Per 
I am a young man that knows jackshit about writing. I try my best.
"Very well, I still don't understand all this ruckus about kayfabe."
Every one of the five people in that small laboratory looked at junior researcher Martinez with what can only be described as slight indifference.
"I mean, come on, why don't we censor completely wrestling if it always leads to this shit? I still don't understand what there is to care about."
His words were breaking a silence that was not brought by any sort of awkwardness, but rather by individual focus on personal tasks. Everyone but him had very clear the goal and purpose of what they were doing. All of them were totally focused on their computers, capturing data from wrestling footage, and making reports of this. But he got sick of this.
This was no surprise. He was picked up from college, having average grades and average achievements, after being of great use in the (very incidental) detection, and later containment, of a top-secret anomaly that lurked for decades his college campus without anyone noticing, and the details of which are useles in this story. He was amnesticized anyways, but after proving himself to be a useful asset, to be very resistant to cognitive and memetic hazards, and to have an affinity with the research of the anomalous, he was picked, briefed, and placed in a team to research a very important endeavor!
…which ended up being "why does kayfabe exist?".
Being a young, just graduated kid that was just told that he was going to help save the world, you can bet that he felt disappointed. He expected this job to look more like the Men in Black or something. He expected to fight aliens and wash brains, not to sit in a room reviewing the footage of the one thing that he didn't like to watch on TV.
The job was very simple. Watch wrestling matches from across the world, compare them with a diverse set of written and spoken accounts of each one. This with the purpose of detemining if and where there were potential breaches of a thing nobody cared about.
His senior researcher was right in front of him when he said this. Doctor Thompson, old, scrawny, one of those guys that would usually become "the researcher who rose to the top and then fell asleep" at any laboratory, even a top-of-the-top one, that dealt with the impossible, and saving the world, and all that.
He decided that young Martinez deserved an explanation. So he turned around from his computer and asked him to sit besides him.
"You were probably placed here because you like a form of wrestling. Any form."
Martinez scoffed.
"I hate wrestling. Whether it is american wrestling, japanese wrestling, lucha libre or any of that, I just don't really like it. But what really gets on my nerves is that people really seem to get into it. My whole family loves to watch lucha libre and it just isn't my thing."
"But you also did olympic wrestling in college."
Martinez got surprised that that counted, and briefly flinched. Thompson noticed this, and proceeded to explain:
"Greeks are the earliest civilisation known to bear this phenomenon. Our archeology team was able to pick this up, though just barely. It was through the discrepancies in some accounts of it. While the majority of accounts recall there being several rules, and that it was ceremonious and very well organized, some other accounts recall it as 'unbearable to look at', 'barbaric', 'anarchic', but most of all, 'gory'."
Martinez raised an eyebrow.
"You still don't get what this means. Please come with me."
They stood up, left the small laboratory behind, and walked.
"Where are we going?"
"I will show you something that we have kept hidden for decades" answered Thompson, "something that very little people paid attention to."
They went to the archeologic archive of their site.
The doctor asked the archivist at the front desk, made a request, signed forms, all in front of the young researcher. Time seemed to flow like honey, though, due to the low priority of the object, just a mere five minutes had passed when they were finally granted permission to watch whatever Thompson wanted to show him.
And there it was, carefully stored in a labeled box.
They slowly retrieved an ancient greek vase from the polystyrene foam, latex gloves on each hand and face covers on. It was obviously ancient. It was faded, and it seemed like it would break on the smallest misstep.
Before he was able to formulate any question, Martinez noticed exactly what the doctor meant.
A greek wrestler was painted on the amphora, but he was not simply trying to subdue his rival.
He was eviscerating a muscular, naked man, who seemed to lie helpless on the floor, writhing and pleading at the sky.
There was no knife in the painting.
It seemed like the winner had bitten off the navel of the loser, and was now pulling his entrails out.
A chill went through Martinez's spine.
"Why do no other wrestling paintings look like this?", asked Martinez with a stutter.
"It's due to who portrayed them.
You see, the nature of wrestling was apparently this, but very few people were able to notice it this way. The majority of painters were only able to see 'normal' wrestling, and they portrayed it as a rigurous, restrained sport."
"But this painter saw wrestling the way it was."
"And therefore portrayed it that way. But since the cognitive effect also affects portrayals, the majority of viewers see the painting in this vase as a regular wrestling match. You can bet that, of the very few people that could truly perceive wrestling, even fewer wanted to portray it."
Martinez felt a rush in his heart. Then another question came out.
"Why no one reported it ever?"
"This is the funny part.", said Thompson holding a chuckle. "We like to call it the 'Kayfabe paradox'."
Martinez got quiet.
"You see, it was a sport. People liked to watch it. It was a local tradition.
Yet a few people didn't like to watch it because they didn't bear the violence. These people did not like to talk about this.
Some of the ones who perceived it liked to watch it. But when they talked about it, people perceived it as if they were talking about the wrestling that they perceived. There was no reason for those who perceived the phenomenon to group.
So it went on for centuries."
"But how did we notice it?"
"Well, the practice of wrestling evolved." The doctor said this with a smirk that denoted excitement. "It started integrating theatrics and drama to the fights around the 19th century. By the 20th century, the industry started to take shape, and by the 20's and 30's, it was an industry in full swing, but not just 'wrestling' anymore."
