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

[goodhelmet]

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

 

What year?

[FLIK]

What year?

I wanna say early 2000's, starting circa 02 and going on for a while afterwards. Whatever year was it he was having those awful 30 min matches w Trik Davis in IWA MS was probably the peak of my dislike for him. I was a big fan of his before then and i've come back around a bit on him in the past year or 2 but yeah for a time to me he was the epitome of "masturbatory" wrestler.

[Victator]

Were Hogan and Andre trying to have a good match?

Yes and they did.

[Bix]

What year?

I wanna say early 2000's, starting circa 02 and going on for a while afterwards. Whatever year was it he was having those awful 30 min matches w Trik Davis in IWA MS was probably the peak of my dislike for him. I was a big fan of his before then and i've come back around a bit on him in the past year or 2 but yeah for a time to me he was the epitome of "masturbatory" wrestler.

 

A decent amount of that stuff was supposed to be that way. The IWA stuff that led to his heel turn (where they'd do commentary about how he was relying on cravates too much and letting his matches go too long) and the CZW run (where his gimmick was "masturbatory show-off indy wrestler") come to mind.

[MJH]

Michael Cole is supposed to be annoying; it doesn't mean him being so is necessarilly a good thing, nor that we should praise him for it.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ric Flair claiming to be the best wrestler in the world and proceeding to out wrestle his opponent doesn't work in a pro-wrestling context because the crowd wants the exact opposite. Flair claiming to be a better wrestler than his opponent was a form of intimidation. At the end of the day what he really meant was that he knew all the tricks, and since his definition of being the best in the world meant wearing the gold, he would do anything to retain his title. The whole sports analogy falls apart for me for the simple reason that when he was a face he hit moves more often than when he was a heel, and most of the time he came off the top in a blind panic. The whole point of Flair's schtick is that it all unravels and he looks like the Emperor with no clothes. It just doesn't work as a sports analogy and there's no point thinking about it like that. If you wanna kayfabe it, then I think he panicked when the pressure was on. The real reason is that people wanted to see the spot in the same way they wanted to see James Brown get injured and leave the stage, etc., but most of Flair's matches involved an escalating sense of panic. Early on in a match, he'd beg off to trick his opponent into an inside shot, but as the match wore on the begging off more and more legitimate. You could probably write an entire treatise on Flair choking.

[Bix]

Michael Cole is supposed to be annoying; it doesn't mean him being so is necessarilly a good thing, nor that we should praise him for it.

I didn't say that it was necessarily a good idea (well, I liked CZW Hero; the IWA Hero gets frustrated by Michrome's criticisms of him and turns heel stuff was just strange), but criticizing a wrestler for having long masturbatory WoS cosplay matches when his gimmick was that he was making a mistake by having long masturbatory WoS cosplay matches seems misguided.

 

Also, Michael Cole does a good job at being annoying. If he was a manager, he'd be fantastic. The problem is that he's the lead announcer.

[FLIK]

The problem is I don't buy that he was working a gimmick, atleast not at first. Eventually it evolved into one sure but not during the time frame i'm talking about. He wasn't working back then as ECW era RVD, guy who thinks he's the whole f'n show and wants to show off how cool he is. He wasn't working as over confident guy, underestimating his opponents and toying with them to purposely drag the matches out. He was just a dude who blatantly was doing stuff because he saw it on a tape and thought it looked cool and seemed like he couldn't care less if it entertained the ppl who were watching or not, name droping obscure foreign wrestlers names on commentary at a show he was working in front of like 40 fans in some southern US high school gym to sound smart and draging his matches out excessively just for the sake of it.

 

Don't remember which specific show but I recall at one of the Chikara tag tournaments him & Claudio having like 20 min matches with Sumie Sakai & Ranmaru and Hydra & someone else i'm blanking on. I'm one of the few guys left who does still really love long matches but stuff like that really had no business at all getting as much time as it did and is an example of him at his worst.

 

Only times I really enjoyed any of his stuff was when he was wrestling Eddie Kingston since while I don't know if it's true or not (and if it isn't I don't wanna know) I 100% bought that they genuinely dislike each other and their feud was built around good ole fashion "I wanna punch your face in" hatred.

