I know we meme about it here a lot but pro sports are unironically heavily worked as well. Not in the same way wrestling is, but it's still a work.
Boxing was heavily exposed by Niggannou vs Fury. Fury was the top guy and that's the only reason he went over. MMA? I think the Dominick Reyes vs Jon Jones fight is the best example. Reyes beat his ass yet Jones won by decision because Jones has the Goldberg streak and needs to go over. NBA? There's a podcast where former NBA champion and Finals MVP Andre Iguodala and his former teammate absolutely expose the way these games work.
https://youtu.be/GFbX9HW9lAA?si=cruxkiNpXQScmvQ8TLDR, Phila 76ers were a boring team with a small market back in the 2010s but they had some minor success, their playoff matchup were the very popular Boston Celtics. They got to game 7 and a vet told young Evan Turner the're gonna have to "win the game by 15 just to win by 1" and he only realized what it meant after he saw how the game was reffed. Hell, just last year you had a great example of NBA entertainment. The Jokić led Nuggets were bound to win the chip, and since no one was ever going to pay money to watch boring ass Jokić post up and make passes the powers that be had to run an angle where the 8-seeded underdog Heat made a run to the Finals to spice things up a bit.
Normalfags just can't fathom that whenever something is labeled as 'entertainment' it's bound to be a work at least to some degree.
