Wrestling Fans & Motivations

[Superstar Sleeze]

I was watching Randy Savage vs Lex Luger from Souled Out 1997 and I enjoyed the match as a sort of sprint main event with great heeling and just that constant motion from Savage. He was just suffocating Luger. Luger was great at selling especially verbally. The Luger comeback in the ring was cliche, but the end of the show the last image is Savage getting racked and Sting putting Hogan in the Scorpion Deathlock. WCW sending the fans home happy coupled with the great chemistry that Savage and Luger had I found the match to be pretty enjoyable. So I figure given the names and timeframes I am sure the reviewers shit on this match because of their blind dislike for these two wrestlers and the WCW main event scene. Part of me wanted to understand what people did not like about a match that I thought never dipped below average once.

The following is from Sharpshooter Review published on 411mania in 2010

 

Main Event:Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage.

Man, this would have been a great match in 1989. Too bad it’s1998, though. Michael Buffer does his typical announcer. LET’SSSSS GET READDYYYY TO SUCK IT BUFFER! They are playing a song I remember from some porno. Oh wait, it is just nWo’s music. Both wrestlers get barely a reaction from the crowd, as the crowd’s burnt out from, well, good wrestling. Savage runs away from Luger. Elisabeth hits Luger in the back. Savage sends Luger back in the ring. Savage comes off with a double axe handle for two. Savage has a nice bald spot going out. OOOOHH YEAH! Savage is giving the ref some heat because he is a heel. Savage chokes Luger because he is a heel. Elisabeth chokes Luger because she is a heel. But how could Elisabeth ever want to be with Luger? He does nothing for society. All he does is waste space! I take it all back. I swear, Luger! We all love you! They’re outside the ring brawling, for a lot longer than ten seconds. TNA steals so many WCW ideas! Now what’s the deal with companies stealing stupid ideas? Back in the ring, Luger hits the powerslam. Hall and Hogan come out, but Hogan stops Hall. Savage goes right into Hall, and then Luger puts in the RACK ( 7:02 ). nWo all do a beat down on Luger, but Sting makes the save. Luger puts in the RACK on Nash. Sting puts in the Deathlock on Hogan. Blah. ½*

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I don't mind him shitting on the match. I expected that. I really thought there was a systemic disconnect between how smart/internet/hardcore fans may view wrestling motivations in a modern context. Savage did NOT do all those things because he is a heel. He is a heel because he did all those things in the context of how, why, when, where and to whom. It such a simple point, but it is so critical. The first is a man playing role and needing to check boxes in order to accomplish a task. The second is a man that has performed certain actions that are reprehensible and despicable causing you to loathe that man. The first perspective is totally cold and analytic. The second is emotional. How you would react if someone swiped a referee for no apparent reason?

 

Pro wrestling should hit in you in the gut. It is something you feel. I get that not every heel performance is going to raise your dander or have your fist shaking at the TV, but to view wrestling in a manner like Wrestler X did a spot because he is a heel or he is a face or because he is a coward or a blue collar working man or an egomaniac or an respected champion defeats its purpose. Your choices and actions define who you are. You want to understand why someone did something, but throwing a blanket, catch-all term is a disservice to great wrestling. The information my co-workers, friends and family evaluate me on is on things I say and do. Each new action allows them to re-evaluate who I am and all the different facets of me. If this re-evaluation is not taking place, wrestlers and wrestling becomes static. If we just chock up decisions of wrestlers to who they are at specific time, we are not learning about them. The disconnect between mind and gut that wrestling causes matches to become passionless and artificial.

 

In a lot of ways, that is how I feel about current WWE save for a few like Rusev and Sheamus. I recognize what I am watching is good to great wrestling, but it is at the point where the wrestlers and agents just know what good wrestling is supposed to look like they just go through the motions. I think fans really do dictate the wrestling we see. Maybe not in terms of the pushes, but how the action is worked. You will explicitly see at least one match a RAW worked with the intent of getting a "This is Awesome" chant. My brother and I have a new favorite game where we guess how many spots they are a way from the chant breaking out. "Martin, I am telling you they are one spot away", "Brutha, they need at least two more nearfalls.". No one is really trying to win the match, get themselves over or an angle over. The intent of the match is merely entertain the fans. Wrestling should be motivated internally by wrestlers who want to win matches in the context of who they are and what is happening to him. Along the way, they should entertain you otherwise it is a shitty gimmick, angle or match. If the number one is to entertain then everything evaporates. The fans have influenced that greatly in way they respond to matches with a more head-first, gut-second approach. Modern wrestling is not aimed to hit you in the gut. It is played out for your head. It is because wrestling fans have become so disconnected from the product that the wrestling matches we watch now reflect that disconnect.

