He's a CPA.

Owen Hart is the only member of the Nation's core who has died so far. I'll probably make myself talk about that some day.

Mark Henry was legit the World's Strongest Man once. He could lift 145kg (~320lb). Badass. Nice Guy.

Basically, though, Wrestling Carnie exists so that wrestlers can express their feelings on things without the public understanding. Except that if you've got half a brain, it's not too hard to figure out that when Hulk Hogan is telling his son to watch out for "blizzacks" in prison, he's being super racist.

Hogan's maybe not the brightest bulb...

Anyway, moving on!

Yeah, Wrestling can be a junk-heap of crazy, but we still love it. Besides, the majority of the Nation could outwork the majority of DX (with the exception of X-Pac when he was more or less sober) 75% of the time at least...

Now, Go Enjoy Something!

Preferably not something racist, though...

Stick with NXT this week, guys. Or Sunday Night Heat. That's pretty fun (though... uh... keep in mind that Mrs. Yamaguchi-san is actually 17 and that hopefully nothing weird happened for realsies...)

Maybe just stick with NXT or New Japan this week kids...

FC

Half-Assed Photo/Gif Bibliography:

Most of these photos were found in pretty random places on Google. The Gifs were found the same way.

I didn't, obviously, take any of these pictures myself. I'd have been very, very little at the time. Also, my parents hated wrestling.

My Searches were:

• Simpsons Carny Pigeon
• DX Blackface
• Nation of Domination Godfather
• Nation of Domination Rock
• Nation of Domination D'Lo Brown
• Nation of Domination Owen Hart
• Nation of Domination Mark Henry