"Anti-workrate"

[JerryvonKramer]

We had "Great Match Theory" and "self-conscious epic". The word of the month on PWO recently seems to be this. What is it?

 

I ask partly because I don't think Matt D and my boy Kelly have the same thing in mind.

 

I think Matt D means that he favours psychology and logic and looks for coherence in the performance rather than mechanics, athletic ability, moves, etc. Part of this is the "use of tools" in particular contexts.

 

I think Kelly means that he has turned from being a fan who cares about things like match quality and instead these days cares more about the emotion of it all, a hot crowd, the charm of a given setting, and all the "nonsense" of pro wrestling.

 

I could also have this wrong, so I want to check.

 

As for myself, I maintain that "revisionism can go too far" -- by which I mean that the sorts of things traditionally valued by so-called smart fans -- such as the ability to bump and sell, execute offense crisply, or work as a great ring general (etc. etc.) -- shouldn't now be undervalued because we also value other aspects of the performance.

 

I'd still take it as a given that Dean Malenko (random example) is a much better wrestler than Chief Jay Strongbow, even if Strongbow was 100s of times more over than Dean ever was. I'd also probably say that Malenko was better than someone like Earthquake, just because Earthquake was so much more limited in what he could do. And so I don't really know if I am "anti-workrate". Are you?

[Matt D]

I most prefer "The pernicious fallacy of workrate dogmatism," actually.

 

You weren't too far off in summing up my general thoughts, but I'll add some precision at some point in the next couple of days. Curious to see what people have to say first though. (Also, it's late).

[Loss]

I'm not anti-anything except wrestling that is bad. Just like there is exciting wrestling that forgets to be logical, there is logical wrestling that forgets to be exciting.

[Luchaundead]

I haven't seen this term thrown around but, I'd proudly claim "Anti-workrate" because I it's insane to claim someone is a worse work based on their physical limitations going with your Earthquake/Malenko example. Wrestlers should be judged on their abilities inherent to themselves and what role they fulfilled.

[JerryvonKramer]

I haven't seen this term thrown around but, I'd proudly claim "Anti-workrate" because I it's insane to claim someone is a worse work based on their physical limitations going with your Earthquake/Malenko example. Wrestlers should be judged on their abilities inherent to themselves and what role they fulfilled.

Hmmm, I'd be interested to know if you'd still be saying this after watching lots and lots of late 70s and early 80s WWF.

 

Out of shape guys in their 50s lumbering around, mostly to gigantic pops. They were lazy as hell, limited to the point where if you do get anything beyond a punch or a kick, you are lucky to get a body slam let alone a suplex. They barely bump. But on the basis that they played their roles and got the reactions required of them, they were "working smart", right?

 

How "anti-workrate" are you really?

[Ricky Jackson]

Ha...Parv you pretty much nailed it. In fact, Matt and I had a conversation on Facebook a few minutes ago where we pretty much explained ourselves exactly the same way.

 

Yes, I'm "anti-workrate" in the sense that I feel that watching great matches as the be-all-and-end-all to be limiting. For me, so much greatness in wrestling comes from stupid bullshit like the TNT show or insane Kal Rudman commentary. I love professional wrestling, everything and anything that goes with it

[Luchaundead]

Hmmm, I'd be interested to know if you'd still be saying this after watching lots and lots of late 70s and early 80s WWF.Out of shape guys in their 50s lumbering around, mostly to gigantic pops. They were lazy as hell, limited to the point where if you do get anything beyond a punch or a kick, you are lucky to get a body slam let alone a suplex. They barely bump. But on the basis that they played their roles and got the reactions required of them, they were "working smart", right?How "anti-workrate" are you really?

I'll admit that I do have a bias against WWE as I love plenty of 70s and 80s AJPW and NWA. I'd say there is a difference between low workrate and being a lazy slob unfortunately much like pornography you only know it when you see it

[Ship Canal]

I can't remember who it was that said this but my feelings on workrate are generally summed up by the quote about ROH during that period of time when they were pushing a significant amount of main event epics/broadways - "its like these guys watched All Japan in the 90's and thought it was the moves themselves that made the matches special".

While not being anti anything as such in wrestling - there will always come a moment where a number of intangibles coalesce into the perfect storm and a match you had absolutely no appetite for beforehand just blows your preconceptions away almost despite yourself - I do find myself these days prioritizing the simple, almost fundamental aspects of wrestling as a medium. Pacing, match structure, internal subplots, being excellent at the basics like bumping, crispness, selling, believability of character and motivation.... I just enjoy being given space to breathe and contemplate during a match, weigh up where things can go next instead of being pretty sure that more or less everything and anything that two people can pull off between the ropes will most probably happen between bell time.

