Why Do Pro Wrestlers Wear Trunks?
The question had echoed through the ages, East and West alike: why do professional wrestlers wear trunks? And in truth, the answer was remarkably simple.
It was tradition, and it was comfortable.
On top of that, showing off muscle was a fine way to display raw, masculine strength.
Even back in ancient Rome, the gladiators of the Colosseum fought half-naked. Wrestling, sumo, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA — practically every martial art that evolved into a 'pro sport' shed the upper body and bared its muscle.
Of course, as the eras rolled on, wrestlers began to drift from tradition, gradually expressing their individuality instead.
'Long pants, half pants... well, those are just different lengths, really.'
Some threw glitter and sequins everywhere. Others stitched in catchphrases or logos that symbolized who they were.
Take 'Rock Cold Steve Stein' — he'd come out in plain black trunks and a vest, with his signature 'Burning Skull' emblazoned across the back and his famous catchphrases '2:15' and 'What?' stamped on for good measure.
It was an outfit that spoke for the blue-collar working class while unmistakably announcing his identity.
'And the charisma was icing on the cake.'
He exuded the bad-ass edge that every American couldn't get enough of.
But I had no intention of going that route.
He might be my role model right now, but copying him wholesale would make me nothing more than a cheap knockoff.
'Not happening.'
So there I stood, lost in thought.
Around me, roughly twenty trainees were rifling through racks, searching for wrestling gear that suited them.
'All hand-me-downs, huh.'
They looked like costumes the senior wrestlers and staff had made while kicking around gimmick ideas.
'If we wore this stuff to a Halloween party, the neighborhood kids would lose their minds.'
Traces of experimental ambition were everywhere — star-shaped masks, a bear pelt so obviously fake it hurt, trunks with 'Happy Thing' written across the crotch...
Most people ignored all of it.
They picked the safest, most unremarkable outfits they could find. A few were even planning on body paint to make themselves stand out.
I had been standing there a while when I felt someone approach.
It was Cena.
"How's this?"
He had draped the bear pelt (fake) over his head. Since I hadn't imagined anyone would actually wear the thing, I just shook my head.
But Cena refused to give up.
"No, wait, let me explain the gimmick. Hercules, hero of Greek mythology!"
"Juvenile."
"...I'll go change."
He sulked and trudged off.
And it really was a juvenile gimmick. This was the 2000s. Cartoonish characters like that had been buried sometime between the eighties and the early nineties.
Back then, gimmicks like evil dentists, burglars, and accountants were all the rage — but nearly all of them had been consigned to the industry's forgotten past.
'The only one that survived from that era is the mortician gimmick — Casket-Taker.'
But times had changed.
People used to believe pro wrestling was real. Nobody enjoyed it that way anymore.
'It doesn't sell now.'
And it would sell even less going forward. The internet had exploded, one scandal after another had come to light, and the industry's secrets were now public knowledge.
Granted, there were still people who ignored all that and enjoyed pro wrestling purely for what it was.
Children.
But building a gimmick aimed at that audience meant facing an insurmountable wall.
One standing right in front of me.
'Champion' Shawn Cena.
"How about this one?!"
The future superstar now stood before me wearing a sun-shaped mask, a cape patterned after the moon's surface, and trunks with an enormous star across the front.
Wow.
I honestly don't know how he managed to gather every single piece of garbage gear in the building.
"......"
"O-okay, got it."
He walked away.
'What gimmick was that even supposed to be?'
I stared, bewildered, at the two stars stitched onto his backside.
'What was he thinking?'
I couldn't make heads or tails of it. If he'd gone out in an outfit like that around the time I retired, he'd have been frozen in it forever, wandering the depths of YouTube as a permanent meme.
Just then, Russell Hart approached, already dressed in his gear.
"You didn't pick a gimmick?"
"I was just finalizing it."
I turned to look at him, and the outfit told me the gimmick instantly.
'The Hart Family's professional wrestler.'
A singlet-style suit modeled on amateur wrestling — top and bottom joined as one. Knee pads, elbow pads, wrestling boots. A younger version of his uncle Greg Hart, practically.
But across his chest was the 'Lightning Wing,' the emblem of the Hart Family. I tilted my head at the sight.
"You brought that with you?"
"Yeah. This is my gear."
"Sharp."
This was what I meant by a gimmick.
One with almost no gap between reality and fantasy — a character that captured the wrestler's actual life story as if traced directly from it.
Sure, it could come across as a bit exaggerated.
But the fact remained that Russell was a pro wrestler from the Hart Family. With this, no overacting was even necessary — his identity came built in: a man fighting with his family's legacy on his back.
'Of course he'd come out with that.'
And my plan was to appeal to the crowd as the one who opposed him.
And that's exactly what I did.
Junho Kim. Second-generation Korean immigrant.
A street thug out of backyard wrestling.
A cowardly villain willing to do whatever it took to survive — to win.
I kept ethnic elements out of it as much as possible. That didn't mean I planned to erase them entirely, though.
Now and forever, a character without depth was bound to rust.
'But that's not an idea I can use right this second...'
For the 'feud' with Russell, a simple gimmick would do fine.
The silver spoon raised and groomed within the Hart Family — and the dirt-poor kid standing on the exact opposite side of the spectrum from Russell Hart.
