In professional wrestling, a push is an attempt by the booker to make a wrestler win more matches and become more popular or more reviled with the fans depending on whether they are a heroic character ("face") or a villain ("heel").
In the Memphis territory, Nick Gulas began to push his son George to a main event spot despite having little in-ring experience and no athletic background.
The fans quickly turned on him and the promotion, but Nick Gulas continued to push him despite the negative backlash and financial losses.
Cowboy Bill Watts, whose promotions always consisted of an African-American main event heroic character, began pushing Ron Simmons, a midcarder, to main event status and eventually to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship upon being put in charge of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) at the same time he controversially pushed his son Erik into the wrestling scene.
[2] In WWE, following the fallout from the Signature Pharmacy scandal, smaller and less muscular wrestlers such as CM Punk and Jeff Hardy began to get pushed and Vince McMahon confirmed the paradigm shift by mentioning that today's fans are drawn by charisma and not size.