In recent years Hip Hop’s influence has infiltrated the world of professional wrestling, and visa versa.

There’s no question the influence Hip Hop and sports have had on each other. Plenty of emcees have graced the stage in the latest Nike Air Jordans or Adidas, or rocking the jersey of their favorite team or player. While dozens of ball players from Shaquille O’Neal to Kobe Bryant have tried their hand at spitting 16 bars.

But in recent years Hip Hop’s influence has infiltrated the world of professional wrestling, and visa versa.

Okay, pro wrestling may not be a legitimate sport because the outcomes are predetermined, but its wrestlers must be athletic to take the bumps, spins and body-slams they endure to make it look real.

Particularly in the South has wrestling’s influence been displayed the most in Hip Hop with figures like Lil Jon and Paul Wall carrying custom-made championship belts as a sign of their success.

Every now and then you’ll hear a rapper drop a pro wrestler’s name in a song.

Two of the biggest names in pro wrestling released rap albums of their own.

The late Macho Man Randy Savage dropped “Be A Man” in 2003 where most of the songs were disses aimed at his former tag-team partner, Hulk Hogan.

John Cena released “You Can’t See Me” in 2005, which eventually went platinum.

To some these connections may seem sketchy for a music genre that prides itself on being the most real with a profession known for suspending plausibility, but in fact the two have more in common than many would think.

First, the majority of pro wrestlers go by ring names just as most rappers have stage names.

Second, both industries are perfect examples of where reality and fantasy blur, and in many instances fans cannot decipher when one starts and the other ends.

While the results of wrestling matches are staged, many of the hits they take are not.

There is a growing list of wrestlers whose careers have ended due to in-ring injuries.

Plenty of emcees rap about their former life of selling drugs and getting shot, which actually happened.

But similar to the action in wrestling some of these rappers’ personal verses on slinging dope are well-written fiction.

Many Hip Hop heads thought rapper Rick Ross’ career was finished after it was revealed the Miami rhymer’s boasts of being one of the city’s biggest drug dealers was untrue and that he was in fact a former correctional officer.

In the past, fabricated life stories have killed the careers of rappers like Vanilla Ice.

But Ross weathered the storm with his third album “Deeper Than Rap” debuting at number one and his follow-up “Teflon Don” scoring similar sales.

Fans of Ross said they could care less whether he lived the life he claimed, as long as the music is good.

The same is true with pro wrestling. Many of the sport/entertainment’s fans know the matches are rigged, but the industry continues to thrive because its fans enjoy it as entertainment.

Sometimes those lines become hazy such as when rappers get arrested for committing the very acts they rhymed about in their songs.

In the past, wrestlers have physically hurt people on purpose to prove wrestling is not fake.

Hulk Hogan once put comedian and actor Richard Belzer in a sleeper hold and dropped him to the floor causing him to need several stitches for a head injury.

Wrestler Big Van Vader once accosted the host of “Good Morning Kuwait” on live television after he asked the big man if wrestling was fake.

Just as some rappers’ verbal assaults on record have led to real life physical altercations or bloodshed, wrestlers’ personal beefs have been played out in the ring.

Probably the most infamous incident in pro wrestling was the “Montreal Screwjob.”

This is when wrestler Bret “The Hitman” Hart was preparing to leave World Wrestling Entertainment for rival World Championship Wrestling.”

Hart was the reigning WWE World Champion and the company owner, Vince McMahon, did not want him to leave with the belt.

Hart refused to lose the match.

So when Hart defended his title against Shawn Michaels, McMahon came to the ring calling for the bell and declared Michaels the new champ.

Hart proceeded to spit on McMahon and destroy the company’s equipment.

He later gave McMahon a black eye backstage.

So maybe hip-hop and pro wrestling’s relationship is more like brothers who rarely speak than distant cousins.

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