JerryvonKramer

Right, let's do this: No it's not the same thing. Spurs and Arsenal are morally neutral entities. Establishments connected to particular localities and communites which pre-date anyone alive today. You can support one or the other. A neutral third-party doesn't think of a Spurs fan or as Aresenal fan as good or evil. It's just someone about a person. You can tease them if their team loses, or even analyse the match with them to talk about what went wrong. Likewise if they won. Spurs and Arsenal represent ... only themselves. Two football teams with their own histories and traditions. You, the fan -- or more cyncically, the consumer -- can buy into either of those or not. Let's pretend for a second you are a spurs fan, and let's pretend for a second that Harry Redknapp is found guilty in that upcoming trail. AS A SPURS FAN, it would be perfectly permissable to condemn Harry Redknappy without compromising yourself as a spurs fan. Harry has done something morally wrong, so Harry -- just like anyone else in the world -- needs to accept his punishment. The MORAL part of it does not come into the Spurs fan's thinking when his team are playing. Let's say Harry gets a massive fine and a 10-game touchline ban. The Spurs fan will still think Harry has done a great job, and if he comes back he'll still support Harry as manager. Harry's part in SHADY DEALINGS, which would be tantamount to a heel turn in wrestling, doesn't matter at all to the Spurs fan's feelings about him as long as he's doing his job The same is broadly true of Giggs with Man U fans after the details of his affair was made public. The same with John Terry and Chelsea fans no matter how many dickish and terrible things he does in real life. In fact, the ONLY thing you can do to "turn heel" in football terms is to do what Sol Campbell did -- a direct transfer from Spurs to Arsenal. That ensured he was booed at White Hart Lane for the rest of his career. The only crime you can really commit against the fans is disloyalty. You can see the same in Harry Redknapp's career when he went to Portsmouth after being the manager of sworn rivals Southhampton. THE FANS will eat up all the gossip and transfer rumours and hype and so on that THE MEDIA feeds them, but when it comes down to it, the only time they'll waver in their support of their own players is in the advent of disloyalty. The Manager is a slightly different scenario. Sometimes -- as with Steve Kean or Gary Megson at Bolton -- you get managers who the fans just HATE and want out. When that happens, the situation is very very difficult for the manager. It is almost unbelievable that Kean still has his job. Again, there is no real MORAL element there, it's just a results thing, or in some cases a personality thing or a problem with the board. In Steve Kean's case, it's all three. ------- Let's go back to wrestling now. Hulk Hogan is good and the hero and someone you are MEANT to cheer for. The product is 100% designed for you to cheer Hogan. He stands for you. He represents your values. There is no real choice element here, he's YOUR guy and you CHEER FOR HIM. Heenan, Andre and DiBiase are evil and you are MEANT to boo them. The product is 100% designed for you to boo them. They stand against you, they hate you, the peon at home. They represent everything you hate. Again, no real choice element, they HATE YOU and you HATE THEM AND WANT TO SEE THEM BEAT. Spurs vs. Arsenal is a morally neutral grudge match informed by tradition, history and geography. Some fans will be fans because, as you said, their fathers or brothers were. Others will at some point CHOOSE who they support. Arsene Wenger does NOT hate Spurs, he doesn't really care about Spurs that much. Harry Redknapp does NOT hate Arsenal. And the players don't really hate the other club either (as shown by Sol Campbell and William Gallas, who didn't mind moving from one to the other). The only real people who care about the rivalry is the fans (and if I was being cheeky, just the Spurs fans) and the media who have an interest in SELLING stuff to said fans. There is no moral element. Hogan vs. Heenan, Andre and DiBiase is a morally charged tale of one man fighting for his own pride and good old-fashioned American decency against a group of scheming villains who have tried to cheat him out his World title. The fans support Hogan unconditionally against these EVIL BASTARDS. There is no choice element, there is a strong moral element. You can't compare Spurs vs. Arsenal and the fans of both clubs to Hogan vs. the Million $ Heel Team. One is home vs. away, the other is good vs. evil. You see the massive, massive, massive difference? You see how the home vs. away narrative is designed to sell tickets to two pre-existing sets of fans? And how the good vs. evil narrative is designed to sell tickets to one homogenous audience? Do you see how Hogan vs. the heel is closer to Bruce Willis in Die Hard vs. Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber? There is no relativism in wrestling morality. There's no "Oh but to a DiBiase fan, Hogan is the heel". Who would that be then? Jesse Ventura, me and that guy in row 15F? In football there are Spurs fans, Arsenal fans, and neutrals. The media is necessarily neutral as well. You don't have that in American wrestling. You just don't. The dynamic is completely different. And the SALES are coming from a different place. Football sales: I am a fan of Team X, I support them no matter what, I want to see them beat anyone they play, I'll buy a ticket no matter what, if they lose this week, they might win the next. But win or lose, thick or thin, I'm a TRUE FAN. I'll stick with them no matter what, they are part of my life. Wrestling sales: I want to see Hogan KICK THAT LOW DOWN SONNOVA BITCH'S ASS. Have my $20, I just want to see JUSTICE PREVAIL. How are those two things comparible?

