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

[ohtani's jacket]

Working an arm or leg is the pro-wrestling equivalent of plot. If the workers don't have a story to tell then there isn't one and that plot is simply work. It may be good work, smart work, effective work, great work, whatever, but at best it's just characterisation or more commonly the type of wrestling strategy/psychology that Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes prattle on about. A wrestling match doesn't tell a story by default nor does it have to tell a story to be good. We all want to see something that is coherent and makes sense, but I guess Jerry is arguing that we shouldn't necessarily praise a match for delivering on those basic requirements whereas everyone else is arguing that they're such rare qualities in a match that those things alone are worthy of praise. To be honest, I don't think a wrestling match making sense is all that uncommon. Moreover, I don't think coherency prevents a match from being uninteresting. To me, the biggest problem with wrestling matches isn't structure or lack of a story but pacing. Most matches are boring because they lack rhythm and are poorly paced. But two people can watch the same match and have a different feel for the rhythm, and you can watch the same match a couple of nights apart and feel differently about it was well. Ultimately, it's the person watching the match who draws the meaning out of it. For some people a heel/face narrative structure is enough of a story element to satisfy them. For some people maybe a coherent match structure. Personally, I don't think you can really tell a story without a significant change taking place. That hardly ever happens because wrestling isn't a great storytelling medium, so I'm happy enough with great acting/performing and/or great work.

[Dylan Waco]

On a deeper level if you happen to watch 10 matches where Ric gets tossed off the top in all ten? If you think a second about it from "Wrestler Ric's" perspective rather than Worker Ric's perspective, it's kind of stupid: going to the top fails to work roughly 95% of the time for Ric. If Ric were truly the best wrestler in the world that he claims, he wouldn't try something that fails 95% of the time.

Well he did win a World title one of the few times it worked, and getting caught never caused him to directly lose.

 

I'm aware of him making it work... though that famous win was due to the ref tripping Race.

 

But you're making a sports analogy that would be this:

 

I once had a hail mary TD that won a game.

 

In my next 100 starts, at the 7:30 mark of each 2nd quarter (our as close as I can get to it with possession of the ball), I'll toss a Hail Mary to "test" the defense.

 

So even if I throw 95 INTS, it's "worth it" due to the 5 times I'll connect for a TD.

 

That's kind of...

 

A Dumb Fuck QB.

 

Which is what I think we'd all agree if we analyzed Heel Champion Wrestler Ric Flair at any depth. Dumb, Weak and/or a Bitch in most of what he did.

 

John

 

Leave Favre/Romo out of this

[NintendoLogic]

Ric Flair's a gunslinger, daddy. He's like a kid out there in the ring.

[khawk20]

When I have been able to get wrestler comps to the older guys, the reaction is always the same... "thanks, I had no footage of my career."

I've gotten this a lot as well.

[Jingus]

I always love how whenever some doc shows some guys backstage going over their upcoming match it's always, "So I'll start and do my bullshit, then wham, wham, switch it, do some bullshit, hit that buckle spot, wham, wham, some bullshit and then we go home."

 

And then we watch it and use terms like, "Control segments".

Absolutely. Wrestlers and fans are often looking at the industry in completely different ways. A small example: never in my life have I ever heard any wrestler in any locker room use the word "blade" as a verb. It's usually called "gigging" or "getting color". But strangely, smarks seem to say "blading" more often than every other synonym for that activity combined. That sort of tiny difference can help contribute to lots of grumpy old workers' mindset that internet marks don't know anything about wrestling. That's exactly why Lance Storm threw that infamous tantrum over the DVDVR 500 list, because to him the term "best worker" means something entirely different than it does to the fans who say it.

 

 

Since we're talking about Tito a lot, he had a very distinct view of how wrestling should work and he has voiced it.

 

Basically:

 

In the opening third, he outwrestles the heel (with no exception!), then the heel does something underhanded to get on top, and finally Tito has his big comeback. That seems to be the extent of thought he put into it.

