Wrestling Myth Busters

[Strummer]

a few

 

1) The heel has to believe what he's doing is the right thing.

 

2) Restholds automatically bring down a match

[sek69]

I don't think the heel has to believe what he's doing is the right thing per se, but he has to believe in what he is doing for it to be credible. When people say that wrestler x sucks as a heel, what they're really saying is that wrestler x can't sell them on really believing whatever heel gimmick he's working.

[Sean Liska]

I think sometimes you guys are looking at things a little too cynically. "The money is in the chase" wasn't something created to make Ric Flair look good or to justify a heel's position on top (not that it can't be used for that).

I don't think anyone believes that. Was someone in the thread indicating that the concept was created for Flair?

 

 

That was in response to SLL saying, "Incidentally, does anyone know if I'm correct in my assumption that this obvious myth is a byproduct of 80's smarkdom's hatred of Hulk Hogan and love of Ric Flair?"

 

I don't disagree with anything else you said. All Japan certainly dragged things out too long. And they got goofy in 96 with Kikuchi finally beating Fuchi years after it was time in addition to the weird timing of Kobashi winning the TC. (It was probably your Torch writing that made me understand how crazy some of Baba's booking was then) I love watching AJPW from 90-93 and seeing how desperately the crowd wanted Kobashi and Kawada to get their big wins. But if you're dragging out chases for six years, you probably are a little thin on talent.

[Jkeats]

a few

 

1) The heel has to believe what he's doing is the right thing.

Well this is actually an acting staple (I'm an comedian/actor, it's how I make my living). It's not necessarily that the heel has to believe that he's doing the right thing...it's more a case of, when playing a character, you can't judge that character. You have to play it from a real place and believing in what you're doing (even if it's cheating because the babyface is just a little better than you) is vital to that. Someone who is evil doesn't believe he is evil. He has his own justifications. The best villains do. The rest, that play at being evil, just come off one note and cartoonish. It's called "indicating". Like kicking a chair to show you're mad.

 

It's one of the reason names like "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" always sounded off to me (from XMen comics). They don't believe they're evil...they believe that their way is the right way.

[Ditch]

2) Restholds automatically bring down a match

If they're not done right (ie. doing a bunch of moves and then applying a chinlock), yes, they bring down the match. There are so many submission holds that can be applied so many ways, there's no good reason to just sit on a random boring hold that has nothing to do with the rest of the match.

[MikeCampbell]

I'd agree that restholds bring down a match, but only if they're truly restholds, meaning that they're not done for any other reason than to give them time to rest.

 

I've seen plenty of matches where headlocks and chinlocks are used extensively, but are done in a way that it's clearly being done for a purpose and not just to kill time and rest.

[Bob Morris]

I've always found a resthold more effective if you are doing more than just applying it and leaving it at that. For an armbar, you work the opponent down to the mat and drop a knee to the shoulder and that drives home the point you are working the arm.

 

As for chinlocks, there are those who will spend time working the neck and use the chinlock to further work it over. And there are those who, when keeping the chinlock applied for a longer period of time, will find a way to "drop weight down on their opponent," so to speak, to make it clear you're trying to put your opponent away.

 

I agree with what has been said that restholds are bad when they are just used as an excuse to rest. I think the real problem is that, at some point, fans were conditioned to believe that the action has to "keep going" and thus if you go to a resthold, it's an immediate strike against the match, regardless of whether said resthold is being incorporated to tell a story during the match.

[Ditch]

Crowds, especially arena crowds in the US, don't tend to "get" submission work and the like. However I do think any wrestling fam can point to the random lazy chinlock/sleeper and call it what it is. Especially if the ref starts lifting the babyface's arm.

[sek69]

Crowds, especially arena crowds in the US, don't tend to "get" submission work and the like.

 

That's such a stereotypical puro-fan swipe at the poor dumb American rasslin' fans. I think WWE specifically did a good job making sure the fans "got" submission work, especially during that period where it seemed like almost all the top guys were using submission holds as finishers (Taker, Edge, Angle, Benoit, even Eddy was using the "Lasso from El Paso").

 

Sometimes it's too easy to blame the fans for not getting something when it's more a matter of guys being too lazy to put some effort into not making restholds look too obvious.

[Jkeats]

Randy Orton was really bad at slapping on a boring chinlock for no apparent reason. He's gotten better with that where his head/chinlocks look like working holds instead of just rest holds.

 

Here's something that could be a myth. I could be wrong because I've only recently been able to see Georgia Championship Wrestling and only read about it in the Apter mags...the Buzz Sawyer-Tommy Rich feud.

