Pet Peeves in Wrestling

[joeg]

Every fan can think of a spot, move or sequence that leaves a bad taste in their mouth. That thing common in a wrestling match that causes you to lose interest and think they aren't even trying to make this look like a competition. For Vince Jr. it supposedly is  when somebody is getting punched or choked in the corner and doesn't try to cover up but uses that time as a breather rather than selling. Jim Ross has recently talked about dives to the outside in tag matches where both teams are on the floor obviously waiting to catch the guy. Cornette has a litany of spots and moves he complains about but his main complaint usually is when things look blatantly cooperative. For me Its when there are multiple repeated closed fist punches to the face/head and nobody is scratched or hurt. No hand injury. No cut. No bruise. Either the punches are obviously fake or the wrestler doing the punching can't hit very hard. Either way it isn't realistic. I know a lot of people complain about the obvious thigh slaps on kicks.

So what is yours? What is that spot in a wrestling match that ruins your sense of disbelief?

[El-P]

My biggest pet peeve is creating a new thread for an old topic that already had a thread before. 

And seriously, one thing I see too often that I don't like these days is people acting shocked when someone kicks out of something they never ever won a match with.

24 minutes ago, joeg said:

For me Its when there are multiple repeated closed fist punches to the face/head and nobody is scratched or hurt. No hand injury. No cut. No bruise.

Which is why Jerry Lawler is overrated as all hell, basically. 

But anyway, nothing is realistic in pro-wrestling. Complaining about thigh slapping today is as irrelevant and useless as complaining about foot stomping or chest slapping in the 80's.

Speaking of which (80's) one of my biggest pet peeve has always been jingoist bullshit angle, flag waving patriotic crap and other "USA ! USA !" chanting idiocy. One of the funniest thing I've seen recently was during a TNA match in 2011 where the crowd goes "USA ! USA !" for no reason at all and after a while Taz is going "Why is the crowd chanting USA, all three people in the ring are american ?...... Well I'm all for it but... USA USA !!!!" and you can hear Tenay cracking up followed by a few seconds of silence while trying to get themselves together. Just fantastic.

[joeg]

When was this discussed previously? If there's a thread about this already move my post there or delete it.

And no, Lawler's punches are awesome. Actually last night I watched a random Lawler Dundee match and Karl Kox vs Dick Murdoch from AJPW. The Lawler match had maybe 4 punches all of which happened after things heated up were treated as serious knock out blows and nearfalls. In the Kox vs Murdoch match there were nothing but punches and it took 15 minutes to get going. Those two matches combined with listening to Ross's podcast and Corny's podcast is what sparked this post. But if this has been discussed elsewhere on the board, move my post there. 

[Al]

Wrestlers laying around during a multi-person match while action goes on elsewhere. Especially in a match where you can win by pinning one of those people.

[El-P]

It was an old thread which I remembered. Last post in 2018, so the discussion went beyond the first question which was asked for a podcast. (but anyway, no big deal, it was funny to me because it's the second time in two days in two different contexts that someone is doing this)

 

[Robert S]

I hate it when in a tag team match, someone tries to break up a cover by stomping the pinning guy, yet at three the guy still lies on his opponent who still has both shoulders on the mat, yet the referee stops counting.

[Migs]

52 minutes ago, Robert S said:

I hate it when in a tag team match, someone tries to break up a cover by stomping the pinning guy, yet at three the guy still lies on his opponent who still has both shoulders on the mat, yet the referee stops counting.

Yes! I've been noticing this all over the place, most especially in New Japan lately. If you tap the pinning man, but they don't get moved off the cover, or the shoulders don't come up, the pin should continue. I think it's mostly just guys getting too cute trying to come out of nowhere with the pin breaks and not leaving themselves enough time to really dive in.

[AA484]

When a wrestler kicks out of a pin and the other wrestler sits there, mouth agape and eyes wide while the camera zooms in on his face.  It seems like something that should selectively be done during wars not during your standard TV match.

[Blehschmidt]

20 minutes ago, AA484 said:

When a wrestler kicks out of a pin and the other wrestler sits there, mouth agape and eyes wide while the camera zooms in on his face.  It seems like something that should selectively be done during wars not during your standard TV match.

Dear God, THIS! When it happened once in a blue moon, it was impactful and made you go "Holy Shit, he actually kicked out of (insert finisher name)!!!!" Now, they do that when a guy kicks out of a sunset flip, and it is has zero meaning at all.

 

My other pet peeve probably make me a bad person, but I fucking hate the referee constantly checking on everyone that is so prevelant in the post-Benoit world of modern wrestling. It literally seems that the referee is down and checking on people after every single bump, and it just distracts from the illusion for me.

[sek69]

38 minutes ago, Blehschmidt said:

My other pet peeve probably make me a bad person, but I fucking hate the referee constantly checking on everyone that is so prevelant in the post-Benoit world of modern wrestling. It literally seems that the referee is down and checking on people after every single bump, and it just distracts from the illusion for me.

I'm OK with this both for real (sometimes shit goes wrong) and kayfabe (part of the ref's job is to make sure both people can continue, they always mention that), plus in boxing/MMA the ref is there to make sure there's no serious injuries to ether combatant. What killed me is when WWE was on that thing where they would completely stop a match at even a "Lex Luger in Baltimore" level of blood. Plus it was while Joe was in NXT, and for whatever reason his nose is especially prone to bleeding so he kept having his matches interrupted. 

