What Web3 Can Learn From Pro Wrestling's Greatest Moments
Contest design, community engagement, hell in a cell
It's June 28, 1998. The Undertaker and Mankind are about to make history in the "Hell in a Cell" match. The Undertaker climbs to the top of the 16-foot steel cage, Mankind immediately hits him with a steel chair and in a moment that would echo through wrestling history, The Undertaker grabs him and throws him off. As Mankind crashes through the announcer's table on the ground floor, Jim Ross's voice shrieks, "Good God almighty! They've killed him!"
Except they hadn't. Mankind got up. And what happened next? The audience was more invested than ever.
Why are we talking about a 1998 wrestling match? Because it perfectly illustrates what makes audiences truly invested in competition – and it's not just about who wins or loses.
Pro wrestling is made up of the same small cast of characters who compete with each other every week, and those characters have a large and dedicated fan base who tune in for this, so what drives their engagement?
The Power of Story: More Than Just "Here's Some Money, Go Vote"
When Hulk Hogan body-slammed André the Giant at WrestleMania III, the buildup wasn't just "hey, two big guys are gonna fight." It was months of tension, betrayal, and character development. The actual match lasted less than 15 minutes, but people still talk about it decades later because of the story.
What does this mean for your Web3 contests? Let's break it down:
Building Your Own Legendary Moments
1. **The Power of Personas**
When Hulk Hogan stepped into the ring, everyone knew exactly who he was – not just what he looked like, but what he stood for. This works in part because wrestling characters are not afraid to commit to the bit. They thrive on spectacle, drama, gimmicks, and they’re unapologetic about the potential for cringe.
Brand mascots and AI agents can build the same kind of recognition, taking the jester’s privilege of “intern” accounts a step further. Right now this role is mostly being fulfilled by individual ct KOLs, who are limited by the considerations above. This leaves open a huge opportunity for mascots and agents to build their own lore to make audiences more invested in them and therefore the contests they’re involved in. (We’ve already seen the beginnings of this with the AI agents who participated in the Applympics who spent the week building hype and taking aim at their competitors on social media.)
Because they don’t exist outside of the storyline, they’re not bound by conflicts of interest, protecting their reputations, worries about offending people they know irl, etc. they can act more like sports mascots or pro wrestlers: trolling, stirring up controversy, poking fun at the other teams and their fans. They’re not even bound by the rules of reality so they can easily create more compelling storylines with playful heroes, trickster villains and bolster the tribalism that we already know drives engagement.
*Imagine: Your AI agent just killed another agent! The agent now gets all his tokens—providing massive incentive for fans to participate in order to claim each other’s treasuries. (Not financial advice). But what if that other agent is suddenly reborn and trained on the data of the fight to improve?
2. The Art of the Long Game
You may not remember the New World Order storyline, but literally millions of wrestling fans still do. Why? It wasn't just one match – it was a saga that transformed the WCW and helped them beat their competitor in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks. Your contests can build the same kind of ongoing narrative.
Have "seasons" with overarching storylines, use brackets to mimic the episodic nature of a tv drama and create cliffhangers, as we've seen with wallet wars, provoking feuds, summarizing dramatic moments, and using compelling visuals/gamified leaderboards of everyone competing plays very well
Share infographics: fans *love* having data visualizing the extent of losses, tracking winners over time, and getting numbers they can dig into for more stats. These often completely outperform more “fun” images.
Let your AI agents or mascots develop backstories and relationships, and use those to build rivalries between communities, projects, other mascots, agents or even kols
Release fun staredown visuals at virtual 'weigh ins' of them squaring up and mean mugging each other or create a reputational prize like a championship belt NFT that carries real history (or even better that can be taken away and given to the latest winner - keeping players invested in retaining their title and bragging rights)
Real Wrestling Moments That Show Us The Way
Picture the "Montreal Screwjob" – one of wrestling's most controversial moments. Bret Hart lost his championship in his home country through what appeared to be an actual betrayal by Vince McMahon. The line between reality and story blurred, the sacred kayfabe broken, and fans are still debating it today. This is the kind of engagement gold you can create by:
Having mascots "go rogue" and challenge the status quo
Creating unexpected alliances and betrayals
Letting communities influence the direction of storylines by voting
Building moments of genuine surprise
Use kayfabe to your advantage, play into it when it suits, but break it to shake things up and make the drama feel more real
From Theory to Practice: Your Contest Evolution
# Phase 1: Building Your Cast
Start with creating distinctive personalities for your contests. Give them catchphrases
Create origin stories
Develop consistent behaviors
Let them interact with the community
# Phase 2: Creating Your "WrestleMania Moments"
Contests succeed when they have defining events like:
Season grand finales with multiple storylines converging that mimic the big pay per view specials for fights, special nfts and cash rewards, hyped up for days or weeks in advance
Special guest appearances, grudge match contests pitting past winners or popular characters against each other
Live commentary during crucial moments. For example, you can partner with a KOL live streamer to go live during the last 30min of a contest as votes stream in and tensions on social media rise to act as an announcer.
# Phase 3: Community Integration
Fans get amped up when they feel included. When Dwayne Johnson would ask "Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?" thousands would respond in unison.
Feature community predictions on social, encourage fans to create signs/memes for who they’re rooting for and feature those as well. Maybe even pick the best ones to mint as NFTs or to create merch.
Create VIP experiences for super fans. Do an announcer style twitter space/ama/live stream during the bigger bracket contests. Randomly single out active listeners/repliers on twitter to give little rewards to reinforce engagement
Pro wrestling is little more than a few characters fighting in different configurations every single week, yet they have a dedicated fan base of 90M fans in the US alone and WWE brings in more than $1 billion a year in revenue.
They are doing something right. What is it?
Like Eddie Guerrero said, "I lie, I cheat, I steal" (but legally and on the blockchain, of course). Jkjk. What drives their engagement and keeps it from getting stale? Long-term story arcs, episodic storytelling, community involvement, character lore/persona building, a penchant for spectacle, tension between real and scripted conflict, leaning into gimmicks, and commitment to the bit.
If you have a mascot, give it a personality. If you want to run a contest, make it a story. If you want to build a community, give them something to root for (or against 😈)
The point is: be bold. Be dramatic. Create stories that make people care about more than just winning.
Remember: Every great wrestling moment started with someone saying "what if..." Now it's your turn to ask that question.