[Matt D]

We can never know intent. Even when they TELL us the intent in a shoot or interview or commentary or what have you, we still can't know it. All that we can judge on is what we see. If that means we end up connecting dots that were never meant to be connected, well, it means something that the dots were there in the first place. And if those dots are there over a huge run of matches? Well, that probably means something. To me, having a "great match" doesn't mean nearly as much as a large body of work that shows signs of things I like.

 

A match like Hogan/Warrior at WM VI was absolutely laid out by someone like Pat Patterson. Should that fact matter? Savage faxed a script long enough to be War and Peace to Steamboat pre WM III. Should that matter? Intent is a bitch and context makes things interesting and is worth knowing BUT art is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

 

i know to me, I like watching a lot of work by a wrestler, in context, and then I judge more on the whole of what I've seen the wrestler do than any specific match. I don't look for great matches. I look forand tend to appreciate great work in context. I also lean away towards stuff I know are least likely to tell a story, because at this point of my viewing life, I know it'll just frustrate me. That's just me. It's ultimately subjective. Some people might enjoy moves and action and spectacle, or yeah, pacing might be the most important thing to them, and they're no more wrong or right than anyone else, but it sure makes discussion tricky sometimes.

[jdw]

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.

Will: it was pointed out earlier in the thread that Ric was hitting moves off the top rope in one stretch of his career with some regularity. They didn't win matches. The Press was never the only thing Ric did off the top, so it's a massive stretch to think:

 

1. Ric is going to the top

2. Ric must be trying to hit the press

3. if Ric hits it, that it!

 

When we went whole years where we saw:

 

1. Ric is going to the top

2. Ric must be trying to get Tossed Off The Top

3. if Ric gets Tossed Off The Top the fans will Pop

 

You love Ric. I'm sure others here love Ric. Can anyone point me to all the Ric matches available in 1988 and run that stats on:

 

A. Number of times Ric tried to go to the top

B. Number of times Ric got tossed off

C. Number of times he failed in other ways (and the specific ways)

D. Number of times he was successful (and what he did)

 

If you go an entire year without winning with the press while failing left and right, why exactly would a fan be thinking about Ric "hitting something" rather than Ric "getting tossed off the top"?

 

I remember the Super Sonics winning the NBA Title once.

 

I don't watch an OKC game and expect them to win the NBA Title... until they actually do it again.

 

John

[jdw]

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.

I suspect Ric lost directly from going to the top. Harley loved to roll through for pins, as did Steamboat. There are probably some examples on all those 70s clips. Common finish.

 

John

[MikeCampbell]

I'm just talking hypothetically here, although I'd love to sit down with a bunch of Flair matches and check it out, but couldn't one argue that Flair intentionally does things like that in order to lull his opponent into a false sense of security? They think they've got Flair right where they want him, and then Flair can pounce with the nutshot or roll them up and grab the tights/ropes and keep the title?

[El-P]

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).

Well, the fact is, he wasn't. Flair was a cheater. That's the whole character. Flair was the "dirtiest player in the game", a guy who would cheat to win.

 

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.

Ok, let's take this other exemple. The real only "game ender" of Flair was the figure four. It was sold as Flair's biggest and most efficient weapon.

 

How many time Flair won a major title with the figure four ?

How many time Flair got the figure four reversed by a babyface who never use it usually, or got roll up while trying to go the figure four ?

 

I'm pretty sure the stats would not be overly positive in favor of Flair here, despite the fact the Figure Four was supposed to be Flair's specialty. A crossbody from the top wasn't. Never has been. Flair going to the top never screamed "game ender" but "Flair gets tossed". Trying to put more into this because Flair was booked to win twice with it it clearly overinterpretation.

[El-P]

Ric Flair claiming to be the best wrestler in the world and proceeding to out wrestle his opponent doesn't work in a pro-wrestling context because the crowd wants the exact opposite. Flair claiming to be a better wrestler than his opponent was a form of intimidation. At the end of the day what he really meant was that he knew all the tricks, and since his definition of being the best in the world meant wearing the gold, he would do anything to retain his title. The whole sports analogy falls apart for me for the simple reason that when he was a face he hit moves more often than when he was a heel, and most of the time he came off the top in a blind panic. The whole point of Flair's schtick is that it all unravels and he looks like the Emperor with no clothes. It just doesn't work as a sports analogy and there's no point thinking about it like that. If you wanna kayfabe it, then I think he panicked when the pressure was on. The real reason is that people wanted to see the spot in the same way they wanted to see James Brown get injured and leave the stage, etc., but most of Flair's matches involved an escalating sense of panic. Early on in a match, he'd beg off to trick his opponent into an inside shot, but as the match wore on the begging off more and more legitimate. You could probably write an entire treatise on Flair choking.