That's the most basic formula in all of wrestling, and it can be broken down into more or fewer parts depending on how specific you're being (in my neck of the woods, it was typically known as "shine-heat-comeback-finish"). But that formula isn't always a good thing. Al Snow spends a lot of time ranting about how it's ruined the business, because it makes every match look so cookie-cutter and thoughtless. And I've known a few dim-bulb wrestlers who thought that shine-heat-comeback-finish was the deepest psychology of all, and never understood that you could deviate from that plan or do something more complex.

 

 

Also, I think there has to be a differenc ewhen it comes to age. Territory guys were always jumping from one place to the next and technology wasn't up to speed so it had to be difficult to collect tapes and study "the game", Buddy Rose and Jim Cornette exempt of course.

 

If you look at guys 35 and younger, I am pretty sure they are avid collectors, or at the very least, watch matches when the opportunity presents itself. When I have been able to get wrestler comps to the older guys, the reaction is always the same... "thanks, I had no footage of my career." With the younger guys, the question is always the same... "Do you have footage of OLD WRESTLER X?"

Yeah. And some people have their own weird preferences when it comes to watching tapes. Diamond Dallas Page is legendary for obsessively watching his own matches over and over again, microanalyzing everything and trying to pick out every tiny flaw and mistake so that he could improve his own work; but he didn't spend nearly as much time watching anyone else's matches. Meanwhile there's Terry Funk, who basically never watches anything because of his own insecurities. He can't stand to watch shitty wrestlers who don't know what they're doing and make a mockery of the business, but he also hates watching anyone who's awesome because his own jealousy kicks in whenever he sees someone who's a better wrestler than himself. And he never watches his own matches either, basically because he's afraid that he'll find out that he sucked and it'll kill his fond memories of those encounters.

 

 

The legwork and armwork in the Sammy-Ohtani told a story.

 

The legwork in Fuchi-Kroffat told a story.

 

Even in a match where it's discarded, there can be story aspects. We shouldn't be so narrow in thought to think a match tells only one story. I just watched a 42 minute episode of a lightweight TV show that told at least three stories, and possibly 4-5 if I thought more about it. And that's not even like I'm watching Deadwood where't they might be juggling a dozen stories / storylines in an hour... and perhaps two dozen if we want to pick it all apart given where we know all of these characters are going.

The difference is, wrestling matches are much more limited in scope than those TV shows. The shows have more time, more characters, many more locations, more storytelling tools, and have the huge advantage of being carefully scripted long in advance and then painstakingly edited afterwards. It's a hell of a lot harder to tell complex stories when you've just got two guys in a ring on live TV. And sometimes the alternating limbwork simply makes no sense. I remember in a lot of early NOAH matches that Misawa sometimes had a bad tendency of working an arm for a few minutes, and then a leg for a few minutes, and then an arm, and then a leg, as if he had freakin' ADD or Alzheimers and could never remember what his gameplan was. And all of that work would be instantly forgotten and no-sold whenever they stood back up and started throwing elbows again.

 

All that being said, I have seen some examples of limbwork being forgotten which I thought were just fine. Practically every Ricky Steamboat match has a bunch of armwork during the shine which never goes anywhere in particular. The difference in this case is, to me, that felt like it was the character Ricky Steamboat intentionally killing time rather than the actor Richard Blood doing the same. Steamboat was known for preferring to wrestle very long matches, part of that being a specific strategy; simply put, Steamboat's cardio was better than almost everyone else's. He wasn't working the arm in order to weaken that specific bodypart, but rather to grind the opponent down and tire him out so that he'd be vulnerable to the inevitable crossbodies and rollups which Ricky would be doing later.