Why was the atomic drop always such a babyface move? These were babyface moves: Atomic drop Gorilla press Normal bodyslam Especially in WWF.

Before replying in full tomorrow, I feel my argument has been -- whether deliberately or not -- misconstrued here. I've already said that the narrative is spun by the media in real sports. My point was never that narrative is not part of the way sports are sold, it was that 1) they are generated in a completely different way and outside of the game by media to sell ... media and 2) the sorts of stories aren't comparible to the stories you get in wrestling. They just aren't. They are much closer to the sorts of stories you get in movies. Here is a picture of Repo Man. Are you telling me that guy and everything he did are closer to sports than TV or film? Really?

I'd buy the Supertapes and Wrestlefests just to see the skits with Mooney and Hayes at the start of them. Mooney was probably the worst play-by-play man ever to hold a mic, worse even than Okerlund. I always thought he played that studio straight-man character PITCH PERFECT. He was slightly tongue-in-cheek in a way that someone like Tony Schiavone wasn't -- he had the tone of the 1966 Adam West Batman. He was basically a WWF parody of Tony Schiavone. One of my favoruite 30-minutes of WWF ever is the countdown to Wrestlemania 9 presented by Mooney somewhere in the studios. His interactions with Titan Sports various minions while trying to play the clips is hilarious. Mooney had comic timing, he had a wry and sardonic sense of humour. I am convinced he was intentionally "corny". Todd Pettengill, on the other hand, whether he was intentionally annoying or just annoying, was borderline unwatchable at times. Where Mooney was the professional everyman, Pettingill was the loud, excitable teenager. Mooney is probably the most underrated broadcaster in wrestling history.

