Welcome back to Reading Wrestling, your encyclopedia on the art of pro wrestling. Today’s entry takes us to the long-simmering story arcs of wrestling, the feud.

Feuds may seem related to rivalries in sports, but they are altogether different. The best wrestling feuds, which can begin by a perceived wrongdoing or just as a desire for retribution for a loss, are slow-burning and finite. We know this dispute will come to resolution, but we don’t know how, when, or what the cost will be.

Take, for example, one of the most famous feuds of all time, Buzz Sawyer versus Tommy Rich, which built for over 18 months before culminating in the Last Battle of Atlanta, in a 1983 match that would become the precursor to the contemporary Hell in a Cell match. Sawyer and Rich, heel and babyface respectively, battled back and forth in a rancorous feud that some say stemmed from real-life dislike for one another. A series of incredible feuds followed, including Austin versus The Rock and Shawn Michaels versus Bret Hart, taking us into the current day.

All in all, feuds are a scaling up of the grammar of a single match. Just as any bout builds narrative tension to be released in the match’s outcome, a feud builds such tension over time, a kind of fractal match made of matches. Today on Reading Wrestling, we’ll talk about how feuds work, some of the best, and why viewers are drawn to them.