 

Another case: bear with me, because it's Dynamite Kid vs Tiger Mask. In one of their earliest matches, Dynamite started working Tiger's leg, especially with some hard kicks which Tiger was taking those wacky Hennig flip bumps for. Of course it was later blown off and Tiger was running and leaping around just fine. The difference is, Dynamite didn't keep doing the legwork forever. It only lasted a minute or two, with Kid essentially playing Lucy to TM's Charlie Brown. Once he got Tiger slowed down and grounded, he switched his tactics and started using other offense. But it still worked into the match later anyway, because on the comeback Tiger started kicking Dynamite's legs in retaliation ("because it fucking hurts!"). That didn't play into the finish either (bridging suplex, iirc) but once again they didn't spend forever doing it. I can accept limbwork being forgotten much easier when they don't spend too long doing it. Once you've spent half the match working a limb (see any of HHH's annoying superman performances where he's selling a knee), it becomes insulting for the guy to just stand up and brush himself off and act like his limb is perfectly fine.

 

 

I once had a hail mary TD that won a game.

 

In my next 100 starts, at the 7:30 mark of each 2nd quarter (our as close as I can get to it with possession of the ball), I'll toss a Hail Mary to "test" the defense.

 

So even if I throw 95 INTS, it's "worth it" due to the 5 times I'll connect for a TD.

 

That's kind of...

 

A Dumb Fuck QB.

Interesting point. But it's a little different in American wrestling, especially in the WWE, when guys only have one or two different moves that they ever win matches with. The incredibly simplistic "you can only win by hitting this one finisher" style is one of the worst aspects of current stateside wrestling, in my opinion. It can easily make so much of the match seem so pointless. If Stone Cold can't win without hitting the Stunner, then why is he bothering to do anything else? Why the hell do guys go for pinfalls after basic moves like bodyslams, when that never ever gets a three count? Why does anyone use a sleeper hold or rear chinlock ever, since that move seems like it actually wakes your opponent up and makes him healthier? Why do these guys keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again?

 

However, a smart wrestler can get around anything. The following guys all have their own method:

 

-Steve Austin's character is basically a sadist who enjoys beating the shit out of people at length. He doesn't just want to win the match by keeping their shoulders down, he wants to hurt the other guy. This isn't always consistent, Austin sometimes does the "cover after a bodyslam" bullshit, but most of the time he's portrayed as a guy who likes fighting too much to cut the fight short. And when he's a heel, he's more likely to go for the Stunner early and often in a cowardly attempt to win the match quickly and soothe his paranoid fear that he might not be the best wrestler in the world.

 

-Shawn Michaels is one of those guys who is always talking about how he's gonna put on the greatest match, rather than talking about how he's gonna win. That's because to him, putting on the greatest match is actually more important to him than winning. When he insists on "getting his shit in", it's because the character Shawn Michaels is just as obsessed with that as the performer Michael Hickenbottom is. He's an inveterate show-off, and he'll go for all his crowd-popping moves (whether it makes sense or not in the context of the match) because he's addicted to the cheers and applause.

 

-Undertaker is a stubborn old asshole. He's a control freak who insists on having everything go the way he wants it. When someone kicks out of his finishers or elseways thwarts his plans, his expression isn't one of helpless shock or grim determination; it's rage. He can't believe that anyone would dare to defy him. So why does he keep going for Old School, even though half the time it ends with him being crotched on the ropes? It's because Taker likes doing Old School, dammit, and he's going to stubbornly keep trying for it until he gets it.

 

-Randy Orton is the opposite of all of the above; he just wants to hit his finish and win. His entire match is built around the RKO. Practically every single move in his offense targets the head, neck, or spine in a never-ending quest to soften up those body parts and make them easy prey for the cutter. That also feeds into why he has a thousand different ways to hit the RKO from a counter or a surprise position or even in mid-air, because he's betting everything on being able to flatten his opponent with it. It's his Death Star laser, and the rest of his Imperial fleet is basically just there to help him get the big gun into position to fire.

 

Also, there was no heat on beating Flair. The heat was on taking the title from him, as that was harder to do. I think he hurt himself in some ways in that regard, because Flair doing a job didn't mean as much as it should have.

