Wrestling's strict adherence to formula

[funkdoc]

hello, i briefly mentioned this in another thread but was planning to make this one for a while. you've probably noticed that my posts here tend to be about social phenomena or wrestling criticism itself, as opposed to talking about specific matches or what have you. the reality is that i'm not too into watching wrestling anymore, and take much more interest in the business/political side & the development of the critical scene over time. why is that?

 

in short, i can't stand how formulaic most in-ring action tends to be. in particular, i completely detest the shine/heat/comeback structure and the whole need for babyface comebacks in general.

 

i'm not a comic-book guy or a movie guy, i'm a sports guy. and what bugs me with wrestling comebacks isn't just how common they are, though that is a part of it, but how lopsided they are. most of the time it's someone getting completely dominated on every level, then completely turning it around the other way to win. real-life comebacks mostly happen when someone isn't *too* far behind, and it takes me out of it when you see that kind of structure so rarely in wrestling.

 

basically, i would prefer a greater variety of match structures in general. have a heel making the comeback once in a while, even, just so people don't know what to expect. i know it's cool to hate the Attitude Era here, but i think some amount of unpredictability for its own sake has real value, and i just don't see that mentality being applied to match structure.

 

now, i haven't watched nearly as much as yall on here, so i'm sure i'm missing good stuff that does this. i'm just used to America & fighting spirit.

 

am i the only one who feels like this at all?

[goc]

I like formula because formula works. I've seen some modern indy tag matches that try to completely do away with the standard tag formula of building to a hot tag and it just feels like formless mess.

[Grimmas]

What would the crowd do when a heel is making a comeback?

 

It's cool to shit on structure, but structure is there for a reason.

[JerryvonKramer]

One thing I have really soured on recently is late 80s / early 90s WWF house show or long TV match formula.

 

I first noticed it watching Ted DiBiase matches, but once I'd spotted it, I couldn't unsee it. The same is true of Bret. The same is true of Savage. The same is true of Hennig. Rude. ANY guy who was calling the matches back then.

 

What am I talking about?

 

Not just formula, but the SAME MATCH. Whole entire sequences, transitions, reverals lifted wholesale from one match to the next. Now to pull a jdw:

 

* Travel schedule

* Different crowds on different nights

* Nothing more was being asked of them

 

But it's really killed some of my enthusiasm for the era and promotion I grew up on.

 

There's working a formula and sticking in variations, and then there's just working the exact same match, same moves, same sequences.

 

I've done this with countless guys. Period is roughly 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992. Around then. Pick a guy, watch 5 or 6 matches in a row. It's so often just the same match. Same structure. etc.

 

Kills me. And this is not the case in other promotions, including WCW.

 

It makes me wonder how tightly Vince was controlling work during that period. And if Pat Patterson only worked finishes on the PPVs and very very biggest house shows.

[Woof]

i'm not a comic-book guy or a movie guy, i'm a sports guy. and what bugs me with wrestling comebacks isn't just how common they are, though that is a part of it, but how lopsided they are. most of the time it's someone getting completely dominated on every level, then completely turning it around the other way to win.

 

Ironically, that's why I can't watch NBA basketball.

[Laz]

Formulaic matches are fine when they're spiced properly (ie. not generic WWF/WWE midcard stuff, with 5-minute chinlock controls), but I'm similar to funkdoc in preferring variety.

[Jingus]

In a medium like wrestling, where every show presents multiple matches (usually every week), there does need to be SOME variety, just to keep people on their toes. If you give them the 100%-exact-same-shit every single time, people will eventually get bored with the predictability. So it's good every rare once in a while to break the rules, just to remind people that the formula isn't always ironclad. A hot tag in pretty much every tag match ever means more if the same audience has occasionally seen a tag match end with the heels just beating their opponents without a hot tag ever being made.

[Grimmas]

There is a huge amount of room between same match and using a formula.

[Dylan Waco]

I actually have a lot to say about this, but I'm about to be without Wi-Fi for the rest of the night, and then I'll be in Dallas for nearly a week.

 

But what I would say is that while I like some sort of non-formulaic aspects of certain styles (for example the fact that any move can be a finish in lucha or shootstyle), in general I don't think I would ever have been a fan, nor would I still be a fan today without formula. And I say this as a sports guy, who was never into comics or superheroes, or anything like that at all.

[Johnny Sorrow]

One thing I have really soured on recently is late 80s / early 90s WWF house show or long TV match formula.

 

I first noticed it watching Ted DiBiase matches, but once I'd spotted it, I couldn't unsee it. The same is true of Bret. The same is true of Savage. The same is true of Hennig. Rude. ANY guy who was calling the matches back then.

 

What am I talking about?

 

Not just formula, but the SAME MATCH. Whole entire sequences, transitions, reverals lifted wholesale from one match to the next. Now to pull a jdw:

 

* Travel schedule

* Different crowds on different nights

* Nothing more was being asked of them

 

But it's really killed some of my enthusiasm for the era and promotion I grew up on.

 

There's working a formula and sticking in variations, and then there's just working the exact same match, same moves, same sequences.

