Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling/Style guide

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PW Style Guide
Below is a style guide to creating professional wrestling articles established by consensus among participants of WikiProject Professional wrestling. Please discuss this guide on the WikiProject talk page if you have any ideas about how to fine tune these guidelines.

Contents

[edit] General

  • The phrase "the late" should be removed before the names of now deceased wrestlers.
  • Apply proper capitalization and wording to headings. The headings should follow normal English sentence capitalization rules with the first word capitalized, with the rest being lower case, unless requiring capitalisation for a specific reason, e.g. proper nouns, acronyms, etc. The slash character should be used as little as possible. Use "and" or "or" instead.

[edit] Capitalization

Per MOS:TM, WP:CAPS, and MOS:CAPS

  • In referencing both the show and brand, WWE's Monday night program is to be written Raw, with only an initial capital letter.
  • CamelCases are optional on Wikipedia, but in the interest of uniformity, WWE's Friday night program is SmackDown, with a capital S and capital D. Post-January 2008 SmackDown references should written without an exclamation point.
  • Likewise, TNA's Thursday night program is written Impact!, with only an initial capital letter and an exclamation point.

[edit] Italicization

Per MOS:TITLE, WP:ITALICS, and MOS:MUSIC

  • In referencing a brand, Raw, ECW, and SmackDown are to be written with no italics when used in scenarios such as:
    • "The Raw pay-per-view, New Year's Revolution" A pay-per-view is hosted by a brand(s), not a television show.
    • "ECW General Manager, Armando Estrada" In kayfabe, a General Manager isn't just in charge of a television show, but a brand entirely
    • "Edge moved from Raw to SmackDown" Roster members belong to a brand, not a television show.
    • "The main feud from the Raw brand" Nothing is more obvious than when the word "brand" is used.
  • Italics are only to be used when referencing a show such as in these scenarios:
    • "The January 21 edition of Raw"
    • "100th episode of ECW"
    • "The week before on SmackDown"
  • Taglines are to be written with italics and in quotation marks.
  • Album titles are to be written with italics and song titles with quotation marks.
  • Pay-per-view events are to be written with no italics.

[edit] Professional wrestler biographies

This is the formatting used when creating or editing a professional wrestler article:

First add a lead paragraph about the wrestler, then

[edit] Profile

  • Height:
  • Weight:
  • Birthday:
  • Hometown:
  • Trained by:
  • Debut:
  • Previous identities:
  • Finishing and signature move(s):

Add metric conversions for all wrestler heights and weights, including new entries. Make sure feet and inches are represented as "ft" and "in" and pounds are listed as "lb".

Note that SI weight should be rounded to the nearest kilogram and height should be rounded to the nearest centimeter.

(If a large number of items is in any of the sections, place them into a subsection)

[edit] Career

Summarize the career of the wrestler, but make sure you leave it to major events and key points. Try not to include week-by-week synopsis of what that wrestler did on whatever show they're on.

[edit] Finishing and signature moves

*'''[[Finishing move without a special name]]'''
*[[Signature move without a special name]]
*'''''Finishing move with a special name''''' ([[Regular name for move]])
*''Signature move with a special name'' ([[Regular name for move]])

Then add the following categories: [[Category:(Insert nationality here, American, Canadian, etc.) professional wrestlers]], [[Category:(Insert birth year) births]] and [[Category:Living people]] if the wrestler is still alive. If the article becomes long and the profile section interrupts the flow of the text, you may want to convert the profile section to use {{Infobox Wrestler}}. Remove commas to lists in statsboxes, to ring names and trainers, unless the name or gimmick takes up more than one line. But remember to keep the line changes. So "Name 1,<br />Name 2" becomes "Name 1<br />Name 2"

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

Championships and accomplishments are to be followed like in this example:

Please note that:

  1. The name of the promotion is in bold.
  2. The part proceeding the championship/accomplishment name (i.e. 2 times, 4 time, 2005, 2006) are linking to the list of champions for that accomplishment.
  3. Accomplishments (like King of the Ring and Royal Rumble) come after Championship title belts (like the WWE Championship and the World Tag Team Championship).
  4. If an accomplishment (like the Royal Rumble or King of the Ring) is accomplished twice, that it is listed in chronological order (see example above).

[edit] Professional wrestling events

When writing professional wrestling shows there are a few important rules to follow:

  • Add the {{Infobox Wrestling event}} to the top of the article and fill in the details.
  • Before writing any matches out state the date, venue, location and theme song (if applicable).
  • Results and match previews should be written in dot points, not breaks.
  • When writing upcoming show matches, only gimmick matches and championships go in bold. Participants remain in normal font.
  • When writing results, the match result should listed first, followed by a second point (**) on any notable points in the match. If there are no notable points, refer to point 2.

[edit] Wrestling maneuver pages

  • Change "attacker" to "wrestler" and "victim" to "opponent" in move articles.