If I haven't made this clear already, I LOVE Sean Mooney

This is very silly. Football works with a home and away dynamic. A fan supports one team and one team only for life, he dislikes all other teams but reserves special hatred for key rivals. For example, if you are a Tottenham Hotspur fan you HATE Arsenal. If you are a Real Madrid fan you HATE Barcelona, and so on. There is no moral element. It's just the way it is and has always been. Wrestling just doesn't work like that. EVERYONE in the crowd, with the exception of weird people (like me), cheers Hogan and boos Heenan, Andre, DiBiase, etc. IN GENERAL, people are prone to like teams who play attractive football (Arsenal, Barcelona), or who are managed by individuals who -- for whatever reason -- have endeared themselves (let's say Chelsea under Ancellotti last year). People are prone to dislike negative teams (Stoke, Inter under Mourinho, any side managed by Sam Allerdyce, any side managed by Alex McLiesh) and particular players (Robbie Savage, Joey Barton) and particular managers (Jose Mourinho - although secretly everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, loves him -- here in England they've been gagging for him to come back ever since he left, he's just too much fun). There is no real moral element there. There's a vague aesthetic thing about the game "being played the right way", but it's not the same thing as what you get in wrestling. There is no real evil there. Even with Man City this season, no one really hates them. I think a lot of us would secretly like to see them win the title, because 1) it's someone different, 2) it'd be nice for their long suffering fans, 3) they are FUN - Mancini is cool and dealt with Tevez really well, Balotelli is really funny, Silva is really good, etc. I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the England 1966 World Cup side were heels to anyone. I mean ... look at them. Maradonna got "heel heat" for sure because of the hand of God incident, but he is also seen as an absolute legend in this country and is as much remembered for the first goal he scored in that match when he ran the entire defence on his own. It's just not the same thing at all. Maradonna and the Iron Sheik just aren't comparible. One of the FEW times wrestling has aped real sports was the Hart Foundation in 97. There you had them cheered in Canada and booed in the US. You couldn't say Bret Hart was a real heel, but he was booed in one place and cheered in another. That's the way sport is 95% of the time. The big difference is that in real sports, there is noone there calling any shots. Stuff just happens. In wrestling, someone has put the Iron Sheik there to be booed by, let's face it, xenophobic, right-wing American fans as "one of them damn Arabs what gone done and kidnapped our peoples". Someone has put Slaughter or Hogan there to defend American values. Someone has put Ric Flair there to represent all the things that your average redneck resents. Someone has put Dusty Rhodes there to represent all the things that your average redneck can relate to. In football -- and in any sport -- that just isn't the case. That's why the Premier League has players from all over the world. If someone was there trying to represent the values of your typical chap from Manchester or Liverpool, would they have so many foreign players? Wrestling and real sports are COMPLETELY INCOMPARIBLE in my view, when it comes to morality and fandom. It's far far closer to the Rocky films than it is to the entire history of football. Do you honestly think Park Ji Sung or Nani or even Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs give a flying fuck about that? Do you think Luis Suarez was up at night thinking about it? Or even Kenny Dalglish? I am sure that it was a big PERSONAL goal for Sir Alex Ferguson, but outside of him, the historians and TV channels trying to make things as interesting as possible, no one really cares. There ARE narratives there, but they are created by the media to CREATE INTEREST in what's going on. It's not the same thing as a wrestling angle. It's not the same thing as Randy Savage trying to murder Jake Roberts for wrecking his wedding. Again, that is much much loser to ... why don't we use Raging Bull this time. Wrestling angles are more like the plots of movies than the sorts of stories that happen in real sports. It's a question for sure, but it's not really a narrative is it? It's probably not what Messi is thinking when he's playing. His manager is not saying to him "now, Lionel, think about your place in the history books here lad". Well, yes, it's one of the greatest feuds ever. And Mourinho, the greatest tactical mind of his generation, trying to overcome the humilation of the 5-0 against the stylish Guardiola and the greatest team in the history of football is a great "story". Plus you've got the old right-wing capitalist Spanish Madrid vs. the more liberal, socialist, Basque people-owned Barcelona angle. But El Classico is a pretty exceptional case. I don't disagree with that, but the narratives are always created from the outside and then put on the teams. There is a big difference between the MEDIA or ME AND YOU looking at a game and seeing all the "compelling narratives" around it and a booker designing a situation where one guy is cheered and another is booed to SELL TICKETS. On which point: Football fans will watch their team no matter what. Football fans will watch Match of the Day on saturday night, no matter what. The stories don't matter. They are buying their ticket, their sky subscription, their time investment yada yada. Season on season on season, it's just part of what they do. Wrestling isn't like that. Fans need a hook to part with their money. It's much more like movies or a tv series. There has to be something that keeps you coming back. I mean look at me and a number of other people on this board. I haven't watched WWE since 2004. I've outlined my reasons elsewhere. Football fans just don't stop watching if there are a few boring games or if their favourite players retire. They watch NO MATTER WHAT. Do you see the big difference? Wrestling NEEDS angles and storylines and they are created internally to sell tickets. Football doesn't need angles and storylines BECAUSE IT HAS A GUARANTEED AUDIENCE and the narratives that crop up happen organically and are created mostly outside of the game. It's a completely different situation.

