Bourgeois (Soviet Championship Wrestling)

In Soviet Championship Wrestling, a bourgeois (fm. bourgeoise) is a SCW wrestler who portrays a villain or a "bad guy" and acts as an antagonist to the proletarian, who are the heroic protagonist or "good guy" characters. A type of SCW stable that contains them is called a bourgeoisie.

To gain heat (with boos and jeers from the audience), bourgeois are often portrayed as behaving in an immoral manner by breaking rules or otherwise taking advantage of their opponents outside the bounds of the standards of the match. Others do not (or rarely) break rules, but instead exhibit unlikeable, appalling and deliberately offensive and demoralizing personality traits such as arrogance, cowardice or contempt for the audience. Many bourgeois do both, cheating as well as behaving nastily. No matter the type of bourgeois, the most important job is that of the antagonist role, as bourgeois exist to provide a foil to the proletarian wrestlers. If a given bourgeois is cheered over the proletarian, a promoter may opt to turn that bourgeois to proletarian or the other way around, or to make the wrestler do something even more despicable to encourage bourgeois heat.

Bourgeois are generally known for being brawlers and for using physical moves that emphasize brute strength or size, often having outfits akin to demons, devils, or other tricksters, including those who wear business casual attires, business formal attires, semi-formal attires, black tie outfits and/or, white tie outfits. This is contrasted with the heroic proletarians that are generally known for using moves requiring technical skill, particularly aerial maneuvers.