'I should keep the outfit low-key too.'
Fancy gear was a WWF thing. The small independent promotions outside its orbit often let their wrestlers compete in everyday clothes.
Jeans and a black tank top.
No knee pads, no elbow pads. A few wraps of athletic tape around the wrists for some rough joint support.
I did wear wrestling boots, though. Without them, you'd slip around the ring and botch everything.
'And finally...'
The jacket.
A black leather jacket.
It ran a little big, but whatever — this wasn't something I'd be showing off at a show. As long as it said "leather jacket character," it did the job.
When I turned around in the ensemble, everyone was staring at me like I'd grown a second head.
"......?"
"Are we filming a movie?"
"What even is that."
'...You're all far funnier to look at.'
The world wanted sleek, cutting-edge trends — and the people standing in front of me were mostly the opposite of that.
Ah, let's leave Russell out of it.
Born with the industry's silver spoon in his mouth, he had an identity that shone clearly just from existing.
But Cena was another story.
'Seriously, why the hell is he wearing cat clothes now?'
A hulking mass of muscle stood there looking like a dancer from a strip show. I really wished he'd take those cat ears off his head.
And the rest were just as bad.
'...I have no idea how I'm supposed to run a feud with these people.'
I mused on this while staring at a man with star-shaped pasties on his nipples.
Why did everyone in this industry love stars so much?
In any case, surrounded by this crowd, my plain biker-look made me stand out all the more.
When I glanced over, Baku seemed to share the sentiment, grinning widely.
"What are you, Mad Max? That Apocalypto movie?"
"Apocalypto is about Mayans."
"Oh, is it? Whatever. Now — everyone, walk me through your gimmick. One by one."
He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the twenty of us standing in a line.
Behind him sat GCW's scriptwriters and members of the costume team.
'I can tell who's who just by looking.'
Skinny men in glasses — the polar opposite of the muscular trainers.
"You first."
When Baku pointed, Shawn Cena, who had been pushed to the front of the line, stepped forward.
I regarded Shawn Cena and his mottled cat ears with genuine concern.
He puffed out that massive chest and declared with full confidence:
"Uh, my gimmick is Tiger."
"......?"
"The premise is that I have the strength of a tiger."
"Those are cat ears."
"Huh?"
"Those were clearly made for the female wrestlers. Someone just stuck them in there."
"...Huh?"
"Next."
Baku was merciless.
Cena sulked back into line, and another man stepped forward. The nipple-pasties guy from earlier.
'What's his gimmick, I wonder.'
I was genuinely curious.
"My gimmick is that my pectorals glow, so I cover them with decorative—"
"Next."
Baku and I were in complete agreement.
None of them understood pro wrestling. These were gimmicks that wouldn't have flown even long before the golden age of the seventies and eighties.
"A master of Eastern martial arts..."
"You're white. Next."
"I'm Black Panther."
"You'd get sued for plagiarism. Next."
"A 'Mr. Perfect' gimmick who does everything flawlessly—"
"Already exists. Next."
They fell like dominoes.
And then it was just me and Russell. Baku looked at the two of us with apparent interest and called on Russell.
"My gimmick is a young man born into the Hart Family, who grew up watching his father and uncle wrestle."
It was himself.
Let me make this clear once more.
Wrestling gimmicks had evolved toward blurring the line between reality and fiction. The business had grown from a circus-like spectacle into its own genre, and that shift shaped everything.
Which was exactly why no "Next" came from Baku this time.
He watched Russell, who spoke with his shoulders square and his head high.
"I was born in Canada, and I want to show the world my wrestling."
But as Russell continued, Baku's expression turned slightly ambiguous.
Mine did too.
Still, Russell brought his introduction to a close without wavering.
'He's a carbon copy of Greg Hart, isn't he?'
I quietly watched Russell step back, looking somewhat unsatisfied.
But he deliberately avoided my gaze and stayed silent.
After that—
"Next."
At Baku's word, I stepped forward before I even had time to think.
'Focus first.'
I raised my head with that thought. Everyone looked genuinely curious about my gimmick.
Half the battle was already won.
I spoke with confidence.
"Well, I don't have any particularly exotic concept. I'm from LA. Finished school, hitched a camper to the truck, and spent years roaming the country learning how the world works."
I began telling the story of my life, exactly as it was — my life of passion.
Though I made a point of leaving out the part where I'd 'wrestled in the indies.'
One of the WWF's taboos was mentioning outside wrestling organizations — it could amount to free publicity for the competition.
"I've broken an arm. Had stitches in my flesh. Been mugged. Dodged a bullet. Seen it all."
At some point, I'd half-merged with the gimmick and was simply performing.
"And what I learned out there is this: you win and you survive by any means necessary. Some people might call that cowardice — but that's just the sound of losers barking."
Baku let out a low whistle.
"I'm going to become a big deal in this company. Money, women, glory — I'm going to take all of it."
I told them why I fought, and what I fought for. That was the single most important element of any gimmick.
The people who heard it just stood there, mouths agape.
They didn't understand. They looked like men seeing a smartphone years before it was ever invented.
But everyone judging me here was a professional.
And slowly, one by one, their faces shifted — a dawning, half-formed awareness of the 'revolution' the character I'd just laid out would bring to this industry.