I wonder why that's not a more common theme in title matches. You do still sometimes get the "challenger beats the champ in a nontitle match, only to lose the title shot" story sometimes, but not very often. You'd think it would be an easy way to put more heat on a big match and draw more fan interest, but nobody does it that way.

[Matt D]

And some people have their own weird preferences when it comes to watching tapes. Diamond Dallas Page is legendary for obsessively watching his own matches over and over again, microanalyzing everything and trying to pick out every tiny flaw and mistake so that he could improve his own work; but he didn't spend nearly as much time watching anyone else's matches.

I actually asked Page about that once and he said that he actually taped over the last night's match every night instead of building up a library, thus now instead of having a treasure trove of lost house show matches he's got nothing.

[goodhelmet]

On a deeper level if you happen to watch 10 matches where Ric gets tossed off the top in all ten? If you think a second about it from "Wrestler Ric's" perspective rather than Worker Ric's perspective, it's kind of stupid: going to the top fails to work roughly 95% of the time for Ric. If Ric were truly the best wrestler in the world that he claims, he wouldn't try something that fails 95% of the time.

Well he did win a World title one of the few times it worked, and getting caught never caused him to directly lose.

 

I'm aware of him making it work... though that famous win was due to the ref tripping Race.

 

But you're making a sports analogy that would be this:

 

I once had a hail mary TD that won a game.

 

In my next 100 starts, at the 7:30 mark of each 2nd quarter (our as close as I can get to it with possession of the ball), I'll toss a Hail Mary to "test" the defense.

 

So even if I throw 95 INTS, it's "worth it" due to the 5 times I'll connect for a TD.

 

That's kind of...

 

A Dumb Fuck QB.

 

Which is what I think we'd all agree if we analyzed Heel Champion Wrestler Ric Flair at any depth. Dumb, Weak and/or a Bitch in most of what he did.

 

John

 

Leave Favre/Romo out of this

 

i disagree with John's dumb weak bitch analysis of Flair. He won the world title with the move (twice?) and at that point, the body press is a game ender, not a 2nd quarter play. If Flair hits it, then the game is done. If he gets caught, he has the stamina, strength, skill, etc. to keep wrestling.

 

That's also the difference between Favre and Romo... one is a world champion and one is not. One is the game-ender and the other one is the dumb, weak bitch. As a Packers fan, I prefer Rogers because he doesn't break your heart at the end of the game the way Favre does. However, it doesn't mean I wasn't celebrating in 1997 when Favre won the Super Bowl.

[jdw]

i disagree with John's dumb weak bitch analysis of Flair. He won the world title with the move (twice?) and at that point, the body press is a game ender, not a 2nd quarter play. If Flair hits it, then the game is done. If he gets caught, he has the stamina, strength, skill, etc. to keep wrestling.

That would be assuming that the Press was the only move Ric did off the top. It wasn't.

 

I'd also say that a 2 Wins for 500 Getting Tossed Off The Top isn't exactly something that evens out in any sporting context. Can you think of anything where a 0.4% of success is consider good odds in sports? I can't think of one that comes to mind.

 

John

[Matt D]

i disagree with John's dumb weak bitch analysis of Flair. He won the world title with the move (twice?) and at that point, the body press is a game ender, not a 2nd quarter play. If Flair hits it, then the game is done. If he gets caught, he has the stamina, strength, skill, etc. to keep wrestling.

That would be assuming that the Press was the only move Ric did off the top. It wasn't.

 

I'd also say that a 2 Wins for 500 Getting Tossed Off The Top isn't exactly something that evens out in any sporting context. Can you think of anything where a 0.4% of success is consider good odds in sports? I can't think of one that comes to mind.

 

John

 

Still, if you only win 0.4% of the time and at least one is the whole kit and kaboodle that gets your name in the history books.

[goodhelmet]

Like I said before, if it hits, game over. If it doesn't, it isn't like Flair is a goner. It has all upside and little downside.