For the record, I'm not playing devil's advocate with these questions or any other questions I ask, I'm genuinely asking them. I don't see myself challenging any status quo, I'm honestly wondering about how you get into people who seem to have fewer than 6 moves. Why would Jake Roberts be considered a better worker than, say, Haku? To be honest, I always preferred watching Haku / Meng to Jake, but to say that out loud seems to be a heresy. Why?

One of my favourite workers on the All Japan set has been Yatsu. I've pondered to myself why this is -- why does he stand out from all the Haras and Ishikawas of this world? The only thing I can come up with really is that he has an awesome moveset and his offense always looks cool. It seems to be important for me to like someone that they have a good number of ways to hurt you. This is one of the reasons I could never get into Jake Roberts's work. He's great on the mic and a great character, but I've never seen a Jake match that made me buy him as a good wrestler. (admittedly, I have not yet seen the mid 80s stuff on the MidSouth set that I recall seeing HYPED). Why don't I like Jake? Because he literally only does about 5 moves. Short clothesline, DDT, punches, running kneelift (and not awesome ones like Jumbo, but rubbish-looking ones) and er ... that's about it really isn't it. How can I get into a guy like that? I'm not saying you need 15 suplex variations to be a good worker, I'm just saying you need to have a fair few high impact moves in your locker. DiBiase is a guy I always point to with *just enough* high spots in his arsenal: the suplex, the gutwrench suplex, the belly-to-back, the piledriver, the full powerslam from the ropes, the backbreaker. Then for a grounded opponent, he has the fistdrop plus your standard stomps and elbows and the figure-four as a submission hold. Cobra-clutch as a finisher. That's what? About 6 high spots. About 4-5 different ways of hurting a guy when he's down and a finishing hold. Almost all other things he'll do in any given match are ways of selling, including taking the gutpunch from the missed double-axe handle on the second rope and the kick to the face from the missed backdrop. If a guy has less offensive stuff to do than this I find it more difficult to get into them. Ricky Morton is my foremost example and it's something I've talked about before on here. Ricky Morton is a fantastic rag doll. I mean by any standard he's your 10 out of 10 for taking punishment. But does he have 6 high spots and 4-5 different ways of hurting a guy when he's down? And if the answer is "no", then what is there to get into for Morton as a worker beyond his selling? Just the way he throws a punch? Can you be a great worker based SOLEY on your selling ability? I realise this will be a very unpopular view, but I want to understand what we're looking at exactly when people say Jake Roberts is a great worker, or Ricky Morton is a great worker.

It isn't though is it. The donkey work of most pro-wrestling "plots" is done through promos and angles. In MOST American matches since about 1985 where someone works an arm or a leg what is the main "story" being told? Answer: this guy is methodical. He is scientific. He systematically takes someone apart in a calculated way. Would it be appropriate for George "the Animal" Steele to do legwork? How about Kamala? You can't at any stage take character out of the equation. It isn't real sports, it's a narrative. The match is not an actual contest, it's part of a narrative and everything within it has to be consistent with what's already been established. It wouldn't be appropriate for The Ultimate Warrior to work like Arn Anderson. I was arguing that, but now I am arguing that other things such as character and so on are AS IMPORTANT IF NOT MORE. And that matches can't be divorced from the narratives they are a part of. I agree, I think changes of gear are necessary for long matches. You can do this in many ways: slow build to crescendo, peaks and troughs, etc. You CAN have great sprints that are all one gear (e.g. Hansen vs. Funk matches) but these are rare. (will leave it there for now)

[this is unconnected to the main thread] "Flair" played 2 different characters who overlap. 1. Champ Flair from the early 80s was billed and played as a legit badass wrestler who could out-wrestle anyone. He played a version of this again in '89 and again in '93. This guy was not weak or a bitch. He was someone go could go 60-minutes with anyone. 2. The Champ Flair from the mid-80s that we all know and love was the sort of guy who would talk big about being the best wrestler around, but when it came down to it, he'd prefer to hide behind someone else or cheat or whatever. This is the guy hiding behind Arn Anderson in '96 goading Green and McMichael into a match. This was Flair in WWF in 92. His pride and joy was BEING CHAMP. The only thing that mattered to him was the belt and all that came with it. He'd lie, beg, borrow, steal to keep the title. Was he "weak" and a "bitch"? If he needed to be. I always saw the begging off spots as NOT him genuinely being scared, but as a pyschological play: luring the guy in, getting him to wear himself out because he knows that a) he, the veteran Ric Flair, can take it and b ) the opponent will eventually leave a gap for him to regain advantage. But the bottom line was that he was beatable. He was champion through being the dirtiest player in the game, not the best wrestler. That's why he was a heel ... until the Steamboat series in '89 and the retirement stuff in '93. But the face Flair is always THERE somewhere under the heel Flair, there's always a question as to how much of the "weak bitch" Flair is an act. He'll always show you flashes of being the real deal. Even in his WWF run he did this.