I think the definition of workrate is important here, as to me I almost exclusively associate the concept with a particular genre of wrestling (this goes back to the notion of wrestling being a medium with many subgenres that can in some senses be watched like genre film in terms of "in house" styles etc) from the indy scene of the 2000's, as opposed to it having a huge amount of meaning outside of that.

[C.S.]

Not exactly what you're talking about in the OP, but it drives me nuts when people discount the impact, storylines, crowd reactions, and general consensus of a match at the time - undervaluing that and replacing it with how they may feel now when watching it blindly or out of context. Sure, there's something to be said about a good match that's still good even when you watch it cold, but I don't think it's accurate to say a generally beloved match is bad if you weren't there and don't understand the context, emotions, and reactions it generated at the time. Obviously, some matches don't age well - like any other form of entertainment - but I think it's dangerous to say all '50s matches and workers were lazy, lumbering oafs who didn't do anything interesting (I'm exaggerating) when the business was different, matches were structured differently, and - most importantly of all - expectations were different.

 

BTW, Dean Malenko wasn't better than Earthquake IMO. Maybe I value character more than most people here, but Earthquake played his character to the hilt - even in the ring, with his mannerisms during the Earthquake Splash, etc. Dean just 'rassled, and he's far less interesting in the ring than most people give him credit for (though I think most of PWO is with me on that one). Don't get me wrong, I liked Deano Machino well enough at the time, but he's also kind of instantly forgettable - both ring-wise and character-wise. His most memorable feud was with Jericho, and that was all Jericho and all out-of-the-ring stuff. I don't even remember their actual matches.

[pantherwagner]

Interesting that you are making these two points together because to me Malenko is a perfect example of what you express in your first paragraph. Unless you were really into Blue Panther type workers, or you had seen a lot of World of Sport (back when it was far less available than today), Malenko initially seemed to be on a completely different level than almost anyone else when it came to matwork speed, creativity and fluidity. He's instantly forgettable today in 2016 because we have seen the Malenko-Guerrero exchanges done approximately three million times by indy guys with a fraction of their talent to the point that they seem a cliche.

[Matt D]

More general thoughts later (narrative and storytelling would be better words than psychology and logic), but in specific the main thing you're doing wrong in that last paragraph is underselling what Tenta does well. It's not just "He works to his limits," but instead that he uses the tools that he has, which are different than Dean's tools, to create a greater overall effect. He's excellent at interacting with crowds, very good at creating a mood by knowing how long to take priming an elbow drop before hitting it. So not only does the elbow drop look devastating, but it means all the more because of how he set it up. He has a very strong sense of when to give and when not to give. He's athletically limited? Maybe, but he has tools he can bring to the table that Dean can't. You look at his lack of traditional athleticism as a automatic detriment relative to Malenko, but it's something far more complex than that.

[pantherwagner]

More general thoughts later (narrative and storytelling would be better words than psychology and logic), but in specific the main thing you're doing wrong in that last paragraph is underselling what Tenta does well. It's not just "He works to his limits," but instead that he uses the tools that he has, which are different than Dean's tools, to create a greater overall effect. He's excellent at interacting with crowds, very good at creating a mood by knowing how long to take priming an elbow drop before hitting it. So not only does the elbow drop look devastating, but it means all the more because of how he set it up. He has a very strong sense of when to give and when not to give. He's athletically limited? Maybe, but he has tools he can bring to the table that Dean can't. You look at his lack of traditional athleticism as a automatic detriment relative to Malenko, but it's something far more complex than that.

 

Completely agree with you 100% on the general points but Tenta is an interesting case. He was actually an excellent athlete, not just an excellent athlete "for his size". Besides being a college wrestler, being a sumo pro requires a lot of dexterity, balance and explosiveness. His dropkick was amazing and he used it very well.

 

Also interesting that he got bad as a wrestler when he started losing his athleticism. I'm far from a Tenta timeline expert but he was looking pretty good up to maybe 93 or 94 during WAR tours but one day he just showed up looking facially old and much slower.

[Matt D]

 

More general thoughts later (narrative and storytelling would be better words than psychology and logic), but in specific the main thing you're doing wrong in that last paragraph is underselling what Tenta does well. It's not just "He works to his limits," but instead that he uses the tools that he has, which are different than Dean's tools, to create a greater overall effect. He's excellent at interacting with crowds, very good at creating a mood by knowing how long to take priming an elbow drop before hitting it. So not only does the elbow drop look devastating, but it means all the more because of how he set it up. He has a very strong sense of when to give and when not to give. He's athletically limited? Maybe, but he has tools he can bring to the table that Dean can't. You look at his lack of traditional athleticism as a automatic detriment relative to Malenko, but it's something far more complex than that.