I couldn't agree more. That's actually exactly how I see Flair.

[goodhelmet]

Unless OJ wants to correct me, I can agree with his assessment also but nowhere in there did he call him a dumb, weak bitch. Besides jdw and Jerome, did anyone else watching wrestling in the 80s ever think of Ric Flair as a dumb weak bitch?

[ohtani's jacket]

I wouldn't call him dumb as he always managed to escape with the title or win it back again. And I wouldn't call him weak either, since the last Flair match I woatched was an '85 bout against Garvin where the beat the shit out of each other. I just think that Flair getting caught off the tope is a different part of his characterisation from the cocksure promos he delivers beforehand.

[goodhelmet]

That's reasonable.

[JerryvonKramer]

Finally getting round to this:

 

(1) Wrestling is not "fake fighting", and I never have cared for that term. It's "fake sport". There is a difference. In theory, the competitors should be trained and skilled. This is why I get so frustrated by arguments that Rey isn't credible. He's trained and highly skilled. He can perform moves that other wrestlers can't. This makes him credible within the confines of a sport. It's not about looking at guys on a surface level and making assumptions about who would win in a shoot. That's not how I see credibility. That mindset is simply a byproduct of Vince McMahon and steroids.

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.

 

For a wrestler of Rey's size, it's important he is really good in the ring, because that's where he gets his credibility. If a small guy can't sell convincingly and can't execute his offensive repertoire competently, it's going to be impossible for him to get over. Big guys like the Great Khali have shortcuts at their disposal that Rey doesn't to make them credible, so maybe they don't have to be quite as highly skilled to be successful. But even their credibility is not based on look alone. Khali is clumsy and has trouble executing basic wrestling moves. Maybe if they met in an alley, Khali would clean Rey's clock, but they are meeting in a ring, which is supposed to be athletic competition, and skill matters as much as or more than toughness.

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.

 

Also, the basic goal of a wrestler is not to hurt their opponent, it's to win a match. Sometimes, there is no way to win a match without hurting the opponent, so that's why they do things that hurt. But in good wrestling, the end result is to win.

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?

 

So looping this all back together, good wrestlers are skilled and have credibility.

Unless they are 300lb+ and over 6' 5 ...(within the logic of the kayfabe world)

 

Good matches have wrestlers trying to win them.

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).

 

I don't like comparing wrestling to fighting because barfighters, as a rule, don't train for their sport.

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.

 

(1) Good movies are much, much more common than good wrestling matches. If you look at bad wrestling matches, what are most of them missing that keep them from being good? Your milage may very, and your answer may differ depending on which style, promotion, or era you're thinking about. But for the American wrestling fan, we often find that to be something not done particularly well in bad matches. So yes, I agree that having a match that makes sense is just basic competence, not greatness. The point was never anything to the contrary. The point was more that it's impossible to achieve greatness without that basic competence. Why is this discussed? Because often times, we see wrestlers who learned to run before they learned to walk, so they have some impressive tools at their disposal, and no clue how to properly use them.

Ok this makes sense. No arguments from me there.

 

No. Wrestling is not realistic. Realism and believability are two words I try to stay away from when discussing wrestling. Plausibility is not a word I shy away from. Neither is logic. There are some death-defying wrestling moves -- and some mundane regular moves -- that aren't particularly realistic. But they don't have to be.

 

I think I have talked about this before, but I see wrestling as mythological. A wrestling promotion can set up their mythology to be whatever they want it to be. Certain moves are more dangerous than others. Certain wrestlers are more dangerous than others. Certain things matter and certain things don't. Those of us who watch a great variety of wrestling all the time have had to learn to shift paradigms constantly. I have preferences like anyone does, but for the most part I'm pretty lenient about what that mythology should entail. What I care about is a viewer is that mythological consistency. If the piledriver is a dangerous move, and someone sells it in half-assed fashion, that's bad bad bad. If the piledriver is a transitional move and someone sells it in half-assed fashion, maybe that's a little less grating.

