Trust Me, I'm Lying
Kayfabe in the boardroom
It was Cody Rhodes who pulled me back into wrestling.
The American Nightmare.
A man who grew up idolising his father.
A man obsessed with achieving the one thing his father never could:
becoming WWE Champion.
Week after week he stood in the ring giving tearful speeches about “finishing the story.”
About making his father proud even though he was no longer alive to see any of it.
And somehow, despite being a fully grown adult with a functioning understanding of reality, I was getting goosebumps watching it.
Because in modern wrestling they no longer even try to keep fiction and reality separate.
Careers become storylines.
Injuries become narratives.
Real rejection becomes character development.
At some point you stop knowing where the performance ends and the real person begins.
It might be scripted. A chaotic choreography of predetermined violence. But it works.
A real-life Rocky Balboa
For years the people running WWE viewed Cody as mid-card talent.
Too bland and safe. Not quite “the guy.”
So he left. Rebuilt himself somewhere else. And came back as something transformed.
Now here he was at WrestleMania.
On his knees in the ring, holding the championship belt above his head while an entire arena erupted around him.
Finally, a real-life Rocky story I could actually believe in.
He’s my age.
Still evolving.
Still reinventing himself.
Still finding new levels this deep into his career.
Maybe I too could have a second act.
I even caught myself doing the Cody Rhodes pose in holiday photos like an overgrown child.
Why are we still pretending?
The difference between tech and wrestling is that wrestling isn’t pretending it’s all real anymore.
For some reason Silicon Valley still is.
In fact, it might be the most kayfabe place on earth.
Just look at the mission statements.
Meta: “Bringing the world closer together.”
OpenAI: “Ensuring AGI benefits all humanity.”
Google: “Don’t be evil.”
At times it all starts sounding less like corporate messaging and more like a wrestling promo before the inevitable heel turn.
Tech doesn’t just sell products anymore. It sells narratives.
The visionary founder.
The genius engineer.
The company changing humanity forever.
The app that will revolutionise the world.
Most of us already know the performance is happening.
We just participate anyway.
Finish. The. Story
Maybe the stories still matter even when they’re constructed.
I knew Cody Rhodes was going to win.
Just like I knew Rocky was going to beat Apollo eventually.
That was never really the point.
The point was what it made me feel.
Hope.
The dangerous idea that reinvention might still be possible.
I’ve worked in tech long enough to become cynical about most corporate mythology.
Long enough to recognise the performance when I see it.
But somehow the stories still get through anyway.
Even when we know the performance is happening, part of us still wants to believe in the comeback.