[edit] List of Champions tables

When writing tables for a list of champions, they should appear as this:

Wrestler(s): Reign #: Date: Location of match: Notes:
Buddy Rogers 1 April 29, 1963 Washington, D.C. Rogers was awarded the title with the explanation of him defeating Antonino Rocca in the finals of a (fictitious) tournament in March 1963 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to become the first WWWF World Heavyweight Champion.
Bruno Sammartino 1 May 17, 1963 New York City, NY
Ivan Koloff 1 January 18, 1971 New York City, NY

What to include in the notes section for each reign:

  • If the new champion defeated someone other than the old champion
  • If the new champion receieved the title outside the match.
  • Match types that weren't straight one-on-one
  • When the title was vacated

What NOT to include in the notes section for each reign:

  • What move they used to win
  • Who interfered
  • Title defenses, unless it relates to how the title was vacated

[edit] Warnings

Warning notes to editors may be included in sections that are subject to constant, unnecessary or unencyclopedic change. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dedicated professional wrestling site.

<!-- DO NOT ADD WEEK BY WEEK EVENTS, RUMOURS OR SPECULATION. THIS INCLUDES ANNOUNCED MATCHES THAT HAVE NOT YET OCCURRED. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A NEWS SITE BUT AN ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA. Please see the articles "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not" and "Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles" for more information. -->
<!-- Please don't change the height or weight. These are the measures as officially stated and they should not be changed. -->
<!-- Please consider the cited information in this article or on the talk page before editing. -->
<!--Please DO NOT change the picture. Unless there's a significant appearance change or you find a free use photo to put here, there's no reason to change the picture so frequently. -->
<!---Please do not add any matches you may have heard on the internet or during tapings. Only matches can be added if they've been announced on TV or on their official website.--->
<!--Please do not add a fair use image in this section. As this person is currently active it should be possible to obtain a free use alternative.-->
<!--Do not replace this image with a fair use one. This image is free and free images are favored on Wikipedia. See "Wikipedia:Image use policy" for more information -->

[edit] PPV Guidelines

[edit] Manual of Style (MoS)

When working with pay-per-view articles, you should use the following headings for the main body of the article:

==Report==
===Background===
===Event===
===Aftermath===
==Results==

The article should not be written in-universe, it should be written so that everyone can understand the article, not just professional wrestling fans. If you feel you are writing in-universe, please do ask at the project talkpage whether anyone would like to perform a copy-edit.

If you are actively working on a pay-per-view article, please insert a {{underconstruction}} tag at the top of the article. This helps reduce edit conflicts.

[edit] What each section should contain

The lead of the article should contain brief details of the event, for instance, the date of the event and where the event was. It should also contain details of the main matches on the card, with a brief overview of them. The lead should contain at least two or three paragraphs. Anything less, and the lead may be considered too small. Other major important details may be put into the lead, for instance, the Survivor Series (1997) lead would possibly outline the Montreal screwjob.

The background section should contain details on the three or four main feuds leading into a pay-per-view. This must go significantly in-depth. If it fails to do so, the article is unlikely to become a good article or featured article in the future. For major pay-per-views, for instance WrestleMania's, you should be covering at least five or six feuds. You are welcome to cover more than three or four feuds if you wish too.

The event section should contain details of the pay-per-view itself, including dark matches that took place before the pay-per-view (if any). You should only cover the matches, you should not really cover backstage segments, unless it is considered notable. Certain examples of where backstage segments may be notable would be for instance at December to Dismember (2006), where Sabu was found injured backstage, or at WrestleMania 23 where a dance segment took place backstage.

The aftermath section should contain details of feuds that occurred after the event, whether feuds just completely stopped, or whether they continued for several months afterwards. It may also contain details of any backstage disagreements that occurred or if anyone legitimately quit the company immediately after the event. It should also contain the details about the buyrate for the event, in contrast to previous years. It should also show whether the event was (dis)liked as a whole, giving sources to three/four different websites.

[edit] Sources

There are many sources that you can use for PPV articles. Below is a list of sources you can use:

Official Websites
Other Websites
  • 411mania - Has reports on many PPV and weekly events (dating back to mid-2000), as well as numerous columns.
  • Find Articles - Not related to wrestling in any way, but typing in the event your working on in the search box may come up with some very good results.
  • Online World of Wrestling - Has profiles on thousands of wrestlers, as well as results of every RAW, SmackDown! and ECW show.
  • SLAM! Sports - Detailed RAW, SmackDown and ECW results as well as detailed PPV results back to 1997.
  • The History of WWE - Results of every single WWE, WCW and ECW show. Has full-detailed results of some shows and matches - listed here.
  • Wrestling Information Archive - Has results for all of the major shows, as well as WCW and ECW results. Contains PPV buyrates too.
  • Wrestling Observer - The newsletter released by Dave Meltzer

Although the above websites are reliable, there are several websites that are not reliable. This includes some dirtsheet websites, and blacklisted websites. If you feel that any of the above are not reliable, please discuss at the project talkpage. Do not add any dirtsheets above, or any blacklisted websites above, otherwise your edits will be reverted and removed.

Thank you for ad-hereing towards the above guidelines,
WP:PW members.