 

Booking establishes the norms and frameworks for the wrestlers to work within.

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?

 

No. It's the bare minimum. Matches that don't accomplish that bare minimum can't be good, no matter what else they have going. Great matches just continue expanding on that.

NO NO NO. No one ever said it was the only thing that mattered. That has been said by me in this thread multiple times (and ignored every time). It is the bare minimum. The point is that if a wrestling match can't make sense, it can't possibly be good, NOT that all it takes for a wrestling match to be good is for it to make sense.

 

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)

[JerryvonKramer]

Regarding "working the leg," I think it depends on what's happening in the match. Most of the time they're doing it because they're in a wrestling match. Sometimes they do it because they're a heel or a fired up babyface, at which point it's a type of characterisation. But if they really hate each other and have some sort of vendetta, then you've at least got the makings of a story.

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.

 

Also worth noting: If you look at the percentage of great wrestling to bad wrestling, the bad wrestling percentage is way higher. I'm not sure if the ratio of bad books, bad movies and bad music to good is higher (it very well may be), but sometimes, basic competency receives praise because basic competency is not something that's a given. The bar is admittedly low sometimes, because there's so much bad stuff out there. On a show with 8 matches, if one match is generally logical, it's going to receive praise -- maybe more than it deserves -- because it's surrounded by so much crap. Proper context matters a ton.

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.

 

I praise movies for set up. And I get annoyed if something is brought up in the third act when it wasn't in the first.

 

But I kind of get my kicks from script structure (and love todd alcott's website for instance). It's just how I'm wired. That said, it's just part of a whole. If one thing is set up really well and every else is a mess, well.. yeah.

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.

 

The percentage of great to bad is the same in any medium. The difference between wrestling and other creative endeavours is that at every stage of the creative process be it scriptwriting or songwriting or even shooting a film there is the chance for revision. Basic competency in these endeavours doesn't come easily but you can achieve it by reworking what you've created. If I rewrite a screenplay a dozen times it's going to be a lot more competent than the first time I wrote it regardless of how good I am at structuring a story. In wrestling, you can only really improve your match by doing it again and even if you do the same match night after night on the houseshow circuit you still need to produce your improved performance live. It's a much different discipline. Wrestlers don't labour over a match for a year like writers do with a screenplay. It doesn't take two or three years to produce a match like it does a film. The closest analogy is probably a prolific songwriter, but they still craft their work far more than a wrestler does. But really, most wrestling sucks because it's not important. Aside from matches that disappoint, there's no reason for most wrestling to be any better than it is. Take the Tito/Bossman match I watched earlier tonight. Theoretically, Tito and the Bossman had a great match in them but there was no reason to have one. Thankfully, some wrestling environments are better than others when it comes to the motivation or incentive to have a great match, but 90% of the time it's missing.

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 ...

 

You're going 20 minutes. You can be like Kenta Kobashi and just work a spot-o-rama because your working of holds is for shit. Or you can be like Tito, who doesn't have 20 minutes of highspots like Kenta opposite Misawa, so you need to find 7 minutes of stuff to do when you're topping early in the match. You do know how to work the leg in a way that keeps the crowd engaged *if* your opponent is good and willing enough to work the holds with you from the bottom. Reasonably smart psych in filling the body of the match until it's time to pick it up? Hmm... Tito knows the figure four to come back to late in the match to, if done right, play off that legwork if anyone is paying attention? Yeah... reasonably smart. But even if people don't remember, you've at least found an effective way to kill 7 minutes if you do it well.

 

Wrestling cards are 2 hours. You can't have a card of 8 matches going 5-8 minutes of Nitro-style matches that everyone now seems to be giving snowflakes-o-plenty to. Some of the folks need to go longer. And few of those folks can pull off spot-o-ramas like Kenta. So they need to put a little thought into filling that time. Whether they pull it off well or not... that's something we argue about.

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.