[MJH]

I love Flair as much as the next guy, but if you're watching his matches for their internal logic, you deserve for your brains to get scrambled.

[MJH]

But, seriously, to answer the question at hand (and to echo the compliments paid to this thread; a great read), my answer, somewhat evasively I know, is 'at times'.

 

If I was to state a weakness that I feel crops up a lot of the time when it comes to the internet-at-large reviewing wrestling, it's that, too often, people want to find a single formula for reviewing. But the reality is that matches are not worked with the same goals in mind. Sure, some (a fair percentage) are looking to be 'logical', to 'tell a story' (however you break it down), but a lot of the time they're not. For the wrestlers, it all comes down to the simple question of 'does it work?'. For us, I suppose, it should come down to the simple question of 'does it work?'

 

It seems silly to me to watch, say, a Dragon Gate match, or a modern WWE TLC (or similar) match, and expect something other than a spot-fest. For me, those should always come down to 'were the spots cool?' They're not trying for anything more than that, for the spots to look cool and draw 'oohs' and 'ahhs' and aesthetic 'pops', rather than something more dramatic (as a story) or resonant. They're CGI-laden action films, if you have to draw the comparison. And I'll stick by TLC 1, or certain DG matches, as 'great fucking spot fests'. I'm not expecting anything more than that, and they deliver upon that. In short: they work. You could tear them apart if you look at them for certain things, but when they're so obviously not intended to be a logical narrative, then why look for one, or criticise them for not having one.

 

On the other hand, I might criticise an 'epic' ROH match for 'not making sense', because I do believe that, more often than not, moreso in a Danielson match than a Davey one, they are trying to 'tell a story'. And a lot of the times, for me at least, they fail. They'll still have their cool spots, maybe even as many as a Dragon Gate trios, but whereas the DG match succeeds in solely presenting a great stunt show, a Danielson/McGuiness match, for instance, is trying to be more than that.

[El-P]

I never ever watched a Flair match thinking "If he hits a cross-body of a top rope, it's over.". Ever. It's not exactly Misawa's Tiger Driver 91. Really, the spot doesn't go beyond "get on the top, get tossed" line of thinking.

 

Flair really didn't had much of anything in term of "game ender". Even the vaunted figure-four was more than usual reversed by the babyface. Flair really wasn't a "game ender" kinda worker. He was a "dumb bitch stealing victories by cheating" worker. Which made all of his charm too.

[Loss]

But, seriously, to answer the question at hand (and to echo the compliments paid to this thread; a great read), my answer, somewhat evasively I know, is 'at times'.

 

If I was to state a weakness that I feel crops up a lot of the time when it comes to the internet-at-large reviewing wrestling, it's that, too often, people want to find a single formula for reviewing. But the reality is that matches are not worked with the same goals in mind. Sure, some (a fair percentage) are looking to be 'logical', to 'tell a story' (however you break it down), but a lot of the time they're not. For the wrestlers, it all comes down to the simple question of 'does it work?'. For us, I suppose, it should come down to the simple question of 'does it work?'

 

It seems silly to me to watch, say, a Dragon Gate match, or a modern WWE TLC (or similar) match, and expect something other than a spot-fest. For me, those should always come down to 'were the spots cool?' They're not trying for anything more than that, for the spots to look cool and draw 'oohs' and 'ahhs' and aesthetic 'pops', rather than something more dramatic (as a story) or resonant. They're CGI-laden action films, if you have to draw the comparison. And I'll stick by TLC 1, or certain DG matches, as 'great fucking spot fests'. I'm not expecting anything more than that, and they deliver upon that. In short: they work. You could tear them apart if you look at them for certain things, but when they're so obviously not intended to be a logical narrative, then why look for one, or criticise them for not having one.

 

On the other hand, I might criticise an 'epic' ROH match for 'not making sense', because I do believe that, more often than not, moreso in a Danielson match than a Davey one, they are trying to 'tell a story'. And a lot of the times, for me at least, they fail. They'll still have their cool spots, maybe even as many as a Dragon Gate trios, but whereas the DG match succeeds in solely presenting a great stunt show, a Danielson/McGuiness match, for instance, is trying to be more than that.