 

Completely agree with you 100% on the general points but Tenta is an interesting case. He was actually an excellent athlete, not just an excellent athlete "for his size". Besides being a college wrestler, being a sumo pro requires a lot of dexterity, balance and explosiveness.

 

Also interesting that he got bad as a wrestler when he started losing his athleticism. I'm far from a Tenta timeline expert but he was looking pretty good up to maybe 93 or 94 during WAR tours but one day he just showed up looking facially old and much slower.

 

So having the ability to execute that knowledge and understanding of timing and making the crowd react and making things have meaning is important too.

 

That's something I don't get across well, that knowing what to do is half of the equation. Doing it is the other half. Both are important but knowing is the prerequisite. If you don't get past knowing, then doing isn't going to get you very far in my mind.

[pantherwagner]

 

 

More general thoughts later (narrative and storytelling would be better words than psychology and logic), but in specific the main thing you're doing wrong in that last paragraph is underselling what Tenta does well. It's not just "He works to his limits," but instead that he uses the tools that he has, which are different than Dean's tools, to create a greater overall effect. He's excellent at interacting with crowds, very good at creating a mood by knowing how long to take priming an elbow drop before hitting it. So not only does the elbow drop look devastating, but it means all the more because of how he set it up. He has a very strong sense of when to give and when not to give. He's athletically limited? Maybe, but he has tools he can bring to the table that Dean can't. You look at his lack of traditional athleticism as a automatic detriment relative to Malenko, but it's something far more complex than that.

 

Completely agree with you 100% on the general points but Tenta is an interesting case. He was actually an excellent athlete, not just an excellent athlete "for his size". Besides being a college wrestler, being a sumo pro requires a lot of dexterity, balance and explosiveness.

 

Also interesting that he got bad as a wrestler when he started losing his athleticism. I'm far from a Tenta timeline expert but he was looking pretty good up to maybe 93 or 94 during WAR tours but one day he just showed up looking facially old and much slower.

 

So having the ability to execute that knowledge and understanding of timing and making the crowd react and making things have meaning is important too.

 

That's something I don't get across well, that knowing what to do is half of the equation. Doing it is the other half. Both are important but knowing is the prerequisite. If you don't get past knowing, then doing isn't going to get you very far in my mind.

 

Indeed - a young Earthquake could have done a lot more athletic moves than he did but they mostly wouldn't have accomplished all that much.

Bam Bam Bigelow was more agile and mobile than Tenta but he wasn't nearly as smart a worker.

 

In general terms fat wrestlers have a shorter workrate career span anyway because their knees and back are usually gone in 10 years or less, plus they are more likely to develop other issues like diabetes or heart problems.

 

All things being said I'm glad that Tenta gets a lot of recognition at least on this little corner of the web. Most people speak about him like he is Typhoon.

[JerryvonKramer]

Right, but just because Earthquake has been underappreciated by others, Scott Keith, for example, does that mean we go to the extent of saying he's better than a guy who was technically an excellent wrestler?

 

How far do you go with it?

 

"For his size" is an interesting qualifier. Does that lower the bar he's judged against?

 

Is it also being suggested that Malenko -- he's a random example, could be anyone who is more "technical" -- is somehow less smart as a worker? That he didn't know what to do? That he had poor psychology?

 

I just wonder if the will to revise and overturn leads to a situation where it's possible to get a bit carried away.

 

The tools of Earthquake cap out at about ***1/2, if you look at the tools of Ricky Steamboat, there is no cap. I'm just not sure if I can buy into this anti-workrate idea fully, and I am also not sold that this is how most people even in this community view wrestling and judge workers.

[JerryvonKramer]

I guess to put it in another way, "knowing what to do with your tools" is of value, but I'm not convinced it can overturn or outweigh the value of being either:

 

1. A super worker

 

or

 

2. A master ring general

 

And when people turn in their GWE lists, I still expect to see them pretty much dominanted by guys who fall into one of those two broad descriptions.

[Loss]

Talk about workrate oftentimes sets up a binary that I think is self-limiting in how we view wrestling, as if you either do a lot of exciting moves or you have great psychology.

[pantherwagner]

Right, but just because Earthquake has been underappreciated by others, Scott Keith, for example, does that mean we go to the extent of saying he's better than a guy who was technically an excellent wrestler?

 

How far do you go with it?