 

I've often heard that they waged battle against "only each other" for close to two years. In watching the GCW TV shows, that doesn't seem the case at all. In fact, it looks like their feud started in the spring of 83 and ended in October with the Last Battle of the Atlanta. For the 18 mos. thing to hold true they would have had to have started feuding in the spring of 1982 and the TV shows don't bear that out at all.

 

From 411Mania.com:

 

Let’s go back to the length. Eighteen months. Eighteen. How many feuds do you know go that long? I’m not talking company power struggles that raged throughout the late 90’s, nor am I talking about the rebel flipping off the company’s owner in a two year act of defiance. I’m talking about a fight between two wrestlers of equal standing that raged on for over a full year and a half. Non-stop. These two guys didn’t take a break for a few months to fight someone else, they just kept going at it. Night after night, for eighteen months.

That's not even close to being true as Sawyer had matches with Piper and Dick Slater during this time and Rich was feuding with Bill Irwin on the shows I'm watching now (August 83). Can anyone shed light on the myth that they waged war for close to two years?

[kjh]

That's such a stereotypical puro-fan swipe at the poor dumb American rasslin' fans. I think WWE specifically did a good job making sure the fans "got" submission work, especially during that period where it seemed like almost all the top guys were using submission holds as finishers (Taker, Edge, Angle, Benoit, even Eddy was using the "Lasso from El Paso").

I think there is a difference between getting the fans to appreciate submission work and getting a few submission holds over as finishers. WWE has never done the latter well and has a mixed bag with the latter. For every ankle lock and gogoplata they got over big as a finisher, there are plenty of holds that wrestlers tried to get over and quickly gave up trying on.

[Jingus]

The damnable thing is that it's not hard to get a submission finish over. Remember King of the Ring last year, when Regal went 3 for 3 in one night and used his Regal Stretch finish in every match? You could literally hear the hold getting more over as the night went on. Way too many wrestling companies still have that obsolete mentality that it hurts a worker's credibility as a tough guy if he taps out.

[Ditch]

That's such a stereotypical puro-fan swipe at the poor dumb American rasslin' fans. I think WWE specifically did a good job making sure the fans "got" submission work, especially during that period where it seemed like almost all the top guys were using submission holds as finishers (Taker, Edge, Angle, Benoit, even Eddy was using the "Lasso from El Paso").

 

Sometimes it's too easy to blame the fans for not getting something when it's more a matter of guys being too lazy to put some effort into not making restholds look too obvious.

Casual US fans really have to be taught what holds matter, and if they aren't familiar with something right away they'll lose interest. They'll react to trademarks/finishers, sure, but little else unless it's REALLY stretchy like that time Lesnar did the stretch muffler crab thingy.

 

edit: Big agreement on the "it's taboo to tap" point. It especially hurts the viability of heel submissions. See: WM18 main event.

[khawk20]

I'd agree that restholds bring down a match, but only if they're truly restholds, meaning that they're not done for any other reason than to give them time to rest.

 

I've seen plenty of matches where headlocks and chinlocks are used extensively, but are done in a way that it's clearly being done for a purpose and not just to kill time and rest.

First bout I thought of after reading this was Bockwinkel vs. Hennig's 60-minute draw.

[jdw]

I've often heard that they waged battle against "only each other" for close to two years. In watching the GCW TV shows, that doesn't seem the case at all. In fact, it looks like their feud started in the spring of 83 and ended in October with the Last Battle of the Atlanta. For the 18 mos. thing to hold true they would have had to have started feuding in the spring of 1982 and the TV shows don't bear that out at all.

 

From 411Mania.com:

 

Let’s go back to the length. Eighteen months. Eighteen. How many feuds do you know go that long? I’m not talking company power struggles that raged throughout the late 90’s, nor am I talking about the rebel flipping off the company’s owner in a two year act of defiance. I’m talking about a fight between two wrestlers of equal standing that raged on for over a full year and a half. Non-stop. These two guys didn’t take a break for a few months to fight someone else, they just kept going at it. Night after night, for eighteen months.

That's not even close to being true as Sawyer had matches with Piper and Dick Slater during this time and Rich was feuding with Bill Irwin on the shows I'm watching now (August 83). Can anyone shed light on the myth that they waged war for close to two years?

 

They appear to have had a National Title change back on May 2, 1982. I've seen on KM that they started the feud in Feb 1982, though things got hotter later in the year. Obviously it was on-and-off rather than non-stop. Think more along the lines of Flair vs. Dusty in Crockett from say Starcade 1984 through Dusty winning the title at the Bash in 1986 and them having Dusty & Nikita vs Flair & Tully matches in late 1986 and early 1987... and there still being Dusty & Co vs Horsemen matches going around the horn in the 1988 Bash (we got a Wargames out here). Same with the Dusty vs Tully feud in that period.

