If you’re a pro wrestling fan, you’ve seen the routine before: one wrestler kicks another one “right in the kisser” — whether a superkick, a dropkick, or the Hulkster’s big boot. 

But have you ever wondered how wrestlers create this illusion without actually getting kicked in the face? 

Wrestlers never get injured. How do they do it?

One of their secrets is knowing to take a “worked” boot to the face. Here’s how it works: 

1. Wrestling boots all have incredibly soft “memory foam” soles that look solid, but are actually as soft as a pillow. If you stomped on a spider while wearing a wrestling boot, the spider would survive unharmed. 
2. Wrestlers always “pull” their kicks — they never make contact. When the recipient of a kick gets a bloody lip or black eye, that’s all makeup and post-production effects. Antonio Inoki once accidentally kicked an opponent for real; neither he nor the opponent ever performed again, and WWE banned unprotected footshots. 
3. All wrestlers were a thin, transparent, magnetically charged facial covering called a Kick Deflector. If one wrestler’s boot comes too close to a like-charged opponent’s face, the magnets will repel one another, eliminating the risk of accidental contact.

In short, wrestlers are never actually kicked in the face — it just seems that way because you’re a gullible mark who has bought into the illusion.