 

"For his size" is an interesting qualifier. Does that lower the bar he's judged against?

 

Is it also being suggested that Malenko -- he's a random example, could be anyone who is more "technical" -- is somehow less smart as a worker? That he didn't know what to do? That he had poor psychology?

 

I just wonder if the will to revise and overturn leads to a situation where it's possible to get a bit carried away.

 

The tools of Earthquake cap out at about ***1/2, if you look at the tools of Ricky Steamboat, there is no cap. I'm just not sure if I can buy into this anti-workrate idea fully, and I am also not sold that this is how most people even in this community view wrestling and judge workers.

 

"For his size": I put it in quotes because I try to judge everybody using the same parameters, as sometimes we fall into these traps like "agile big man" and "good lucha brawler" which can be unfair. At the same time, it is also fair to compare Tenta's agility and athleticism with Bigelow, Vader, Tugboat, Henry, Yokozuna and other similar sized guys. Comparing athletes is sometimes apples and oranges because you look for different things in different body types. With big guys you look for agility, power and explosiveness, not necessarily gymnastics.

 

Malenko is somebody who has developed a bad reputation because a lot of the matwork he did sometimes did not seem to lead anywhere in terms of body part work. I also tend to think people sometimes focus too much on body part work. Malenko's gimmick, which was very well established, was that he was the best technical wrestler who knew more holds than anyone else, so it makes sense that he'd use that unique expertise to dominate opponents. It's part of his character and his personality. But, again, we have seen so many other Malenko copycats with maybe the same mat skill, grace and fluidity but without the established character, so it doesn't work.

 

I'd personally not say that Tenta was better than Malenko, but I can see why somebody looking back at the footage in a vacuum would think like that.

[pantherwagner]

I just wonder if the will to revise and overturn leads to a situation where it's possible to get a bit carried away.

 

I wanted to isolate this one because this is something that happens a lot in here (we are all guilty of it sometimes). A good example is Taue revisionism. He was indeed underrated but I can't buy into the concept that everybody in Japan (and those of us who watched the tapes back in the day) got him wrong and it has taken us two decades to realise that. (FWIW - I have not reviewed this footage myself. Maybe I'm getting old but the idea of watching 30+ min AJPW matches from the 90s makes me tired.)

 

I think that Dave Meltzer's points on reviewing footage sometimes get misconstructed (is this even a word?). To me context is really important on measuring a wrestler. The yearbooks seem like the best possible way to try to reconstruct that, but even so, you are still cherry picking what you see, and you can never truly transport yourself to 1990 or 1995 or 2000.

 

On the other hand I believe that truly great wrestling always stands the test of time while the fad of the year type matches don't. Also every year we have access to more wrestling than ever before, so there's a lot of value in going back to see what we missed.

 

Anyway, it's a complicated subject and I'm just rambling.

[BBscout]

"But, again, we have seen so many other Malenko copycats with maybe the same mat skill, grace and fluidity..."

 

Who for Americans? Roderick Strong and Kurt Angle are who come to mind but they aren't at his level for me in terms of blending offensive finesse, variety, explosiveness, reaction and pacing.

 

I haven't seen anyone in the US like him in 20 years. I'm mainly thinking of all his work with Rey when arguing this.

[pantherwagner]

"But, again, we have seen so many other Malenko copycats with maybe the same mat skill, grace and fluidity..."

 

Who for Americans? Roderick Strong and Kurt Angle are who come to mind but they aren't at his level for me in terms of blending offensive finesse, variety, explosiveness, reaction and pacing.

 

I was specifically thinking about Strong when writing that but also speaking in general terms. It seems that the Malenko vs Guerrero popularity changed the overall matwork style in the US to be more flashy and fluid and less rough and uncooperative looking, for lack of a better description. Malenko was (at least in the US) in a league of his own back then when it came to making moves look fluid while nowadays he probably wouldn't stand out as much if he was working exactly the same style on the indy circuit. To bring the context comparison full circle, I am also not sure if Malenko would have stood out as much if he was working World of Sport in the 80s alongside Steve Grey, Marty Jones, Johnny Saint or Clive Myers.

[Matt D]

Right, but just because Earthquake has been underappreciated by others, Scott Keith, for example, does that mean we go to the extent of saying he's better than a guy who was technically an excellent wrestler?

 

How far do you go with it?

 

I go exactly how far I think he is good with it. I'm not voting on a curve. I'm also not praising because other people previously have underappreciated him. I'm not trying to be daring and provocative.

