Glossary of Professional Wrestling Terms - P

P

Paper

To give out tickets to an event to make it look better attended than it otherwise would have been.

Paper Champion

A weak or easily beatable champion.

Parts Unknown

A vague, fictional location. Billing a wrestler as being from "Parts Unknown" (rather than from his real hometown or another actual place) is intended to add to a wrestler's mystique. In some territories, the phrase commonly was applied to masked wrestlers. In the post-kayfabe era, it is used less and less, and usually with a certain air of levity. Sometimes, wrestlers can hail from other similarly abstract places.

Plant

A wrestler or actor who poses as a fan, usually seated in the front row of an event. Plants are a good tool for a heel wrestler to gain heat from the crowd. The plant is often a lesser-known wrestler from the independent circuit.

Potato

A strike to the head which makes real contact. A wrestler who endures one or more potatoes is likely to potato the perpetrator back, which is known as a 'receipt'.

Powdering

The act of getting out of the ring forcefully.

Program

A series of matches in which the same wrestlers face each other.

Promo

A promotional interview (as in "cutting a promo"). Often includes either an "in-ring interview" or (on television) a skit by wrestlers and other performers to advance a storyline or feud.

Put over

To allow oneself to be pinned or otherwise defeated by someone. The person who the wrestler is putting over is said to be getting over.