On this episode of 10 Bell Pod, Nickohlessa, Tyler Wood, and The Man Scout Jake Manning investigate the death of kayfabe.

Framed like a true crime autopsy, this episode traces more than a century of moments where wrestling’s illusion cracked, leaked, or was outright bludgeoned.

From early exposés and tax dodges to televised betrayals, corporate self-interest, and modern meta-nonsense.

It’s a chaotic, funny, and brutally honest conversation about when fans first realized wrestling wasn’t “real,” and why that realization never actually mattered.

The the magic of pro wrestling has always survived not through lies, but through storytelling, performance, and our willingness to care anyway.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/10bellpod⁠⁠⁠

Reddit: ⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/10BellPod⁠⁠

Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/10BellPod⁠⁠⁠⁠

ProWrestling Tees: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/related/10bellpod.html⁠⁠⁠⁠

PayPal Donation - ⁠⁠9BHDW7Y2KMBTY⁠⁠

Discord: ⁠https://discord.gg/64GdAqEG⁠

EPISODE NOTES

Kayfabe Is Dead, and It’s Been Dying for a Century

Framing
This episode isn’t about “exposing” wrestling. It’s about tracing how kayfabe actually lived, mutated, broke, survived, and finally became something else entirely.

Using personal stories, territorial history, media exposés, and modern booking habits, the episode argues that kayfabe didn’t die because fans got smarter. It died because the business slowly stopped caring about storytelling, patience, and consequence.

Core Takeaways

• Kayfabe was never as fragile as people claim: Fans have known wrestling was worked for nearly 100 years. What mattered wasn’t belief, but willingness to play along.

• The real damage came from inside the business: Promoters, exposés, lawsuits, tax avoidance, and ego-driven power plays hurt kayfabe far more than fans or the internet ever did.

• Spectacle vs believability is an eternal tradeoff: Punches, dives, monsters, zombies, and celebrities all made wrestling bigger while quietly making realism harder to defend.

• Modern wrestling didn’t kill kayfabe, it replaced it: Handshakes, dream matches, and frictionless booking removed the emotional tension that once made stories feel dangerous.

• The last magic lives in commitment: Kayfabe now survives only when performers commit to characters, consequences, and discomfort, on purpose.

What Usually Gets Missed
Kayfabe didn’t die because wrestling is “fake”, it died because too many people stopped wanting to tell stories that take time, risk, and patience.

This episode moves from locker room absurdity, including a legendary indie story involving Bobby Fulton, through the Gold Dust Trio, media exposés, the Curtain Call, and modern booking philosophy, landing on a simple conclusion: fans never needed wrestling to be real, they just needed it to care.