 

Thank God for the WWE Network and Randy Savage & Lex Luger matches to save the day. Souled Out 1998 main event was a very inspiring main event.

[soup23]

Great post Marty.

 

I think it comes down a lot to expectations going in. Tropes have been around for years that so and so sucks or Junk Food Dog that it becomes second nature and as a viewer, you go in with those predisposed expectation and look for anything to attack and pounce on. Luger and Savage are both old so this must have been a shitty match between two guys over the heel holding down crusierweights that were filling out the undercards. You come for the undercard with WCW PPV's and turn it off before the main event. Nitro was full of great cruiserweight matches. This shit has been spewed for a while now. There is some truth in parts of it but it isn't equal.

 

This is true for everyone though. A couple of months back I watched the Tenryu vs. Araya match from January 1998. I thought it was poor overall and especially Tenryu gave a confusing performance that had no rhyme or reason. I never expect Tenryu to be the most crisp wrestler around, but here he was sloppy and scatterbrained. However, I was a tad reluctant for a minute in really digging into the match on my comments. I do love Tenryu as a wrestler afterall. For about two minutes I pondered this and then said fuck that, I am calling a spade a spade and I stand by Tenryu being garbage in the above match. Sometimes we feel the need to justify or give equal passes to guys we enjoy and are quick to lambast individuals we loathe.

 

Simmons vs. Luger is another good example from Havoc 1991. This has been a divisive match in my wrestling circle lately. I think the main criticism is that both guys especially Luger looked blown up. That only adds to the match for me that they sold a sense of exasperation and fatigue. Whereas Flair sweating like crazy is seen as him working hard and making the most out of a 20 minute match, this was seen as Luger being gassed out and out of it. I think the finish of that match with him adjusting his finisher on Simmons' injured shoulder shows a level of intuitiveness we rarely get in current day wrestling. It is splendid adjustment that showed someone not sucking air and going through the motions.

 

Motivations will always exist of fans. My hope is to try to be as unbiased as possible and let the performance speak for itself.

[TRMD]

Great Post.

 

Agree 1000% with the current WWE paragraph. I think thats the case with modern wrestling as a whole, not just the WWE.

[pol]

On a slightly different tack, I often find (and try to avoid) myself slipping into what I've dubbed the 'checklist method' of evaluating matches - that is, looking at a match and asking myself 'Are they selling well? Are the transitions good? Did they tell a story?' - essentially checking off points of what I consider a good match to be, rather than trying to lose myself in the match and THEN trying to use the aforementioned high-level critical concepts to understand/explain my low-level gut reaction. It's a pretty poisonous attitude (as prescriptivism in any artform tends to be) because it doesn't allow any room for matches that bend or break the rules yet manage to be effective anyway.

[PhilTLL]

On a slightly different tack, I often find (and try to avoid) myself slipping into what I've dubbed the 'checklist method' of evaluating matches - that is, looking at a match and asking myself 'Are they selling well? Are the transitions good? Did they tell a story?' - essentially checking off points of what I consider a good match to be, rather than trying to lose myself in the match and THEN trying to use the aforementioned high-level critical concepts to understand/explain my low-level gut reaction. It's a pretty poisonous attitude (as prescriptivism in any artform tends to be) because it doesn't allow any room for matches that bend or break the rules yet manage to be effective anyway.

I go back and forth with this, trying to find a happy medium between nitpicking things into boredom and not being able to articulate why I liked a match when it's over because I wasn't thinking about it. That's what rewatching is for, I guess.

[Grimmas]

I look at wrestling the same way I look at movies. Some movies and wrestling match I look at and start picking it apart. Some I watch and just think that I am enjoying this. The very best are the ones where you are legit cheering the good guys and booing the villains.