 

So I think most people who say "non-stop" never have seen the ring results and are just passing along old Apter Mag talking points.

 

 

John

[Death From Above]

Crowds, especially arena crowds in the US, don't tend to "get" submission work and the like.

 

That's such a stereotypical puro-fan swipe at the poor dumb American rasslin' fans. I think WWE specifically did a good job making sure the fans "got" submission work, especially during that period where it seemed like almost all the top guys were using submission holds as finishers (Taker, Edge, Angle, Benoit, even Eddy was using the "Lasso from El Paso").

 

Sometimes it's too easy to blame the fans for not getting something when it's more a matter of guys being too lazy to put some effort into not making restholds look too obvious.

 

I think it really depends how you are defining the point.

 

There's a really big difference between "a submission finish" and "fans not chanting 'boring' for a match that is 75% on the mat". It's almost two totally seperate points.

 

American fans will accept a submission finisher sure, but matches built entirely around matwork are almost totally unheard of in mainstream American wrestling because fans routinely start up "boring" chants and other such antics. There's a big difference between the Undertaker applying a UFC choke after 10 minutes of punch/kick/brawl/highspot, and a match that really does anything to get fans to "accept/get" mat wrestling/submissions, in my view. WWE used plenty of submission finishes, Baba-era All Japan never did. But if you ran a poll "which group of fans is more likely to revolt at a matwork segment lasting more than 5 minutes", it's a 100% vote.

 

Not that I'm waving the flag for pure mat wrestling. UWF/UWF-i style tends to be either really, really good, or really, really rancid and horrifically boring. I've never seen much that falls into the middle ground for my tastes, but that's the price you pay running a "minimalist gimmick" company that wants to book 20+ minute matches. Sometimes it wanders off into "pretentious art for the sake of pretentious art" territory. But the fans that were there seemed to eat it up.

 

There is some evidence that American fans will go for the matwork thing if you sell them on it the right way. The Angle vs. Benoit WWE feud was basically sold to people as a "wrestling contest" more so than anything else around it. And people marked out like all hell for really some basic amateur wrestling sequences, many of which contained no submission work at all, it was just straight amateur, and crowds accepted it fine. But in general that doesn't seem to be the case very often. Whether that's on the fans, or on promoters for not trying it often enough, it's hard to say.

[Jkeats]

They appear to have had a National Title change back on May 2, 1982. I've seen on KM that they started the feud in Feb 1982, though things got hotter later in the year. Obviously it was on-and-off rather than non-stop. Think more along the lines of Flair vs. Dusty in Crockett from say Starcade 1984 through Dusty winning the title at the Bash in 1986 and them having Dusty & Nikita vs Flair & Tully matches in late 1986 and early 1987... and there still being Dusty & Co vs Horsemen matches going around the horn in the 1988 Bash (we got a Wargames out here). Same with the Dusty vs Tully feud in that period.

 

So I think most people who say "non-stop" never have seen the ring results and are just passing along old Apter Mag talking points.

 

 

John

Yeah I found it really odd because on the TV show they barely talk about each other at all until around summer of 83. I was expecting this long, drawn out war and them interacting on TV and cutting promos on each other for months...but it doesn't appear that way at all. You wouldn't even have known they had any issues with each other until 1983

[S.L.L.]

1) The heel has to believe what he's doing is the right thing.

Some years back, I read a Christian theory on evil (don't ask me where or which denomination...I'm looking all over Wikipedia and getting zilch) that I thought was interesting. It said that evil stemmed from three personal qualities:

 

1. Holding others to impossibly high standards

2. Not holding yourself to the same standards

3. Being indifferent to your own hypocrisy

 

The last one seems especially important, since if you actually noticed/cared about what you were doing, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. So being evil would mean believing what you were doing was right - or at least justifiable/acceptable in some way - because if you really seriously thought what you were doing was wrong, you probably wouldn't be doing it. That said, what an individual thinks is right may not mesh with what humanity at large thinks is right, and in some cases it might clash rather violently. It's kinda hard to imagine that, for example, Jake Roberts at the height of his heeldom felt his actions were "right" by the same standard that Chris Jericho feels his actions are "right". Both are ultimately in it for themselves, both are willing to achieve their wants and needs at the expense of others in situations where most would consider it unacceptable, and both would probably lead happier, more satisfying lives if they came to terms with the various psychological issues driving their actions rather than going on trying to find some other solution outside themselves that just doesn't exist. But Jake was definitely open and even accepting of the base and antisocial nature of his actions, whereas Jericho has deluded himself into thinking he has the moral high ground. It's not that Jake thinks he's "wrong", he's just got a very different take on what constitutes "right".