 

 

Well, the idea that years later people would be collecting video of these shows and watching all these different house shows was insanity back then. The absolute last thing on the wrestlers and Vince's minds. Think about it like this. When most bands go on tour, they'd have an exact setlist and rarely stray from it and how they played the songs, because the thinking was/ is that people payed to hear the hits. Bands like the Grateful Dead were extremely rare in that they changed every single show and played a different show each night. But they had an audience that expected that and wanted it. The wrestling fans going to WWF shows wanted the hits, so to speak. And Vince wanted a tight show that he could tour any city with.

[Matt D]

I've done this with countless guys. Period is roughly 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992. Around then. Pick a guy, watch 5 or 6 matches in a row. It's so often just the same match. Same structure. etc.

 

 

This is actually how I came to like Demolition. Even when it was the same, it was different and it was earned, so long as you looked closely enough at least. You asked how that happened. It happened by watching a lot of stuff and getting frustrated by the same things and having that broken by them, of all things.

[AstroBoy]

Formula is surely a good foundation but I agree that more variation here and there would be a good thing to me. For what it's worth this is coming from someone else more on the sports side of fandom than comic side. I just think there's a place for both in wrestling and if used sparingly, getting off formula can lead to lots of interesting possibilities. I'm talking as simple as things like multiple finishers, main events not going super long, a fluky kind of match. I actually really enjoyed Thatcher vs. Riddle at EVOLVE 56 because it went short and ended abruptly. Because of that difference, I am now super invested in the rematch.

[JaymeFuture]

It's just the tried and true formula of what connects to the most people on an emotional level. Joseph Campbell wrote a book (talking movies and stories in general) called The Hero with a Thousand Faces that does the best job of explaining why it works psychologically, and if you ever read it you'll see how closely it mirrors wrestling. Establish the normal world early (face is better), an event occurs that contradicts positive feelings (in theory the heel cheating), and the hero has to get to an even keel before the climactic scene of do or die, success or failure.

 

For the purposes of pro wrestling, the rare matches that break the formula can be captivating if done right. A lot Lesnar's matches standout as awesome by contradicting the formula because we already know he's different. If two guys on your local indy show in front of casual fans and families tried the same thing it wouldnt work 9 times out of 10, and I've seen people try with my own eyes. Formula becomes formula though laziness or time tested reasoning. In the case of match layout its the latter, and it only makes it more fun when people play with it.

 

The laziness is when people either don't do it properly (heel just gets the advantage without cheating or without the pivotal change truly meaning something), or aren't clever enough to play with what people know and have fun with it. One of the reasons I think Tully and Arn are the best team ever is because they would do so many things that you think are the changing moment in either direction, but its just a tease and we aren't there yet. And then the change would come and it'd always be satisfying.

[ElHijodeGorgeousGeorge]

I think it is a combination of both that makes wrestling work. Wrestling works when things fit in a certain pattern, that is absolutely obvious and while it has been mentioned and I've noticed on my own that every company has their own "formula", they also find ways to re-wrap the package sort of speak. The formulas are what makes us really appreciate the rarities like Lesnar that just take a huge dump on traditional match building. Lesnar does that because honestly, if he worked like everyone else he wouldn't be effective. Let us recall how it worked out when he WAS treated as everyone else back in the early 2000's. Jayme put it perfectly I think because this isn't just wrestling that this kind of formula conversation is in reference to, it is literally any form of storytelling. As humans, for the most part we look for and expect this rhythm of events to placate what we watch for. If the baby face didn't win the huge blow off every time, then wrestling loses it's luster quite quickly.

[overbooked]

I completely understand a frustration with formula. It can make wrestling seem tired, predictable and phony.

 

But.

 

I also think formula is vital. It is the language of wrestling. Within moves, sequences, angles there are a series of cues and prompts to guide and provoke the audience. Formula provides wrestling with its internal logic to work from, riff from, and ultimately deviate from.

 

Obviously each style of wrestling has its own formula, own language. And half the fun is in deciphering that formula so that when there is a departure from it what you see makes sense and doesn't just come across as a confusing mess.

[pol]

I think I'm generally more interested in craft than art. I like house and techno music, which offer highly restrictive templates for composition mandated by the pragmatic demands of the dancefloor and DJ. There's two things that make them interesting/enjoyable: how effectively the artist can exploit this limited framework to elicit the desired audience response, and what creative touches they can add within the confines of the style. Hell, I think the same is really true of popular music as a whole.

 

I see wrestling much the same way. I think wrestlers executing the shine/heat/comeback formula to perfection, while working whatever little spins and touches they can into the overall structure, is generally far more interesting than throwing out the formula altogether. While I'm not opposed to more 'out' takes on structure, I think the majority of wrestlers (at least modern ones) are tasteless and self-indulgent when the reins are taken off, so you're more likely to end up with Yngwie Malmsteen than Derek Bailey.

 

That said, there are limits to how restrictive I think you can make the structure before it really does become tedious. The majority of modern New Japan matches for example, where it's the same big spots and near falls in the same order, followed by the same finish every time have gotten incredibly dull to me. You still have to provide some level of excitement and unpredictability within the structure.