 

If you are one of those assholes that can sit through something like Interstellar and just pick it apart and not be rooting for Murphy in the end or whatever film you actually gets you, if nothing can make you cheer for a babyface in wrestling and hope that a heel loses, than you are in a position to always watch things as a critic. I do kind of feel bad for you in that case, but I do understand it. I just think you are missing out.

[stomperspc]

It is far easier said than done but these days I try to just turn off the analytical part of my brain to an extent when I am watching a match. I know that seems counterintuitive since all of us ultimately analyze matches, won’t worked/what didn’t work, ect. However, I’ve found that when I try to watch a match from the viewpoint of identifying the things that did or didn’t work, it becomes really easy to miss things or miss the bigger picture. The review Superstar Sleeze posted is a good example of that. The reviewer clearly was clearly looking for very specific things from the match that he didn’t get and by doing so he missed that Savage gave a great heel performance in the match, Luger sold well, ect. It’s not being able to see the forest through the trees.

 

During or after a match is over, I’ll know if I enjoyed it or not. I’ll know if the match hooked me in anyway. Then I can go back and think about why it hooked me. Basically, it is watching to get an emotional reaction from the match (hopefully a positive one) and then thinking about why the match was able to get that reaction. Wrestling is too varied and nuanced to go into a match looking for specific things. If you do, you are not allowing yourself to possibly be won over by a style or match element that you never knew you enjoyed before.

[TRMD]

I feel that it takes aways all of my enjoyment if I'm trying to be overly critical with a match. Does the selling make sense? Look painful? Does the match create emotion? Good Finish? Good Story? Psychology? That's about as far as I'm gonna go 95% of the time with my analysis.

 

I get into wrestling. I have fun watching it. Just like any form of entertainment. If I get bent out of shape about a wrestler cutting off someones heat to early, I'm not having fun.

[stomperspc]

I feel that it takes aways all of my enjoyment if I'm trying to be overly critical with a match. Does the selling make sense? Look painful? Does the match create emotion? Good Finish? Good Story? Psychology? That's about as far as I'm gonna go 95% of the time with my analysis.

 

I get into wrestling. I have fun watching it. Just like any form of entertainment. If I get bent out of shape about a wrestler cutting off someones heat to early, I'm not having fun.

 

Yep. I think people can over think it (myself included). Did I enjoy the match? If the answer is yes, then the "bad" selling the match had or any other negative element it might have had must have been offset by positives. There is no formula and once you make it formulaic, you are doing yourself a disservice because there is a whole lot of quality wrestling that you are not allowing yourself to enjoy just because its different.

[PhilTLL]

 

If you are one of those assholes that can sit through something like Interstellar and just pick it apart and not be rooting for Murphy in the end or whatever film you actually gets you, if nothing can make you cheer for a babyface in wrestling and hope that a heel loses, than you are in a position to always watch things as a critic. I do kind of feel bad for you in that case, but I do understand it. I just think you are missing out.

This is a funny example, because while I haven't seen Interstellar yet, plenty of the reviews make it seem like the sort of half-baked sci-fi that falls apart if you think too hard, kind of like Prometheus (and that's been a problem for Nolan himself previously). That's the risk you run when you aim high, and when the souffle falls, it can take the emotional/awe-inspiring moments with it. Movies that give me a lot to think about make me think a lot, and they have to be sewn up pretty tight for me to "fall" for them. I fall for more character dramas and comedies than high-concept, high-plot action and sci-fi (at least the serious kind--I'm a sucker for the MarvelCU), because they have less of a framework to undermine. But I'm more impressed when a complex construction doesn't fall apart.

 

Oddly, I'm more forgiving of wrestling, much more interested in the feel of a match than the checkboxes it hits--checkbox hitting without any conviction or feeling is my issue with so much of modern WWE. In analytical terms I'm usually more prone to just being all "That was great!" when the people here have paragraphs to deliver that awe me into thinking harder, ha. But part of that is not having the same expectations for wrestling and movies--maybe that's not fair to one or the other.

