Are psychology, "logic" and storytelling within a match overrated?

[NintendoLogic]

Agreed. The "every match tells a story" always struck me as bullshit to me. If you enjoy wrestling strictly for the stories it tells, you'd get bored after two matches. This goes along with the "good" = "playing your role well". Plenty of shitty workers "played their role well". Matches still sucked.

I regard playing one's role well, like logic and storytelling, as a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. Like, it wouldn't make any sense for The Great Khali to do shooting star presses or space flying tiger drops, but that doesn't mean I want to see what he does instead. There are some roles that I simply have no interest in seeing played.

 

As for the original topic, I think Loss put it best when he said that the key for wrestling wasn't to be realistic but to be plausible. Wrestlers don't occupy the real world, they occupy a world where vertical suplexes and Russian legsweeps are effective maneuvers. So the key for me is stuff that makes sense within the confines of the unrealistic reality of pro wrestling. What I want more than anything else is for wrestlers to act in a way that someone who was trying to win a wrestling match would plausibly act. Things like Ric Flair going up to the top rope just to get thrown off and John Cena's opponent throwing a punch just so he can duck under it and do a Protobomb that are totally contrived really turn me off.

[FLIK]

Things like Ric Flair going up to the top rope just to get thrown off

Never had a problem with this since about once every leap year he manages to actually hit the move to great success and he even won 1 of his World Titles with a flying cross body over Windham in I think 93. Like sure 99.9% of the time he fails but that 0.01% of the time he doesn't it's game over.

[Gregor]

I'm not a big fan of the spot or anything, but I can understand how it works for Flair's character. He likes to show off, and he's full of himself; I can see him deciding to give the people a show by going to the air, all the while thinking that there's no way they'll throw him off THIS time.

[Victator]

Plenty of shitty workers "played their role well". Matches still sucked.

Then they did not play their role well.

[JerryvonKramer]

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?

[Ricky Jackson]

I'm not sure Steele ever had a really good match, even in the 70s against Sammartino, Morales and Backlund. Heated matches, yes (even though I haven't seen them in years, I think his matches against Savage were at least heated), but not good ones. I guess if you go by the adage "if the crowd is into the match, it's a good match" Steele had tons of good matches over the years. Workrate wise, zero as far as I've seen. He could be a serious candidate for worst-working main eventer of all time.

[Loss]

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?

I agree with this. It's overly simplistic to say playing roles well is all it takes to make a match good. There is an athletic component to wrestling -- otherwise actors could step in and do it well without any training.

 

Again, I think this is not an either/or thing. Many different things can make a match worth watching. Action alone isn't enough to make a match great ... except for the all-action spotfests that are great. Roles and story aren't enough to make a match great ... except for when they are enough to make a match great.

 

Picking sides is making a pointless choice. I'd rather everyone be more open minded and realize just how many approaches exist that make a match worth watching. Each of those approaches likely has a long list of both successes and failures.

 

To paraphrase Niels Bohr, the opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

[Victator]

Yet, ALL those matches sucked.

Did they? I thought they were good matches. I saw Steel have a really good match with Hogan in 84. Also a good match with Morales at MSG.

[S.L.L.]

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?

I agree with this. It's overly simplistic to say playing roles well is all it takes to make a match good. There is an athletic component to wrestling -- otherwise actors could step in and do it well without any training.

 

The thing is, the nature of wrestling is such that I don't think the athletic/"wrestling" component of wrestling is really all that separated from the storytelling aspect in the first place. It's actually the major component in the medium, just as dance is in ballet and singing is in opera, and treating the two as somehow unrelated just seems weird and wrong to me.

 

Did Steele play his role well in those matches? Perhaps. Did he play it "to perfection"? Hell no, and I don't think he ever did. George was supposed be an animal, but he wrestled like a pretty feeble one. It's shitty ringwork, yes, but it also hurt my ability to buy his character, which means it's shitty character work as well.

[JerryvonKramer]

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.

[S.L.L.]

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.

Well, maybe now you understand why I told you that the marquee said "wrestling".

 

In wrestling you want your animals to be wild and rabid and vicious than George. Confused, scared, and hungry doesn't make for compelling conflict.

[Johnny Sorrow]

In wrestling you want your animals to be wild and rabid and vicious than George. Confused, scared, and hungry doesn't make for compelling conflict.

It's Albano's fault for taking George to that quack of a shrink with his verkakte machine.

[MikeCampbell]

Did they? I thought they were good matches. I saw Steel have a really good match with Hogan in 84.

Are you talking about their match from August at the Kiel?

[Victator]

I think so, Hogan is in his blue trunks.

[MikeCampbell]

I just ordered that show, along with a few other WWF house shows, on the strength of Hogan/Steele (more accurately Hogan doing a ring out job to Steele) as well as the novelty of the Freebirds and the Spoiler.

[El-P]

Plenty of shitty workers "played their role well". Matches still sucked.

Then they did not play their role well.

 

That doens't make any sense. It's not because they "play their role well" that it means I have any interest in watching them play their role. And that doesn't translate as a match being good because it "make sense". Yeah, it can "make sense", with "worker who play their role well" and still be a shitty wrestling match which I have zero interest in watching. Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant was playing his role well. Still couldn't wrestle a lick, and that translate into me not wanting to ever see any of his matches. Tiger Jeet Singh was mostly playing his role well, got tons of heat, was an effective draw against Inoki. Singh is still a worthless worker as far as I'm concerned, and his matches are as fun as pulling teeth.

[jdw]

I recall enjoying one of those SNME matches in the sense that Macho was fucking awesome in it in putting on a show and making Steele look good and getting the fans into the shit. I wouldn't say it sucked at all.

 

John

[Johnny Sorrow]

Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant was playing his role well. Still couldn't wrestle a lick,

Define "wrestle", cause Valiant was fine.

[El-P]

Nevermind.

[JerryvonKramer]

I recall enjoying one of those SNME matches in the sense that Macho was fucking awesome in it in putting on a show and making Steele look good and getting the fans into the shit. I wouldn't say it sucked at all.

 

John

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.

[MikeCampbell]

I'm happy to say the matches don't suck, but that puts us in a world where workrate isn't king.

A world where workrate isn't king = reality

 

Workrate is important, but it's far from the be all end all of wrestling.

[Loss]

Saying "workrate" is the end all/be all and "match quality" is the end all/be all in ranking the greats is two different things.

[JerryvonKramer]

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.

[MikeCampbell]

Saying "workrate" is the end all/be all and "match quality" is the end all/be all in ranking the greats is two different things.

Agreed. I wasn't talking about ranking the all time greats when I made that statement.

 

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.

This is more in tune with what I'm talking about, actually. When it comes to "workrate" I don't think too many people will argue that Tully Blanchard was better than Hulk Hogan in 1986. I also don't think too many people will argue that if they were put into each other's roles, it wouldn't have worked out too well.

[NintendoLogic]

I think the weakness of Jerry's arguments is borne out by his inability to name any concrete examples. Can he come up with a single great match that doesn't make any sense or tell a coherent story? Or a single all-time great worker who doesn't have any great matches to his name? In the latter case, he tried to go with Ted DiBiase, but even he said that he doesn't consider him a serious contender for all-time top 10, so I guess that shows how far he's willing to take that argument.