[PeteF3]

One that can't be blamed on these damn kidz today not knowing how to work, dammit: there's a heated stand-up exchange late in a match, things are reaching a boiling point, and...one wrestler grabs a side headlock out of nowhere, for no other reason than so his opponent can fire him off into the ropes a nanosecond later. A total eye-rolling spot, and yet almost every single one of the great workers of the '80s and '70s does it over and over.

Also, one-fall triple-threat/four-way/higher matches. I've lost the battle on this and numerous other ones, but I still hate it and sort of find it a canary in the coalmine for a lot of the nonsensical shit that came afterward that fundamentally misunderstands wrestling at its best. And don't even get me started on it when a title is at stake. Ric Flair's motto did not go, "To be the Man, you have to beat the Man or another man in the same match as the Man."

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, I've always hated the one-fall triple threat/multiple man matches. The first triple threat I ever saw, a match in Stampede in 1987 called a "Bermuda Triangle" match, had elimination rules, as God intended. It was years before WWF/WWE used the gimmick and of course they had to fix what wasn't broken (can't remember if the original ones were one-fall or not) 

[Dav'oh]

'Rana/Frankensteiner, where no bastard actually locks their ankles behind their opponent's head, so you get spots like in the Drew/Kofi match where Kofi jumps up, puts his puny girly ankles on Drew's mammoth shoulders and....Drew takes two steps and blatantly propels himself forward (I turned the match off at that point. It made Drew look weak and stupid). Bring back the old school R'n'R headscissor takedown - at least you're locking the neck.

Splash by anyone under 300 lbs, let alone anyone under 150. The splash used to be the domain of those with blubber. Remember Bundy and Little Beaver? Just the threat of Bundy splashing Beaver was enough. Now we've got Rey Beaverio Jr splashing neo-Bundys as a fucking finisher. Get rooted, as we say down under.

The related Stinger splash. Piss off. It's such a low-impact, try-not-to-hurt-anyone move that always looks like shit. The jump actually lessens the impact and the only contact is tits-on-tits. Charge in with your lard and squash the fucker.

(Sorry about the cussing. I get inarticulate when I'm peeved.)

 

[sek69]

11 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

Bring back the old school R'n'R headscissor takedown - at least you're locking the neck.

Kevin Von Erich used to do a sweet headscissors too. 

Sting used to look like he was crushing guys back in the surfer days, at some point in the Crow era he started gently laying it in and the move lost all cred. 

[El-P]

Pushing your opponent out of your own pin attempt to roll into another spot. 

[AA484]

One more:  dudes flipping on enziguris.  Fit Finlay demonstrates the proper way to sell this move:

https://twitter.com/DeepCutsWCW/status/1397963363326570503

[El-P]

Come one, guys taking flipping bumps on enzuigiris are awesome, just like Rikishi or Hennig doing a full 360° flip on clotheslines. 

[AA484]

No one who watched Finlay's sell would say that!

[El-P]

Except me I guess, maybe because I don't have a fetish for Finlay, who's overrated as hell around this place. Maybe if he did a flip bump on enzuigiris it would have woken up the crowds during his matches in WCW where he never figured how to get over, the awesome worker that he is... 

(disclaimer : I actually like Finlay, I do think he's been overrated quite a bit to say the least though)

[joeg]

Yeah I never cared for flip bumbs on enzugiri's, but Finlay's flailing in that clip was a bit over the top. By the same token, flip bumbs or flat back bumps on strikes in general bother me. Nobody gets knocked down an falls that perfectly everytime. 

[Coffey]

My biggest pet peeve in wrestling nowadays is when a big man does finally show up anymore, they try to work like they're a member of the Young Bucks. Keith Lee comes to mind. Or Luchasaurus. 

I'm OK with a spot or two that shows off their athleticism for a pop during a big match but they should never be doing leap frogs, suicide dives, frankensteiners & moonsaults in every single match to the point where it's not even special anymore but expected.

That's what 90% of the roster already does. But the rest of the roster can't be 6'6" 300lbs, so try to stand out instead of trying to be like "look, I can do it too!"

Lunacy.

[Robert S]

1 hour ago, joeg said:

Yeah I never cared for flip bumbs on enzugiri's, but Finlay's flailing in that clip was a bit over the top. By the same token, flip bumbs or flat back bumps on strikes in general bother me. Nobody gets knocked down an falls that perfectly everytime. 

I always found it funny when in the late 80ies and early 90ies, US guys took back bumps when being hit with an enzuigiri.

[Robert S]

1 hour ago, Coffey said:

My biggest pet peeve in wrestling nowadays is when a big man does finally show up anymore, they try to work like they're a member of the Young Bucks. Keith Lee comes to mind. Or Luchasaurus. 

I'm OK with a spot or two that shows off their athleticism for a pop during a big match but they should never be doing leap frogs, suicide dives, frankensteiners & moonsaults in every single match to the point where it's not even special anymore but expected.

That's what 90% of the roster already does. But the rest of the roster can't be 6'6" 300lbs, so try to stand out instead of trying to be like "look, I can do it too!"

Lunacy.

That reminds of a Walter interview where he complained about stuff like that. The argument being if big guys do the same highflying stuff like the small guys and small guys do the same power spots as the big guys, everybody is the same.

[sek69]

Walter is one of my current favorites because he works exactly like a guy his size looks like he should work. Dude can build a whole match around the threat of caving a guy's chest in with a simple chop and can have the crowd completely buying in. 

[SirEdger]

That's why I liked his match vs Ciampa at TakeOver: Stand and Deliver so much. It was all built around WALTER's chop with Ciampa working on destroying the hand the whole match, only to fall to a chop from WALTER from his other hand. Such great storytelling and psychology.