 

Is it okay (for message board purposes) to like a match or a wrestler "just because?" If enjoyment is just enjoyment and is all valid without defense, how can we compare and contrast for all of the neat projects that happen here? There are several names I could put here of guys who are loved by thousands without much critical rigor, but much more fully assessed on PWO. (And yes, I lurk more than I post, the count may have tipped you off.)

I get into wrestling. I have fun watching it. Just like any form of entertainment. If I get bent out of shape about a wrestler cutting off someones heat to early, I'm not having fun.

Absolutely true--but if one guy cuts off the other's heat too early, it might just make the match less enjoyable in the practical sense, not the abstract "That's not what the formula dictates" sense.

 

I edited this like 25 times but I'm done now!

[Loss]

It is far easier said than done but these days I try to just turn off the analytical part of my brain to an extent when I am watching a match. I know that seems counterintuitive since all of us ultimately analyze matches, won’t worked/what didn’t work, ect. However, I’ve found that when I try to watch a match from the viewpoint of identifying the things that did or didn’t work, it becomes really easy to miss things or miss the bigger picture. The review Superstar Sleeze posted is a good example of that. The reviewer clearly was clearly looking for very specific things from the match that he didn’t get and by doing so he missed that Savage gave a great heel performance in the match, Luger sold well, ect. It’s not being able to see the forest through the trees.

 

During or after a match is over, I’ll know if I enjoyed it or not. I’ll know if the match hooked me in anyway. Then I can go back and think about why it hooked me. Basically, it is watching to get an emotional reaction from the match (hopefully a positive one) and then thinking about why the match was able to get that reaction. Wrestling is too varied and nuanced to go into a match looking for specific things. If you do, you are not allowing yourself to possibly be won over by a style or match element that you never knew you enjoyed before.

 

This is perfect. I love this thread.

[fxnj]

I think your view of the heel dynamic is far too idealistic to be applicable. I'd like to believe it but, really, morality is a constantly changing biological/cultural construct so you can't really say it's the actions that make a person but reaction to those actions. To use a heel dynamic is less about using actions to make the audience think a certain way so much as it is to take advantage of how they already think to draw in emotional investment. The main reason I prefer a neutral sportive presentation and why I'm not a fan of having every match revolve around clear-cut heels is that it makes it come down to you either having some personal investment in the moral dynamic presented or you don't. And if you don't, like you mention with current WWE, it's really hard to care beyond that cold analytical perspective.

 

I'm not sure if that WCW review quoted is a good example of the, though. Like soup mentioned, the mentality on display in that review is in itself basically an extension of some face/heel narrative with the bad main event geezers holding down the good cruiser weights. In other words, he is still invested in some sort of inside narrative in the product, it's just at a slightly more abstract level than what's presented on the surface. It's basically what you see today in Cena matches, where fans react as if he were a heel and the company promotes him fully conscious of that, so you definitely have some deep investment with a face/heel dynamic but with an untraditional method in its creation.

[Grimmas]

 

 

If you are one of those assholes that can sit through something like Interstellar and just pick it apart and not be rooting for Murphy in the end or whatever film you actually gets you, if nothing can make you cheer for a babyface in wrestling and hope that a heel loses, than you are in a position to always watch things as a critic. I do kind of feel bad for you in that case, but I do understand it. I just think you are missing out.

 

This is a funny example, because while I haven't seen Interstellar yet, plenty of the reviews make it seem like the sort of half-baked sci-fi that falls apart if you think too hard, kind of like Prometheus (and that's been a problem for Nolan himself previously). That's the risk you run when you aim high, and when the souffle falls, it can take the emotional/awe-inspiring moments with it. I can't get onboard with "don't overthink" enjoyment for movies that aim higher than popcorn status, because it makes it hard to call a spade a spade. Movies that give me a lot to think about make me think a lot. I more frequently "fall for" character dramas and comedies than high-concept, high-plot action and sci-fi, because they have less of a framework to undermine, but I'm more impressed when a complex construction doesn't fall apart.

 

Use whatever example you want, my point still stands.

 

I've seen these problems with Interstellar lists going around online and I just don't understand people. Outside of the paradox ninety percent of these complains are from people who seem to have either no imagination or no ability to think for themselves. I LOVED this movie.

