Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Dean Ambrose's selling


Loss

Recommended Posts

I've soured on the in-ring rebound (I think that he has the house show mentality of "well, it's my deal, I'm the only one who does anything like it and it's really easy to pull off, I should get it in for the crowd" with it and that's why it's so overused.) though I do like when it gets countered and that it gets countered fairly regularly. But I actually love the clothesline on the outside, which isn't supposed to be him getting momentum from the ring, it's just a deception tactic for him to hit a discus clothesline that almost always looks nasty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love the rebound clothesline as a spot...always loved it when Nigel did it and love it when Ambrose does it, but I do think he does it too often. With Nigel it was usually a big highspot in a 15+ minute match. Ambrose does it in 7 minute matches on RAW and just kind of throws it out there. But if you look at a long Ambrose PPV match in a vacuum then he usually uses it appropriately in that setting.

 

As for the selling question, I don't think Ambrose sells any worse than anyone else on the roster. Like the Dave and Bryan criticisms could totally be thrown at anyone on the roster on any given night. And IMO Ambrose from my recollection is at least an above average seller in the modern WWE context so I definitely don't agree with this talking point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really haven't noticed Ambrose being bad at selling. The one guy who I think is terrible at selling and absolutely fits the description of going from "laid out & dead to totally ok because it's my turn to go on offense" is Dolph Ziggler.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dean Ambrose, the guy who got Powerbombed on the barricade-TWICE and then immediately after got Ligerbombed on a Ladder (AND chairs? can it get more preposterous?) and then got up just fine and climbed on a ladder is not a very good seller. Whether selling is still a thing in WWE would be a more interesting debate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think there's a single person in the company I'd say is good at selling. Well, no, not long term/the overall toll of the match at any rate. But the no selling babyface comeback has long since been an integral part of US wrestling; if there was one AJPW thing I wish they'd have taken it's the drawn out Misawa comeback. Nobody did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as the RAW match goes, saying Ambrose wasn't selling is fucking stupid. He was doing the old "I won't stay down, or give up despite how hurt I am," deal to show that just won't give up, and he was totally selling being hurt the entire time he was doing it.

Which sounds like something Meltzer would go nuts for if it happened on the sacred soil of Japan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't had an issue with it. I guess you can take some things under a microscope and pick them apart, but there's now way I'm convinced that it's strictly applicable to Dean or his performances.

 

As far as the MITB match against Rollins goes, well I think that'd fall more in line of being the fault of how the finishing stretch was structured. Dean took some brutal punishment, but then they wanted him to recover in time to hobble back into the fight & still make it up the ladder in time for the photo finish. The guy was registering immense pain & selling the beating throughout. But it's not like he can lie there & play dead whilst magically levitating himself up the ladder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So Ambrose no-selling everything is fine because that's how he's booked and there was absolutely nothing he could do to avoid no-selling in such a ridiculous manner? LOL. The match lasted 35 minutes. Does anyone seriously believe they couldn't have Ambrose take enough punishment in that time to make his attempted comeback seem impressive and just HAD to have him shrug off THREE gimmicked Powerbombs (and 20+ minutes of legwork)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe this is worth spinning off into a separate topic, but as a follow-up question: who do you feel is good at selling in the current-day WWE?

 

In general, I find that Ambrose (and others) succeed to varying degrees at selling the impact of a move in the moment, either through facial expressions or mannerisms or whatever, but almost nobody is capable or willing to sell any long-term damage. Whether that's a byproduct of the house style or just part of the general flavor of modern wrestling, I don't know. But it's something that I have noticed after coming back to wrestling from a long absence.

 

I do think Ambrose is better than most at selling within that structure, but I would also agree with some of the other comments in this thread that the rest of his work, in and out of the ring, has fallen into schtick. There was a moment last summer where he looked like he could grow into a disruptive, almost Austin-esque type of character, but WWE has played him into a tired prankster-esque role that hasn't really given him a lot to work with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I first saw Loss tweet about this, my knee jerk reaction was poppycock. Ambrose (save for Rusev) is the only wrestler that incorporates limb psychology (where he is the one who is selling) into his matches. Plus, there is even sometime week-to-week selling of an injury see January 2015, knee injury from Bray Wyatt Ambulance match. This is pretty mind-blowing for 2015. Then I said I would watch the Dean Ambrose/Big Show match in question. Wow! Could Dave and Bryan be more off base. Ambrose was fucking awesome in that match selling for Big Show. He tempered every hope spot with fighting through the pain, but that was mostly an absolute shit kicking. He was falling down on the outside, but kept bringing himself to his feet. This was total Die Hard. It is actually really stupid and juts plain wrong to pick this match to point to Ambrose's selling issues.

At the end of the day, Ambrose has selling issues just like the rest of the roster because what the match layout dictates and what the crowd expects. When Loss points out the Rollins match from last summer or someone else points out the Harper match those are great examples of Dean Ambrose of failing at selling. The Big Show match, God No! He gets an A+ from me!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...