Martinez looked at the doctor expectantly. The doctor laughed.
"Then El Santo decided it was a good idea to record some of his exploits."
Martinez was confused. He never watched or thought that much about those movies. He was scared of them as a kid, and as an adult he relied on his peers telling him that those were just dumb movies. They had to be.
Just stupid B films, cashgrabs for an uneducated mexican audience, made on a shoestring budget.
"Well, what the hell. Let's watch his best documentary."
And so they went to the film archive, and asked for "El Santo versus las Mujeres Vampiro" to the archivist. Five minutes and several forms later they had a very old film roll prepared and a projection room ready to watch the very important obviously-not-a-mindless-flick documentary.
Martinez was overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation, so he decided to just watch the movie in silence.
A mess of gore and horror is what he saw.
Not just in the fights, but in everything that happened.
El Santo righteously stabbing a wrestler on the belly, then revealing him to be an uncanny hybrid of wolf and man.
El Santo dislocating the fingers of a wrestler in what was a regular match, then kicking him in the groin and punching his nose inwards.
El Santo freeing an innocent woman from the torture of horrible vampires, who were all real in every possible way, ungodly monsters that, somehow, could only be perceived as luscious, beautiful women, enchanting to the sight and hard to stop looking at.
Then, El Santo laughing and bashing their queen's brains out with his fists as she burned under the sun, and setting their lair and their coffins ablaze coldly and viscerally as they squealed.
He saw El Santo torture and maim in the name of all that is good.
Martinez was not shocked or avoidant at all about any of this. He was, oddly enough, used to these sights.
Thompson broke the silence as a deranged, blood soaked, heavily injured Santo righteously drove the Santomóvil towards the horizon, after dropping off the damsel, traumatized but safe and sound, with her family.
"This is how we discovered that some sarkist cults moved to Mexico and started using people from poor regions as their cattle. But then we noticed that the reports of some of our staff, and from most people, contradicted heavily. After the whole ordeal, we made a deal with El Santo, and we compromised…"
"I know why i was placed here."
"Excuse me?"
At this point, a knot had formed in Martinez's throat.
"When I practiced wrestling in college, I did a lot of things. I broke a guy's hand. I left someone unable to walk. Someone kicked me unconscious and I had to breathe through a tube for four months. A lot of things happened. And then I stopped when I almost killed someone."
Thompson stayed quiet.
"I was really conflicted. I did not know what to do. I knew what the whole thing was, yet I only stopped when i almost killed someone. And the worst part is that he never even cared. When he recovered, he acted as if i was not guilty of anything, as if he didnt know what we did, yet he recited it word by word."
Junior Researcher Martínez was on the brink of tears. He felt like he was going to puke.
Senior Researcher, Doctor Thompson spoke to Martinez sternly.
"You were taught that it - the violence - was normal. And even though you knew that it was wrong, you felt pushed to go on. You were pushed to believe that it was the right thing to do. And eventually you were unable to keep up with it. And you decided to go on doing what you tought was right. To break the cycle of violence."
Martinez was pale, paralyzed, so the doctor resumed speaking after a brief pause.
"You were probably questioned. By your peers, by your family, on why did you stop wrestling. They would never have understood. Not even you did."
Martinez calmed down a bit.
"There is another reason why this phenomenon went unreported for so long. And why we contain it, rather than erasing wrestling altogether."
"…"
"When theatrics were added to it, confusion run amok. People started regarding wrestling as something that was 'fake'. It was still very much real, but the antics were usually perceived as indicators that proved it as fake.
It caused enough of a cognitive dissonance for it to divide the majority of people between those who thought wrestling was fake, and those who thought that it was real. And when people who perceived it the way it was talked about it, they suddenly felt reassured. Because it was not real. It was all a performance, fixed from the start."
"…"
"Not even showrunners or wrestlers noticed it. They just kept doing their thing for fun. They all enjoyed it. Even the ones who died did so with a smile on their faces. And they were very few. It was like the very phenomenon tried to kill the least people possible."
"And so the business went on without anyone noticing or caring."
"Exactly. And it is such a huge part of our culture, that erasing it may have the kind of unintended consequences that we want to avoid at all costs."
Martinez looked the doctor into the eyes. They were shining with a resolve he saw in few people.
"Someone even postulated a theory.
On how it is an instinct, stuck between human rationality and our repressed desire of violence and war. The part of our animal predecessors that made them fight with literal claw and teeth.
And our job is to determine the true limits of this instinct, so that humanity can truly live in peace.
They even put a name to that instinct."
"And what was that name?"
The doctor smiled as he answered.
"Pankration."
Martinez shared his smile.
Pancracio. Like his grandfather. And like his father. And like himself.
"Now my dear Martinez, let's get back to work. Maybe we will get field work someday. I know I have."
Martinez smiled.
The moment was bittersweet. He took his time to savour it. Then he sat down, and got back to work, reviewing wrestling matches. Knowing, not only that his work was important, as boring as it was, but also that it would not be long before he went on to work on something exciting. He could feel it.
Also, he was curious about Undertaker. If he really did die, Martinez had to know.