[funkdoc]

What would the crowd do when a heel is making a comeback?

 

they would be shocked and that would keep them on their toes for future matches. ideally, if they truly hated the heel, it would lead to greater hatred & more heat.

 

i remember reading somewhere that this sort of thing was the reason for Bryan-Sheamus at WM being such a quick squash. WWE noticed that crowds weren't buying into all the early finishers in WM matches, so they ran that finish to make those spots more effective in future matches. i actually think that's a brilliant idea if true, but the problem was in the execution: doing it on the biggest show instead of on smaller shows building up to it, and cheating the fans out of a potentially great match on that biggest stage. the other problem is that you need to keep doing things like that once in a while, or else you go back to square one like we have now. it's a shame they screwed it up that badly, though, because that is exactly the spirit i'd like to see.

 

i've got more to post later, but NXT is coming on so i'll stop it here

[Zenjo]

As Human beings we love formula, structure, repetition and predictability in our lives. With enough deviations to keep things interesting. Most people have a very low tolerance for chaos and disorder.

 

In terms of wrestling I've found the best solution is to watch a variety of different promotions and jump between them all the time.

[Zenjo]

One thing I have really soured on recently is late 80s / early 90s WWF house show or long TV match formula.

Critiquing repetitiveness in TV matches is one thing, but you're 'not supposed' to be watching house show matches. They were never intended for your viewing pleasure.

[Laz]

 

 

What would the crowd do when a heel is making a comeback?

they would be shocked and that would keep them on their toes for future matches. ideally, if they truly hated the heel, it would lead to greater hatred & more heat.

The problem there is that a comeback implies a sense of being the underdog, which is not a position a heel (villain) should really be in. A heel still has the opportunity for a comeback even within the formula, but it's called a cut-off.

 

i remember reading somewhere that this sort of thing was the reason for Bryan-Sheamus at WM being such a quick squash. WWE noticed that crowds weren't buying into all the early finishers in WM matches, so they ran that finish to make those spots more effective in future matches. i actually think that's a brilliant idea if true, but the problem was in the execution: doing it on the biggest show instead of on smaller shows building up to it, and cheating the fans out of a potentially great match on that biggest stage. the other problem is that you need to keep doing things like that once in a while, or else you go back to square one like we have now. it's a shame they screwed it up that badly, though, because that is exactly the spirit i'd like to see.

I don't remember reading that but it sorta makes sense. The easier option would be to start laying out matches with less finished reversals and spice things up leading to the bigger face-off's. Maybe try protecting finishes again, so when it is rarely kicked out of it feels huge.

 

The trend of finisher kick-out overdrive really started with Austin/Rock/Angle. Like the King's Road classics where increasingly dangerous moves were brought out to counter opponents that learned how to brace for the expected, they'd trade finishers and kick out as the stakes raised, showing us that this title match is incredibly important. That this then led to every title match having it, to every "bigger" match having it, and then to most matches having it is a shame and a sign of the style's evolution (not always for the best), but it's also one that can be reversed easier than others.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

One thing I have really soured on recently is late 80s / early 90s WWF house show or long TV match formula.

Critiquing repetitiveness in TV matches is one thing, but you're 'not supposed' to be watching house show matches. They were never intended for your viewing pleasure.

Actually, they were. At least the ones I watched. Mostly shown on PTW. Standard twenty mins star vs. lower midcarder bouts.

[funkdoc]

alright, for once i have some time before work so i'll bring up a different angle here...

 

i think maybe my issue isn't with the formula itself, so much as the lack of variety in the surrounding atmosphere/bells & whistles. to go to one of my wacky video-game analogies, i'm interested in arcade beat-em-ups (Double Dragon, Final Fight, that kind of stuff). in terms of play mechanics that's one of the simplest & most formulaic genres there is, but game developers realized this and used a wide variety of themes and aesthetics to make their game stand out. they run the gamut from your generic "gangsters on the streets" to Dungeons & Dragons to this delightful collection of surrealist pixel art.

 

it seems like pro wrestling just doesn't offer the same kind of room for variety in that regard, and that could be what's hurting it for me. i thought maybe part of it was the characters' motivations being so heavily rooted in a traditional masculinity that i have no time for anymore, but that wouldn't explain why i still dig so many video games that have the same issue. so, i go back to the above paragraph!

 

i recall hearing somewhere that Kana(?) used to do matches with jazz music playing the whole time. i can't find it anywhere, but that's the sort of thing i'm getting at. i'm also tempted to watch Lucha Underground since that's set in an outright fantasy world. anything else along those lines yall can suggest?

[Laz]

Chikara, maybe?

[The Man in Blak]

I apologize if you've already posted about this elsewhere, funkdoc, but how do you feel about shoot style wrestling? Something like RINGS can definitely provide something closer to a traditional sports feel in presentation and structure.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, I think the Chikara recommendation is sound. Even something like PWG might be more up your alley, even though it's not that far away from conventional wrestling in feel.

 

Lucha Underground is a bit trickier to recommend. I think you might enjoy the different approach to TV production, particularly in how angles/vignettes are shot, but I think you might potentially find some of the dynamics in the intergender matches to be objectionable.