So matches are good based on if they accomplish their stated goal. Were Hogan and Andre trying to have a good match? No, and they succeeded. So does that mean by not having a good match, they had a good match? I think going based on wrestler intent is a slippery slope.

[MJH]

And to touch upon a few points addressed in the thread:

 

- No, wrestling doesn't have the scope for absurdism/dadaism/post-modernism/etc. Wrestling can 'break the fourth wall' and work: an Ebessan comedy match with slow-motion wrestling, the ladder winning the title in DDT, but by-and-large, no.

 

- 'working a body part' does not tell a story by itself; it's a strategy. My criticism for Ohtani/Samurai came down to the fact that, really, it's just 'a guy working an arm vs. a guy working a leg'. The same could be said for a match where it's all about wrestler A building to his finish vs. wrestler B building to his: it's 'a guy doing a powerbomb vs. a guy doing a figure-four'. And in most cases it's, as John said, just a way of killing time. I don't think the leg vs. neck portion of Misawa/Kawada was just them 'killing time', for instance. In a way it is of course, because it's set out as something for them to do for 10-minutes to take the match right the way down before building things all the way back up. But, Misawa retaliating as he did is a very strong detail in the 'this is Kawada's night!' feel of the match up until the final showdown; or, it works into the story of the match.

[MJH]

So matches are good based on if they accomplish their stated goal. Were Hogan and Andre trying to have a good match? No, and they succeeded. So does that mean by not having a good match, they had a good match? I think going based on wrestler intent is a slippery slope.

That wasn't quite my point (though I'll frequently admit to not being to best at getting my points across in the most succinct fashion ).

 

By 'does it work', I don't mean, 'Austin and Bret were trying for a double-switch and they pulled it off' or anything like that, nor anything to do with the promoter's intention when they booked it. Sometimes I do think it's worth baring in mind, as, say, the whole argument over Shawn nipping up on HHH in his return match forgets the fact that the nip-up had to be there as an 'I'm back!' moment for Shawn, and Hunter's character had to work the back, ergo...

 

What I mean is, basically, people shouldn't consider 'logic' and 'storytelling' as the be-all-and-end-all in matches where they're clearly not a part of what the wrestlers are going for. To do so misses the point. It would be like criticising a fantasy novel for not being realistic. So, in that instance, 'yes' is the answer to the question of the thread. Hence 'at times' in answering the question myself at the start of the post.

[Jingus]

So matches are good based on if they accomplish their stated goal. Were Hogan and Andre trying to have a good match? No, and they succeeded. So does that mean by not having a good match, they had a good match? I think going based on wrestler intent is a slippery slope.

It is a slippery slope, but it's still something which needs to be taken into account to some extent. To go back to the movie metaphor: I don't expect the same things from Apocalypse Now compared to what I expect from Hobo With a Shotgun. I adore both films with all my heart, but they're clearly not even trying to accomplish anything close to the same goals. There's no good objective, universal paradigm for evaluating both of them under an identical set of criteria.

 

Along those lines, I've never understood why so many people are willing to bury Andre/Hogan '87 as such a terrible match. Why was it bad? Because it was kinda slow? Who cares? Despite what many people think, "fast action = great match" isn't some kind of unbreakable commandment. So why else was it bad? Blown spots? No, there really weren't any, aside from Andre's airball when headbutting the post. Bad psychology? Hell no, they did everything almost perfectly in terms of choosing what to do and when. What else? I'm at a loss to think of any other reasons why we'd call this match a dud. The only logical explanation for why it gets so much hate is simple popularity backlash. Much like a James Cameron movie, Andre/Hogan gets hated on simply because it got SO over and drew so much money, and some people (coughMeltzercough) don't like the idea that this sort of wrestling seems to be what most fans really want to see.

