The 1980s professional wrestling boom was a surge in the popularity of professional wrestling in the United States and elsewhere throughout the 1980s. The expansion of cable television and pay-per-view, coupled with the efforts of promoters such as Vince McMahon, saw professional wrestling shift from a system controlled by numerous regional companies to one dominated by two nationwide companies: McMahon's World Wrestling Federation and Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The decade also saw a considerable decline in the power of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), a cartel which had until then dominated the wrestling landscape, and in the efforts to sustain belief in the kayfabe of wrestling.

Professional wrestling is a form of athletic theater that combines mock combat with drama, under the premise that the performers are competitive wrestlers. Although it entails elements of sports wrestling and martial arts, including genuine displays of athleticism and physicality before a live audience, professional wrestling is distinguished by its scripted outcomes and emphasis on entertainment and showmanship. The staged nature of matches is an open secret, with both wrestlers and spectators nonetheless maintaining the pretense that performances are bona fide competitions; this is likened to the suspension of disbelief employed when engaging with fiction.