 

That can backfire too, though. Remember the boring-as-hell Morton/Gibson match from Bash '91? That's a grudge match which should've been a crazy fiery brawl, with the wronged Robert trying to beat the evil out of his turnabout partner Ricky. But they went work-the-leg instead, and took forever doing it, and ruined what might've been the only good match on paper for that card.

... because wrestling is about more than just the match.

 

If you read 8 random novels from this year, I bet at least 7 would make sense. Some might be good. Most would probably be bad, but a huge majority would have basic coherence. as you said, on a card, you might get one match out of eight like that.

 

THAT is why it stands out so much. In almost every other medium, it's a given. In wrestling, it's anything but.

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)

[ohtani's jacket]

How can you get over what a lowdown heel you are while working an incoherent match? Wouldn't a successful portrayal of a lowdown heel add some coherency to the match? Both A and B sound like crap, though.

[JerryvonKramer]

[this is unconnected to the main thread]

 

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.

"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.

[JerryvonKramer]

Working an arm or leg is the pro-wrestling equivalent of plot.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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.

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)

[Gregor]

That can backfire too, though. Remember the boring-as-hell Morton/Gibson match from Bash '91? That's a grudge match which should've been a crazy fiery brawl, with the wronged Robert trying to beat the evil out of his turnabout partner Ricky. But they went work-the-leg instead, and took forever doing it, and ruined what might've been the only good match on paper for that card.

... because wrestling is about more than just the match.

 

I don't know how this proves that wrestling is about more than just the match. Richard Morton does what one would expect Richard Morton to do in that match. He is a member of the York Foundation, a stable that takes instruction from a computer. Robert Gibson is wearing a big knee brace and is not terribly far removed from major knee surgery. The computer would probably size up Gibson's strengths and weaknesses and determine that Morton can win if he attacks the knee. This plays out in a boring way, so the match is boring. Even though everything is logical, the crowd is pretty quiet throughout it.

[Matt D]

There was a lot of other stuff going on with that match, though. Context. No one really wanted to see Gibson fight Morton. And those poor bastards had to sit through a PN News Scaffold match first.

[Loss]

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.

This is why wrestlers "playing their role well" is important. Undersized wrestlers should be underdogs when facing larger opponents. No one wants to see Rey as a dominating power wrestler, and no one wants to see Big Show as an overmatched, sympathy-laden underdog. Sure, a lariat is going to hurt more from a stronger guy, but a well-worked match is one, to me, where the winner outwrestles the loser, not just one where he kicks the loser's ass.

 

There are exceptions to every rule, including this one. But generally speaking, I have no problems with bigger guys losing to smaller guys if the work in the ring is good enough to put it in its proper perspective.

 

On the subject of weight classes, since this was brought up, I think they're a good idea in general. I just have a problem with a cruiserweight division being treated like a midcard division. Ideally, you put just as much focus there as you do on the heavies, and the wrestlers in that division are big enough stars to headline a PPV, or you don't have the division at all. That would take years and a massive re-education effort to happen in this country in 2012, so I would rather see no weight classes at all.

 

"Surface level" is something that can't be ignored.

Of course it doesn't get ignored, but it's not the end-all be-all, and if the wrestlers involved are working their roles properly, there's nothing inherently wrong with either guy winning or either guy losing. I have zero issue with a smaller guy beating a bigger guy, as long as he's good enough that I was *convinced* through the work in the ring that it was deserved. Again, this is why skill and credibility are so tied together. There are cases where it seems like the wrestlers are doing everything "properly" in terms of selling, taking bumps, etc., but I don't consider that an example of a good big guy versus little guy match. The size difference shouldn't be ignored. It should be played up and made part of the general story of the match.

 

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?

Somewhat.

 

Yes, most of the bigger matches do have a grudge to complement the ring work, and that's a big part of what makes wrestling fun to watch. Where I think we differ is that I'm taking from your points that you see these other things as attractions/entities on their own.

 

Angles and promos happen to make fans watch and care about matches. Gimmicks exist to make wrestlers marketable, and ideally, if it's a good gimmick, maybe add heat to the match too. Matches that happen to make people care about angles and promos ... that's just backwards. Occasionally, you get something like the larynx crushing of Steamboat in '86 that was a fun match, but the angle was the takeaway. So sometimes, one match leads to another match. But it's wrestling. The things that take place on a good wrestling show that aren't in-ring action should be to generate interest in an upcoming match. Otherwise, they're a waste of time.