[Ditch]

I'm going to do this a bit differently, because I can't get the wording right on making it a one-line proposition.

 

I think "Strong Style" is a myth. New Japan doesn't have a style. I could watch Kerry Von Erich vs Jumbo Tsuruta, then Misawa vs Kobashi from January '97, and point out how generally they both fit in the Royal Road style despite the vast number of differences. There was continuity from Baba to Jumbo to Misawa to Akiyama. Fuchi and Kikuchi wrestled Royal Road style in the junior division. 'Strong Style' is a blank slate. What the hell do Liger, Nakanishi and Makabe have to do with Inoki? There are wrestlers like Nishimura who do Inoki spots, there's Hashimoto who largely inherited Inoki's role as defender of New Japan, and they have nothing to do with how Tenzan or Hirooki Goto approach a match.

 

I'll never forget going to the first MLW show. They listed a bunch of styles like "lucha libre" and "strong style" on a shirt, because they're a hybrid. Ignoring the fact that MLW had ties to All Japan rather than New Japan, even in 2002 when I was still quite a newbie to puro it was obvious how stupid that was. They were saying "strong style" as shorthand for "Japanese style", ie. stiffness and head drops and legit submissions. Over the years I've seen the term get referenced in other situations the same way. I've seen lots of long, detailed writeups about what it means. At the end of the day the only thing "strong style" means is whatever New Japan wants it to mean at that specific moment in time. Is it more Inoki-ism or Choshu-ism or Fujinami-ism, or is it some combination of the three? I suppose that right now Tanahashi and Nakamura and Nagata, who have controlled the heavyweight division for the last three years, are all good representations of mythical Strong Style. And if Tenzan wins the title in a few months and holds it for two years, ignoring that such a thing is only possible in theory, all that goes out the window.

 

Strong Style isn't about an approach to wrestling a match the way Royal Road is/was, but rather it's about the clash of differing styles in order to determine which style is strongest. The 2004 G-1 Climax is a textbook example. The New Japan wrestlers had very different approaches and the outsiders added to the variety. That tournament played to the company's strengths, as the contrast in styles produced a number of solid and distinct matches. Nakamura was "technique" and Blue Wolf was "power" and Shibata was "kenka strong style" even though he wrestled nothing like Chono. All three were NJ trueborns, and if "strong style" means anything they'd be a heck of a lot more similar.

 

That's all I got.

[goodhelmet]

Slowly working through the NJ set, at least in the 80s, there isn't one defined NJ style. Each wrestler may have a style but not the promotion as a whole.

[Jingus]

Agreed on there never having been any definite NJ style. How did "strong style" become the American smark shorthand for King's Road style, anyway?

 

The best explanation I ever heard for what Americans call "strong style" was from Dave Prazak on commentary during the 2004 IWA Midsouth strong style tournament. He explained the King's Road/Strong Style difference, how the term had been bastardized, and then ended it with "Strong style basically means: they hit each other really fucking hard and drop each other on their heads."

[Ditch]

I want 2004 Prazak back doing indies.

[Jingus]

Same here. Mid-decade IWAMS Prazak is probably my favorite indy commentator of all time, not counting whatever times that some money mark ponied up the cash for Joey Styles. But the more recent Solemnly Serious Prazak from ROH and Shimmer is much less fun.

[tomk]

never forget going to the first MLW show. They listed a bunch of styles like "lucha libre" and "strong style" on a shirt, because they're a hybrid. Ignoring the fact that MLW had ties to All Japan rather than New Japan, even in 2002 when I was still quite a newbie to puro it was obvious how stupid that was.

Kojima may have been in All Japan but c'mon.

In post Mutoh All Japan, Mossman had adjusted to work more New Japanish.

Who would be the All Japan guys in MLW who represented King's Road? Steve Williams?

[KrisZ]

Here are the Rich/Sawyer Omni matches

 

5/3/82

10/3/82

10/17/82 = No DQ Falls Count Anywhere

2/6/83

7/17/83 = Texas Death

10/23/83 = Last Battle of Atlanta

 

They wrestled in quite a few matches around the horn in that 17 month period plus had a few TV matches such as 2/6/82, 4/17/82, among a few others.

 

They had some real wars in Chattanooga which is a spot that a lot of the Atlanta fans would drive up to see because those shows had a reputation for being somewhat wilder.

 

5/8/82

5/22/82 = No DQ

6/5/82 = Steel Cage

7/24/82

7/31/82 = Coal Miners Glove

8/21/82

9/4/82 = Steel Cage

9/3/83

 

They had a lot of tag matches as well so they always had a feud but they also had other feuds as well to keep fresh.