 

(And besides, those guys had several matches together which were MUCH worse than the one at the Silverdome. Whenever someone's bitching about this match, they seem to forget all the shittier encounters that these guys had.)

[Loss]

Fair enough. I get where you're coming from.

 

But I think about something like the Michaels/Ramon ladder match that has the great highspots but is still fundamentally a wrestling match too. There is a focus to it and there is a "why" behind most of what they do that's a little deeper than most WWF matches, which is why I like it so much. So while I do think there is something to that and it's mostly correct, it's also worth bearing in mind that sometimes the matches that are intended to be a collection of daredevil spots accomplish that goal while still being a fundamentally sound match. Those matches should be held as the gold standard.

[Loss]

So matches are good based on if they accomplish their stated goal. Were Hogan and Andre trying to have a good match? No, and they succeeded. So does that mean by not having a good match, they had a good match? I think going based on wrestler intent is a slippery slope.

It is a slippery slope, but it's still something which needs to be taken into account to some extent. To go back to the movie metaphor: I don't expect the same things from Apocalypse Now compared to what I expect from Hobo With a Shotgun. I adore both films with all my heart, but they're clearly not even trying to accomplish anything close to the same goals. There's no good objective, universal paradigm for evaluating both of them under an identical set of criteria.

 

Along those lines, I've never understood why so many people are willing to bury Andre/Hogan '87 as such a terrible match. Why was it bad? Because it was kinda slow? Who cares? Despite what many people think, "fast action = great match" isn't some kind of unbreakable commandment. So why else was it bad? Blown spots? No, there really weren't any, aside from Andre's airball when headbutting the post. Bad psychology? Hell no, they did everything almost perfectly in terms of choosing what to do and when. What else? I'm at a loss to think of any other reasons why we'd call this match a dud. The only logical explanation for why it gets so much hate is simple popularity backlash. Much like a James Cameron movie, Andre/Hogan gets hated on simply because it got SO over and drew so much money, and some people (coughMeltzercough) don't like the idea that this sort of wrestling seems to be what most fans really want to see.

 

(And besides, those guys had several matches together which were MUCH worse than the one at the Silverdome. Whenever someone's bitching about this match, they seem to forget all the shittier encounters that these guys had.)

 

Hogan/Andre was a bad match because of bad mechanics. Things like Hogan gingerly falling on the mat when Andre reversed the piledriver attempt on the floor looked awful.

[Jingus]

Hogan/Andre was a bad match because of bad mechanics. Things like Hogan gingerly falling on the mat when Andre reversed the piledriver attempt on the floor looked awful.

Yeah, there were a few sloppy moments. But that's all they were, a few sloppy moments. There weren't that many of them, and they didn't look that bad. Compare it to, say, Hogan/Warror '98 where they were botching literally half of everything they tried. But Meltzer et al keep hammering on this one match as if it were one of the very worst atrocities to ever occur in a wrestling ring. And for the sake of argument: even if that were true, does it matter? There were clearly 93,000 82,000 78,000 a whole shitload of fans in attendance who were completely satisfied and reacted as if this was the greatest match they'd ever seen in their life. Simple popularity should never be the primary factor considered while critiquing something, but it should definitely play its part.

[Loss]

Actually, I would say it never, ever should -- at least in the way we talk about matches. But that goes for any medium. In the way the promotion, the wrestlers or casual observers watch, sure, why not, but when breaking down the whole of a match and looking at its ingredients, I don't think it should be a factor. If you look at a critics picks list of best movies for 2011, then look at the biggest blockbusters, the lists aren't going to be the same. And that's okay.

 

But Hogan/Andre again backs up by Michaels/Ramon example, which is that we've seen matches before between equally big stars (like Austin/Rock) that have delivered all the things they need to deliver for business reasons, yet still managed to be fundamentally good or excellent wrestling matches. I won't say that the mechanics are the only thing that matters. Austin and Rock being Austin and Rock helps make the match too. So maybe I'm agreeing with you without realizing it, I don't know.

