Anyone with more than a passing interest in the television series "Hustle" will have heard its conmen heroes referring to their prey as "marks". Wrestlers and promoters also use the word to describe their customers and the derivation is the same. Back in the days of the touring carnivals, the unscrupulous carnies would call those whom the duped "marks" and the name stuck. Professional wrestling, grifters and probably other walks of life have their roots in the carnivals and, no matter how far (or not) they get form their origins, some traces still remain. But for professional wrestling at least, the word "mark" has changed its meaning over the years. Most people accept that but I would (and indeed will) argue that the third generation marks are the most dangerous.

The original marks were those who believed it was all "real". Whether they believed it on their own or only when part of a passionate crowd, they believed it was real. This is not to pour scorn on them – the product was less theatrical (for the most part) back in the day and with real tough guys like Lou Thesz on top it wasn’t hard (consciously or subconsciously) to believe the fights were on the level. It is arguably no more absurd to believe that Bruno Sammartino’s battle with Ivan Koloff was real than it is to believe that Hull City are "the greatest football team the world has ever seen". Sport – and pro wrestling tried to portray itself and be portrayed as a sport – makes people believe strange things. The promoters went to great lengths to make people believe in wrestling – there were genuine challenges for members of the audience to come and grapple for five minutes – IF YOU CAN – with a local star (obviously one with a legit background). There were promoters who would fire wrestlers if they had fights with fans in bars and came out on the losing end. Heaven forefend a wrestler who was "injured" in the ring who was subsequently seen by a fan without their cast or bandages. Good guys and bad guys were not allowed to stay in the same hotels or dress in the same locker room. They kept up the pretence 24/7 and plenty of those who either wanted to be fooled or who were easily fooled continued to believe pro wrestling was real into the 1980s.

The second generation of marks were born out of the WWF’s marketing, characterisation and merchandise. Personality cults were grown around men like Hulk Hogan, the Undertaker and these days John Cena. Marks were people who had all the t-shirts, who covered their rooms with the posters, who took loving signs to shows and who worshiped their heroes as football fans worship their star players, teenage girls worship their pop idols and Star Trek fans worship their favourite characters. These marks talked about their wrestlers matches and storylines as soap opera fanatics talk about the shows to which they are addicted. There was no getting away from wrestling’s purely "entertainment" nature by this stage – the WWF admitted publicly that it was all just good fun in a successful bid to get their events taxed as entertainment rather than sport and thus make the shows that bit more profitable. These new marks were annoying certainly but devotion to a cause – whether it be train spotting, Doctor Who or the rebellious machinations of Stone Cold Steve Austin – is harmless enough. These marks were the ones who believed it was simply the most glorious form of entertainment imaginable and that their chosen few were the kings of kings. Some of us used to look down on such people and their naivety – "mark" was a term of abuse in such circles – but cynics will always look down on those that have the ability to enjoy that which we can no longer enjoy ourselves.

The third and most recent generation are the ones who believe it is all fake. That’s the word they always throw around – it’s fake. A fake sport. A fake wrestler. It’s fake and anyone who likes it is stupid for liking something that is fake. This isn’t a new attitude but it has become more and more insulting over the last few years and is now applied with such sickening ignorance that I felt moved to write this column. People who say everything about wrestling is "fake" don’t believe anyone gets hurt. How can they get hurt – it’s all fake. They don’t believe that the broken necks, torn muscles and chronic pain that is an every day risk with the modern style of wrestling is real. Actors in Buffy the Vampire Slayer don’t get hurt when they fight so wrestlers don’t get hurt when they fight either. The difference is that Buffy has camera tricks, stunt performers, editing, special effects and plenty of time. Pro wrestling is done in front of a live audience with very few tricks at the production team’s disposal. Sure, punches are pulled, moves are cooperated in, everything is sold to make it look real and most of what goes on doesn’t hurt. But simple physics tells you that if someone jumps from eight feet in the air and lands on someone else, that force has to go somewhere. Not into the windpipe or face of the victim but nevertheless it has to go somewhere. Into the joints and bones of the aggressor normally. Over time this builds up, guys work through injuries so they don’t lose their spots, they take drugs to dull the pain and only when physically unable to go on do they seek surgery and take some time off to get well again. Sometimes not even then. They believe – and repeat whenever the opportunity arises – that pain, injury and serious accidents don’t happen because "they’re not in the script".

It follows that if you don’t believe wrestlers work in pain and get injured frequently and seriously then you won’t believe that they live on a potentially lethal diet of pain killers, uppers, downers and other drugs. That’s to say nothing of the steroids people simultaneously want to blame for everything and dismiss as harmless cosmetic drugs. Third generation marks have developed the same beliefs as the original marks – they can’t tell what is real and what is not. It may have changed from a belief that everything is real to a belief that nothing is real but it is as uniform, uninformed and naïve as the spectators who really thought Hackenschmitt and Gotch were battling to prove who was the greatest wrestler in the world.

The lowest moment for this brand of self-delusional ignorance came when one Scottish "journalist" joked that Chris Benoit was a professional wrestler therefore he hadn’t really touched his family and they were still alive. Most other reporters were able, for once, to put aside such witless prejudices but it has taken something on the scale of the Benoit family tragedy to get them to treat wrestler deaths and the drug problems which caused so many of them seriously. Figures vary depending on the criteria you use to write your "pro wrestler death list" but every single one I’ve seen has been longer than it should’ve been allowed to be. The commissions, the government, the press and the public turn a blind eye to what is going on because "it’s all just fake pro wrestling" and they cannot conceive that beneath the entertainment veneer lies a business in desperate need of outside intervention. It cannot police itself but no one else will take care of it because – like the marks they are – they cannot tell what is real and what is not.