Yeah, this is what I've been angling towards. I've already read all the replies in this thread and ohtani's jacket's position is the closest to mine in general. He speaks the same language as me. It's more than just Sturgeon's law though! I think most bad books, bad movies, etc... most of them have basic storytelling logic. They're bad in execution, but most bad novels, for instance, at least tell a story. Most bad movies can be followed. Not all, but most. Basic coherence is "square one" element for most narrative mediums. It's a starting point. You almost can't not have it. This is not entirely true. There are many many ways to judge a movie beyond the plot elements: DIRECTION CHARACTERS ACTING CAMERA WORK THE ATMOSPHERE IT CREATES Take your David Lynch film, let's say Eraserhead. If we judged it on its plot it would be one of the worst films ever made. There has to be other criteria. I think wrestling is closer to film (or TV) than it is real sports. Real sports don't have "characters" in the same way. Sure, you'll get your Jose Mourinhos, Brian Cloughs and , but they are exceptions and they are real people doing real jobs. They aren't artificial constructs designed to elicit cheers or boos (well, I say that, but Mourinho is as close to a heel as you'll get in real sports). There is no moral element in real sports. There is no narrative element in real sports. Moral issues can crop up and the media can create narratives around certain matches, but it isn't the same. Titles are won and lost on the pitch, yes, but scores are no settled. One guy doesn't get revenge on the guy who kidnapped his daughter by saying "I'm going to beat you at West Brom ON SATURDAY! And when I score that goal I'm gonna be doing it for Stephanie!" It just doesn't happen. The narrative arcs are from tv and film. This is not just an American thing either. They have the same things in Japan too. Yes, the mythology is different, and yes, there is less focus on the moral elements and the face / heel divide, but the stories and drama are still there and still a million miles from those found in real sports. I can easily imagine matches that create great drama without basic logic or psychology and the drama would come from the position of the match WITHIN the overarching narrative. The match is not a narrative in and of itself, it can only be understood in the context of the ongoing feud. Well, if you're into scripts or you're a writer, critic or even a big movie fan you'll probably notice the set-up, but it's like a muso liking a song because of a chord progression. We're all pretty big wrestling fans here so we notice details, but in my opinion wrestling matches require certain conditions to tell a story above and beyond the wrestlers' ability to work. To tell a story either the stakes must be high or there has to be an angle to pay off. It's exceedingly rare that wrestlers create a story out of nothing. Yes, as above, the match is more of a punctuation point -- what Barthes would call a "function" -- in an ongoing narrative. Well, yes, but also the match is not "the product". The product is the overall narrative. The match is a function of that narrative and needs only to be APPROPRIATE to its place within it. So your big blow off match -- DiBiase vs. Duggan multi-gimmick match from '85 say -- needs to be appropriately hate-fuelled and bloody. It's a great match AS MUCH for the buildup before it as it is for what is done in the ring. And without the context of the fued, it doesn't resonate as much. It would be like watching the last 10 minutes of a film cold. Your random 7-minute Superstars match, unless it is advancing a story, just needs to fill some time. Maybe Tito and Bossman were just filling time. Speaking of which ... There is also such a thing as "peaks and troughs" though, purposefully giving the crowd lull time in order to pop them again. Rude vs. Steamboat from Beachblast '92 is a masterclass in this. The matwork (or even blatant restholds from Rude) there serve to punctuate the high spots. The crowd need highs and lows. The lows are there for them to get their breath back, go and get a drink, etc. but they are also there so that when the high spots come they come with impact. Tito knew this as well as anyone. So it's not *just* killing time. ... because wrestling is about more than just the match. I don't doubt that this is true. However, I think that it's a mistake to see the match as your basic unit of analysis. I bet that most of the matches on WWE TV "make sense" within the context of whatever shitty narratives they are part of. The problem is not with the matches per se, but with the writing and the WHOLE PRESENTATION. (more to come)