[Matt D]

If I didn't have a lot of fun watching wrestling, I wouldn't do it.

[BillThompson]

If you are one of those assholes that can sit through something like Interstellar and just pick it apart and not be rooting for Murphy in the end or whatever film you actually gets you, if nothing can make you cheer for a babyface in wrestling and hope that a heel loses, than you are in a position to always watch things as a critic. I do kind of feel bad for you in that case, but I do understand it. I just think you are missing out.

 

 

Hey now, no need to call me an asshole. As for Interstellar, I'm sure I will have plenty of problems with it and pick it apart because it's made by a director who I don't think is all that talented.

 

In regards to your broader point, I think that someone can both cheer because they love something and be analytical. I can watch F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and be moved to near tears by its simple beauty. I can also be wowed by his technical mastery and break down that element of the film. Wrestling is no different, nor is any work of art actually. I can watch Savage versus Warrior from WrestleMania VII and be enveloped in the story while still dissecting the match from different perspectives. Doesn't make me an asshole, just someone who loves something and is okay analyzing that same thing,

[JerryvonKramer]

Pretty interesting thread this. I can't remember the last time I watched a match without taking notes. I like to think I can get lost in a match while simulataneously being analytical. I can do both things at once, and don't really see emotion and analysis as being wholly separated. If you are the sort of person who has to turn the emotional part of themselves off in order to be analytical, then I'd recommend doing notes after the match.

 

I think the level of analysis in reviews outside this forum is generally bad to awful. I've picked apart Scott Keith reviews in the past and am glad to see Sleeze doing the same thing with what looks like an extremely lazy review from whoever on 411.com.

 

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But that said, I'm not sure if we can ever wholly escape the "hidden checklist". I've been in quite a lot of arguments / debates with my fellow Titans where they've accused me of being closed-minded and narrow in how I think babyfaces should work. Even taking the massive pinch of salt you always need when Johnny is sticking up for someone he likes, it is true that many of my criticisms of Backlund derive from being philosophically opposed to how he works as a babyface.

 

I'm not sure if I see a way of getting around that.

[Loss]

The only way to get past that is to evolve your thinking in the way Dave has in recent years, which is basically that if it works on that evening for the fans who are in the building, then it works period. And I'm not someone likely to give much credit to a match that fails in that regard, but I'm also not sure I can take that leap.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yes, Charles, this is always Johnny's argument, "was it over, then it worked". I'll never take that leap because it leads to all sorts of absurdities like calling Ivan Putski a good worker.

 

I think a babyface should sell and show vulnerability, simple as that. If a promotion books in a way that doesn't play to that -- see for example Crusher and Dick the Bruiser in AWA -- then I'm not going to make allowances just because that's what they were going for or just because the crowd liked it.

[Matt D]

The only way to get past that is to evolve your thinking in the way Dave has in recent years, which is basically that if it works on that evening for the fans who are in the building, then it works period. And I'm not someone likely to give much credit to a match that fails in that regard, but I'm also not sure I can take that leap.

 

I think if you get to that point, you stop enjoying wrestling for what you enjoy it for. I'm not going to go to the theater and watch the Dumb and Dumber sequel this weekend. Lots of people will. They'll enjoy it. I suppose on some level I can appreciate WHY they are enjoying it, but I'm good, really. Same with whatever Izzy Azalea song is really popular right now (I kind of love Shake it Up as a pure pop song so I'm not arguing that). I can't shut my brain off in any aspect of my life, not watching a movie, not reading a book, not for a single thing. It drives me nuts sometimes, but it's who I am. There's no zen to wrestling watching and there's no universal standard for what's good. I enjoy interacting with it and it's easier for me to do that on an intellectual/analytic level than a more emotional one (not that I don't ever get drawn in that way; it's just even when I do, I'm still trying to figure out what makes it tick).

 

i think the issue here isn't letting go, it's a positivity/negativity issue. I have a finite amount of time to watch wrestling and in that time I don't generally watch a lot of stuff I think I'll hate or even dislike. I don't think you see a lot of reviews like that one that began this thread on this board. We might dislike a match that we watch as part of a larger project but we're probably disliking it in relation to a lot of matches that we dig a ton. I'm not generally going to watch a show just to rip it apart.