[FLIK]

Trying to think of who some of the known biggest tape-watching nerds in wrestling are.

 

Rey, Juventud, Waltman ... I'm sure there are others. Name them.

Chris Hero

 

The phase he went trough after first discovering WOS produced some horrid stuff and led to him becoming my least fav wrestler in the world for quite a while

[Kostka]

I'll point again to the Hansen-Taue match from Carny '94, which I'm really hoping makes the Yearbook cut. People need to see what a very well executed one-note match looks like. And then ponder whether they want every match to look like that.

After tracking this match down and watching it, my answer is yes. The story the match told was simple, but it was executed at a very high level, with focused and engaging work on the ribs by Taue, and Hansen selling it like a God, with his only offense coming from Taues big mistake (flying elbow). Even though that gave him a window to shut down Taue, his bad ribs gave him problems for the rest of the match...and thats how Taue ultimately cut him off to pull off the upset. It may have been "one note", but I wish more wrestlers could hit ANY note as well as these guys hit one. Great match.

[Jingus]

Actually, I would say it never, ever should -- at least in the way we talk about matches. But that goes for any medium. In the way the promotion, the wrestlers or casual observers watch, sure, why not, but when breaking down the whole of a match and looking at its ingredients, I don't think it should be a factor. If you look at a critics picks list of best movies for 2011, then look at the biggest blockbusters, the lists aren't going to be the same. And that's okay.

I do think that casual popularity matters, because it certainly matters to the performers and their bosses. A lot of the planning that goes into the matches and angles are specifically designed to get over with the popular majority, not a niche minority of internet critics and hardcore fans. We can't ignore that aspect, because it plays such an important role in so many of the creative decisions which go into these things. A lot of the entire "why they do what they do, including where and when" process of psychology is aimed directly at the cheap seats. Which connects back to some of the points from earlier, like Sabu's psychology of "the fans won't care about how long this guy is laying on this table and they'll pop like crazy once I dive through it".

 

Of course popularity =/= artistic quality; if nothing else, the former is a lot easier to measure in some sort of objective way than the latter. Heck, the Hall of Fame arguments always play up that part of entertainment when they talk about how much any particular guy drew during his career. The entire case for guys like Big Daddy seems to be "a lot of fans really liked him for a long time".

 

I do think it's vital to keep in mind the intent and motivation of the artist when talking about the art. (Sometimes that's easier said than done, if the artist in particular is some reclusive type who refuses to discuss their process.) And I think it's also important to analyze how and why the general audience responds to some things much more than others. Why the hell are those godawful Twilight and wretched Transformers movies so frigging successful, anyway? Why are they so much more popular than all the other movies which seem so similar, yet sold many fewer tickets? That's an area of critical study which I think often goes very underrepresented. If we're going to judge the relative merits of all wrestling matches, I think it's appropriate to spend some time deconstructing just exactly how and why Hogan/Andre became such a beloved memory and such a massive draw among the proletariat.

[goodhelmet]

I never ever watched a Flair match thinking "If he hits a cross-body of a top rope, it's over.". Ever. It's not exactly Misawa's Tiger Driver 91. Really, the spot doesn't go beyond "get on the top, get tossed" line of thinking.

 

Flair really didn't had much of anything in term of "game ender". Even the vaunted figure-four was more than usual reversed by the babyface. Flair really wasn't a "game ender" kinda worker. He was a "dumb bitch stealing victories by cheating" worker. Which made all of his charm too.

And I never looked at Flair as a dumb bitch... he always carried himself as the smartest and best wrestler, specifically in his prime (even if you want to argue he wasn't). Plus, it isn't what you think of Flair but trying to make sense of why Flair would go to the top every match... because he won a fucking world title with the move and has never lost directly after taking the bump when it fails. The Flair Flop feels more like something that you can be critical of because it isn't a spot he does really well (Greg Valentine was awesome at the flop) or always fit into the match.