Finally getting round to this: It is about that at some level though. The mindset isn't just from McMahon, it's from the fact that, for example, in ANY SETTING -- bar room brawl, shoot match, "sport" or anything else -- a lariat from Stan Hansen is going to hurt more than one from Spike Dudley. Doesn't matter if you are Joe Smoe sitting at home or the world's biggest wrestling geek, the basic assumption that a 300-lber is going to hit harder than a 150lber holds firm. "Surface level" is something that can't be ignored. However, you agree with this implicitly. What I would add to that though is that they also win credibility through wins. Rey's skill in the ring is only going to convert to credibility through winning matching and beating equally credible opponents. In sport, the way to gain credibility is by winning. I think you agree with that. We're on the same page here. Let's face it, in the vast majority of important matches, he'll want to hurt the guy too because he's been sleeping with his wife, or because he stole his urn, or whatever. And ... the angle that got us there is where a huge part of that drama is coming from. There is no way to treat wrestling like a legit sport, it's as you said a "fake sport" and, unlike real sports, there are strong narrative elements that can't be ignored. Elements such as CHARACTER and MOTIVATION. You can't treat a wrestler like a boxer, you have to treat him like a character from a movie. Some wrestlers don't care about winning. Take The Million Dollar Man character. He never wanted to defeat Hogan, he never wanted to win matches, he just wanted THE BELT, by any means. If he could get out of actually wrestling, or getting someone else to wrestle on his behalf, he would. Wihin the confines of this "fake sport", yes, the kayfabe goal is win the match. But in practice, that is rarely if ever the case. So in practice, the goal of the worker (as opposed to the kayfabe wrestler) is to get over their CHARACTER. Would you agree with that? Unless they are 300lb+ and over 6' 5 ...(within the logic of the kayfabe world) This is not necessarily the case though is it. A good match may have one guy who is not in it to win it but in it to hurt their opponent (see Tully vs. Dusty), or who is happy to take a loss if it means keeping their belt (see any Money Inc match), or who would rather not be in the match at all (see any Bobby Heenan match). But how many sportsmen hatch evil schemes to make life a misery for their opponents? How many sportsmen see themselves going into battle with a moral imperative? I think it would be a mistake to align the kayfabe "fake sport" around which the narrative of pro wrestling is focused with the thing itself. The thing itself is a narrative with characters and motatives, like a movie, not the match itself. The match itself is just one part of the narrative. Also, this is a "fake sport" in which supposed wild men from Parts Unknown can compete. It's one in which a fat man with a fork can have a 40+ year career. So the "training" argument only goes so far. Ok this makes sense. No arguments from me there. This is a great point and I agree with it. But you've focused on mythology around matches and moves. The key "framework" is the ethical framework. What is morally justified and why. Who the crowd should cheer, who the crowd should boo. It is THIS above all else that informs EACH AND EVERY THING a wrestler does within a given match. Let's say a guy gets over what a lowdown heel he is while working a fairly incoherent match. It is just a series of disconnected moves leading to a pin. This is Match A. Let's say in another match, another guy works a very very logical match but gets over very little about himself -- he's just a bland "wrestler". It follows the story of one man injuring another man's leg, then focusing all his attacks on that leg, before finally making him submit to a figure-four leglock. This is Match B. Which is the better match? Can we say for sure it is match B? What if the guy from Match A was terrifically entertaining during his match? So what you are saying then is that there is no possible way for Match A there to be good. No matter how entertaining the guy is, Match A is destined for the DUD pile. But Match B has more of a chance. So what in your view would the guys in Match B have to do to turn their competent match into a GREAT one? (More to come)

My proper reply is still forthcoming. But I do want to be the first person in history to compare the Chamber of Horrors match from Havoc 91 to Pasolini's Salo. Not sure which one is the more horrific.