 

Unless they are 300lb+ and over 6' 5 ...(within the logic of the kayfabe world)

I think most people can see the difference between a big guy who can't really do anything and a big guy who knows his stuff. Guys like Hogan, the Road Warriors and Goldberg who aren't great wrestlers in the traditional sense are pointed to as the rule sometimes that fans don't care about that stuff.

 

That's incorrect. Those guys are the exception. If you looked at the 100 biggest names in wrestling history, there will be more wrestlers who are good in the ring than who are bad in the ring. And even Goldberg, Hogan and the Road Warriors weren't bad in the ring as much as they were limited. And people like late-era Andre and late-era Kobashi may have been smart enough to get by based on facial expressions, timing, name value and tricks they learned along the way, but neither of them would have gotten over working that way as newcomers. Look at Zeus for a big example of that. And both of them were pretty spry in their younger days when they made their name.

 

Size adds to credibility. Size alone does not get anyone over. To say that is to ignore the other positives some of the bigger guys who have become stars have brought to the table.

 

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).

I'm not sure the matches you cited are good matches, but a match can serve more than one purpose. I would say "I am going to get my revenge by beating this guy to a pulp and then taking his title" is a pretty common theme.

 

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.

The bolded part is where we fundamentally disagree. The wrestling match is the entirety. Everything else that happens is life support for the match. If it's not, you're not watching good wrestling. The WWF has probably done it a few times, but how many times have you seen a successful show headlined by an interview? Meaning the interview was the selling point of the show and the show drew well based on that. Probably a few times with guys who again are exceptions, but it's not typically how wrestling is conducted. And training videos used to be a classic way to debut a madman. The bullshit is part of what makes watching wrestling fun, but I just don't think they should stray too far from the basics.

 

You're citing some things about wrestling that I wouldn't call "good", even if one can get some enjoyment out of them in a campy, ironic way. If you look at wrestling's origins, until the past 30 years or so, it was typically presented as a sport first and the other things were secondary. Tempers flared because it was an aggressive sport, which is how the rivalries were created. Maybe you bring your wife to a match that's personally important to you and she ends up in the line of fire. Maybe you have a tag match coming up with your partner of many years, but you're having some problems getting along, and he betrays you because he feels you took actions in the match that were proof positive of the problems you've been having. The conflict originated from something match-related and will be resolved by something else match-related. Perhaps in between Point A (the inciting event) and Point C (the payoff) there will be a Point B where the wrestler who turned on his tag team partner explains himself.

 

Building those things as attractions unto themselves is a fairly new phenomenon, and I think one of your issues is that you're using 80s WWF as a standard bearer for what a wrestling promotion should be. It worked at the time and I won't deny that, but it's not really within the framework of what we're talking about.

 

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.

I think historically, that differed depending on where the wrestling was taking place. It was a product of the local culture. Now that wrestling is national, it's a product of the national culture. Also, your argument doesn't apply globally, because not every Japanese match that's great has a clear face and clear heel. Many do, but it's not something that is always there.

 

Anyway, I don't need it to be established within a wrestling mythology that stealing and beating up old ladies is wrong. It's inherent. The things that aren't inherent will differ depending on the location and target audience of the promotion. Some offenses meant more in 1987 WWF than 1997 WWF because of a shift in the promotion's target audience. Some things probably meant more to the 1978 Memphis audience than the 1978 WWWF audience. A good wrestling promotion is in tune with their target audience and when they do things for heat, they know their audience well enough to know what types of things will piss them off.

 

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?

They're both bad matches. Which is better or worse is probably a matter of personal tastes. There's no either/or at play here -- theoretically, a good match has elements of both or it's not good.

 

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.

Yes. Maybe not the DUD pile, but it won't be great. I know where you're going in some ways. Late 70s post-punk had a lot of bands that could write a hell of a song that couldn't play very well. Yet the songs were terrific. I just don't think the analogy works for wrestling, because wrestling is not a medium that lends itself well to new or different ideas. There's less room for expression, and the formulas are there because they work.

 

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?

Wrestle with some urgency. Play to the crowd. All the things you have pointed out that matter. I agree with you there.