Backyard Wrestling

Backyard wrestling is an offshoot of Professional Wrestling, with one major difference: It's often not done with professionals. Often the creation of a few overenthusiastic wrestling fans and Spot Monkeys, this sport emphasizes Kayfabe, Big Spots and Garbage Wrestling. Several notable pro wrestlers, including The Hardy Boys and Rob Van Dam, got their start in backyard wrestling, but official word from The Big Three is out to discourage the practice (due to liability reasons) and they will not recognize tapes of backyard wrestling as training.

The whole phenonomenon gained popularity during the Monday Night Wars and was due in no small part to Mick Foley's "Dude Love" video, where he leaped off a roof.

This game has nothing to do with the Backyard Sports series.

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Although all backyard wrestling is different, the practice as a whole commonly contains examples of:

• A Darker Me: A staggering number of gimmicks in backyard wrestling is pretty much just a guy in black clothes who does flashy dangerous moves.
• Ascended Fanboy: To name a few, CM Punk, the Hardy Boyz, Shannon Moore, Bryan Danielson, Mick Foley, Eddie Guerrero, New Jack, Hiroshi Tanahashi (of New Japan Pro Wrestling), and even the Insane Clown Posse and Hard Gay all have their roots in backyard wrestling.
  • The "ascended" part comes from them "going legit" and being professionally trained afterwards.
• Affectionate Parody: Some leagues have gimmicks that parody established wrestlers and teams.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: It's very rare, but when a backyard match goes so perfectly that it surpasses many legitimate wrestling matches, it becomes even more awesome that the backyarders pulled it off without any sort of training.
• Mr. Fanservice: Every backyard league has the good looking pretty boy with the long hair.
• Fan Nickname: More like Fan Hater nickname. The very derogative "yard tard"
• Follow the Leader: A sad amount of gimmicks and storylines are recycled from things WWE, WCW and TNA did before.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Generally how one gets into backyard wrestling is from watching WWE on TV and being inspired by the whole thing. Backyarders may or may not be interested in "going pro" for some may just want the experience of wrestling without actually choosing it as a profession.
• Love It or Hate It: Oh yes.
• Old Shame: The Ascended Fanboys mentioned above are generally believed to regret their backyard experiences and try to discourage potential wrestlers-to-be from engaging in the practice.
• Playing with Fire: Inferno matches are very popular in backyard wrestling.
• Small Name, Big Ego: An unfortunately common event in backyard wrestling is for some backyarders to hold themselves in higher regard than even trained wrestlers, the causes for such egos are varied.
• Special Effects Failure: Justified since backyard leagues rarely have the money for impressive shows, and most of them have only Windows Movie Maker to work with.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Just TRY and count how many backyard wrestling leagues have the letter X in their name, JUST TRY.