I agree that Loss's post there is pretty great. I especially like the stuff about each promotion being its own self-enclosed mythology. I will say more / reply later.

So Loss, are you saying there is no scope for the wrestling equivalent of absurdism? Or Dadaism? Even aside from that, I still think it's setting the bar ridiculously low to say "makes sense = good", "doesn't make sense = bad".

Ok fine, I don't think this necessarily affects my argument on the last page.

See, my thought was that Hogan and Warrior nose-to-nose, doing the superman power battle spot, or any time the babyface does a big Rocky Balboa comeback were all times when we'd talk about "pyschology". People say Jake Roberts has great pyschology, but surely that could be him, for example, sitting in the corner of the ring and letting everyone else fight during a Royal Rumble (or whatever). I understand that "psychology" and "basic logical storytelling" are taken to be synonymous, but don't the above examples count as pyschology?

What does it mean then? "Working the leg" like the Andersons?

All the non-wrestling aspects of the product: the promos, the angles, etc As I've said before. "psychology, logic and storytelling" all refer to in-match things. "Psychology" means psyching an opponent out or working the crowd, "logic" means following an attack on the arm with another attack on the arm, "storytelling" is "this arm injury has put worker A at a serious disadvantage, especially as he needs this arm to do his finisher" Not at all, psychology, logic and storytelling -- as described above -- are all part of what makes workers good workers and what makes them good matches. I was talking about all the OTHER things outside of the match in the old thread, and here I'm asking if WITHIN a match people tend to overrated the importance of narrative and structure. Those two arguments are not in any way contradictory. How would you define those three terms then? And how would your definition differ from what I outlined above? I've been taking part in the DVDR project -- admittedly late on board with the All Japan set. But I've read through many comments in Too Short on the Mid South set too. People do draw a distinction, whether explicitly or implcitly, between "I really enjoyed this" and "this was a great match". I can't point to individuals, but there IS a tendency to draw a line between FUN on the one hand, and QUALITY on the other. Flair vs. Jumbo is QUALITY A chaotic 6-man tag from 88 is FUN Do you think this distinction doesn't exist? And do you think I'm mistaken to point to it?

I think the Ron Simmons match is better than it is generally credited for. He was better vs. another big man than against a little guy.

Am I right in thinking that the general wisdom is that The Barbarian was an average-to-decent big man whereas The Warlord had little talent?

The old thread My main argument there was that a guy's "works" should encompass more than just their matches. I guess there is a SEPARATE question about the extent to which workrate WITHIN a match is important vs. other aspects of the performance. For example, Hulk Hogan in '85 for me is a better worker than Tenryu in '85. CLEARLY, Tenryu has the better "workrate", but -- for example -- Hogan is better at getting sympathy from the crowd during the heel control segment, he's better at popping the crowd pre- and post-match, etc.

I'll agree that as entertainment it was fine, but as MATCHES it's hard to go above a Scott Keith-style "DUD" rating. This probably gets us back to the big debate we had earlier in the year where I was arguing that a great worker doesn't need any great matches on his CV to be considered great. And that you should judge a guy as much on promos, angles, skits and vignettes as on his in-ring work. As is so often the case, I was in the minority there. I'm happy to say the matches don't suck, but that puts us in a world where workrate isn't king.

Considering most of those matches consist of him wandering out of the ring, eating the turnbuckle and generally not seeming to understand he was in a match, I'd say that he came close to doing what an actual animal would do. That whole angle is really weird by the way, in particular Vince's moral position on commentary which is that Steele is somehow justfied in his repeated attempts to kidnap and slobber over Elizabeth because Savage isn't very nice to her.

Why don't we take an example: George Steele vs. Macho Man Randy Savage on the early SNME shows. In ALL those matches Steele played his role to perfection and so did Savage. Yet, ALL those matches sucked. So were Steele and Savage not playing their roles well?