 

Maybe you do things like that and thus you are happy to attribute such behaviors to others? Maybe you're just so used to such mindsets in academia? I don't do this, though. What I do instead is look at a wrestler and try to decide how good he is based on the metrics that I think are important. And I have decided where those metrics are not based on a desire to be different and shocking and revisionist. I promise you, Parv. I don't spend my days thinking "well, how can I frustrate Parv today by saying that 1991 Berzerker is better than 1991 Ted Dibiase in WWF," or, "It's time to really show those Scott Keith followers a thing or two by going really far the other way!" You seem to be reversing the causality. I came to the conclusion that there were things far more important than "workrate" through watching matches and noticing patterns. I didn't come up with a theory that it was important to overturn what other people thought first and then tried to seek out the evidence.

 

I honestly don't think you realize how insulting you're being when you go after someone's motives instead of taking them at face value. If you did, we wouldn't come around to this again and again. I do believe that you just lack the empathy to understand why someone could possibly value Big Bossman's matches more than Ted Dibiase's, or what not, so you think we're having a lark or playing a character. And I try not to fault you for it, but I found how you chose to put that insulting.

 

On a slightly less angry and offended note, you can't just throw around "ring general" like you do. I'd argue that Earthquake is a ring general since he knows how much to give and when to give it, for instance and thus he can make babyface comebacks mean all the more, etc. You apparently wouldn't.

[JerryvonKramer]

Matt, nothing to do with questioning of motivations and everything to do with the fact that this way of looking at things -- whether you like it or not -- is a marked departure from the received wisdom. The very phrase "anti-workrate" has an older concept built into it.

 

"Anti-" anything in critical terms tends to come after (and against) an older school. As this approach clearly does. I am not saying you are aiming to be shocking or arguing in bad faith or any of those things. But you also can't pretend that you are writing and watching in a vacuum. Wrestling criticism is at least twenty years old and everyone here is aware of and grew up reading that form of criticism. And it's only really now that more interesting ways of looking at things are being established.

[Jimmy Redman]

Right, but just because Earthquake has been underappreciated by others, Scott Keith, for example, does that mean we go to the extent of saying he's better than a guy who was technically an excellent wrestler?

 

How far do you go with it?

 

"For his size" is an interesting qualifier. Does that lower the bar he's judged against?

 

Is it also being suggested that Malenko -- he's a random example, could be anyone who is more "technical" -- is somehow less smart as a worker? That he didn't know what to do? That he had poor psychology?

 

I just wonder if the will to revise and overturn leads to a situation where it's possible to get a bit carried away.

 

The tools of Earthquake cap out at about ***1/2, if you look at the tools of Ricky Steamboat, there is no cap. I'm just not sure if I can buy into this anti-workrate idea fully, and I am also not sold that this is how most people even in this community view wrestling and judge workers.

 

This is where I couldn't disagree with you more. To me there's almost no inherent value in being a "technically good" wrestler in and of itself. By that I mean how good you are physically at working holds and executing moves and what not. I would care about that if wrestling was a sport, judged on technical merit like figure skating or diving something, but it's not, it's a work. The goal is to entertain, to tell a story, and however you manage to do that is what's important to me. If you can use your technical ability to do that, then that's great. But if you have loads of technical ability and are boring as shit or don't know how to craft a story in the ring, then I have no use for it. And if you have little technical ability but bring a bunch of other things to the table, then yes, I think you're better than a guy who can execute moves properly but can't actually...work. You can even look at a guy like Sabu, for whom being physically crisp would make no sense for his character, or a guy like Cena who's awkwardness is part of his charm. Sometimes being less technically proficient is an asset.

 

Physical execution is just a tool, and I have no use for it UNLESS you can actually use it to be exciting or interesting or craft good stories. And of course, a lot of people do. I love a guy like Tamura for how smooth he is in the ring, for example. But execution for execution's sake isn't enough for me, and I don't value it intrinsically higher than any number of other tools that a wrestler may have.

 

So to take your example (purely hypothetically because I have no dog in the Quake/Malenko fight), then I don't think Earthquake's potential "caps out" at ***1/2 or so just because he's a big guy who works a more physically limited style of match. And at the same time I don't believe Malenko's ceiling is inherently higher just because he happens to be 200lbs and able to execute a wider variety of moves. It's what you do with it that counts. If I saw an incredibly awesome Earthquake match, I'd throw all the snowflakes I could at it, whether it had a single wrestling move in it or not. And I'd have no problem ranking it over a Dean match that was smooth as hell but not interesting in any way.

[JerryvonKramer]

The reason I mentioned the capping out at ***1/2 for Quake was because, in practice, that's about the best match of his I've seen.