[dawho5]

Great stuff so far, but that's expected.

 

For me, I have started a new policy of always watching a match without taking notes or really analytically thinking it through as I watch it. I find that taking notes tends to break up the rhythm of the match for me and that can take you out of a match just as easily as anything else. I believe it was mentioned earlier about watching a match and feeling it at a very basic level, then later going back mentally and trying to identify the things that inspired those feelings. To me that is the best way to go about it on first watch. If it's something I need notes on, I'll rewatch it and take notes.

 

One thing I recall reading on here is a thread about how wrestling now is more physical than emotional. And since I was in the middle of the 2000s Japan wrestling grind that really hit home with me as a truth. At the time I was questioning whether or not taking notes during matches would help me during the project. But it really drove home that what wrestling ought to be about is the emotion the match inspires in the viewer. That's always been the point. If you can't inspire emotion, why is anyone going to pay to see it? And moreover I want emotion out of my wrestling matches. Sure two guys beating the shit out of each other/stretching each other is entertaining, but adding a compelling story to that makes for far more entertaining matches. So I think that while we may all look for different things in our wrestling, we all attach emotional value to whatever it is we look for. I understand that some of us have a harder time turning off that analytical side of ourselves than others. And I also understand the pitfalls of going into a match expecting one thing and getting another. I also understand having an almost blinding hatred for certain workers based on a few things they do that drive you nuts. I think that last one (and it's opposite) is actually a pretty common part of watching wrestling on an emotional level. Nothing you're going to do about it other than admit that it's there.

 

Also, great idea for a thread Martin.

[Grimmas]

Another thing to point out is that watching wrestling from the past almost makes you lend an analytical eye.

Watching things live gives you a better chance to get caught up in the show, while a 20 year old show has an almost impossible task in trying to get you hooked emotionally.

[concrete1992]

Another thing to point out is that watching wrestling from the past almost makes you lend an analytical eye.

 

Watching things live gives you a better chance to get caught up in the show, while a 20 year old show has an almost impossible task in trying to get you hooked emotionally.

I think that is a double edged sword though in all honesty. Current matches can benefit AND be hindered by having the context around it AND having a bunch of people communicating about it over the interweb during real time. An older match tends to lack both.Well at least it does for me. Case-in-point: Just watched Steve Viedor vs Gwyn Davies. Only seen one Viedor match and nothing of Davies. All I knew was that it was a championship bout. This match completely latched on to me emotionally as if I were watching a 20+ minute Rocky Balboa fight. Stylistically there were a few things that were jarring but emotionally, something that doesn't tend to happen to me these days, I was overwhelm in the best of ways.

 

Now, it is hard to give an example of a match that was poorly viewed during the time but aged and was viewed better cause I've probably never went back to watch those but I like to believe the point still holds some water.

[dawho5]

When I watched WCW I grew to hate the Goldberg push, I was one of those "internet smart fans" after all. That being said, Goldberg vs. DDP does more for me now than it did then.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't know if it's possible to have a visceral response to every match you watch. The matches that hit you in the gut tend to be the ones you mark out for and lavish praise on. And to be honest, it's possible to feel that way from an analytical point of view if you feel that the match keeps getting better and better. It doesn't have to be a purely emotional response to excite you. Personally, I care about the scope of a match, how big the narrative arc is and how far they've come since the beginning. Those are the things that satisfy me. I don't really need to have an emotional response to enjoy wrestling. It sometimes happens and it's fine when it does, but pretty rare.

[Timbo Slice]

I'll never get the idea that because the fans loved in the arena that we should, too. The idea that the crowd can give a match atmosphere and excitement means that it was a great match should be like anything else anyone criticizes in a match. A lot of stuff I'm reading about modern New Japan is that it's been considered great because there's so many heated exchanges and great crowds, and that's been the basis for people saying it's been so great. Atmosphere adds to a match and it can subtract from a match just as much.

 

My motivation is pretty simple: Tell a good story in the ring. If it's with highspots? Great. If it's with face/heel dynamics? Great. If it's with a payoff of a long storyline? Great. Is it because the stakes are high? Great. All those stories can be told well. They are far from being similar match archetypes.