Random Thoughts III.

[Frankie Crisp]

16 hours ago, BigJag said:

Care to expand on this? I don't Have Instagram.

She’s just crackers. She’s promoting her fitness subscription business, which is fair enough, but she does so with live/recorded videos of her talking to her followers with the mad eyes and she’s not the most stable. She often looks like she’s just buried Gary from Iowa because he didn’t keep up with his payments.

Edited March 3, 2018 by Frankie Crisp

[PunkStep]

Catching her dad fully clothed in the shower that time must've really scarred her, that was probably the trigger.

[Frankie Crisp]

Look at Al!

[CavemanLynn]

I've been sessioning early 90s WCW Worldwide this weekend, and here's a random thought:

I think today's generation are TOO GOOD AT WRESTLING.

I just finished a run of Steamboat vs Austin TV title matches (15 minute time limit match every TV show, great gimmick), and, sure, we're dealing with a guy who had been fantastic for 20 years already and a guy who would go on to be one of the greatest of all time as the face of wrestling's arguably biggest boom period, but it struck how different the actual wrestling moves were compared to today. They were a little scrappy, a little technically loose, but 100% believable and sold with utter conviction, and most importantly, different by each guy. Take a wristlock - Steamboat holding it high and tight to his chest, a classic "proper wrestling" hold, while Austin just grabs the wrist, yanking on it, but to the same effect as Steamboat, controlling the opponent in the middle of the ring.

It got me wondering whether a guy today with the appropriate gimmick would be derided by today's audience as not able to work if he wasn't textbook. You have main eventers all over the world starting big matches with seasoned opponents exchanging headlocks and wristlocks, "feeling each other out". Does this make sense? Would you start a match with a 15-year veteran for real, starting with training-wheels level basics?

It's a different age and a different era now, and yes, there's nostalgia aplenty going on here, but I do miss when guys had their own distinct ways of doing moves rather than whole spots or theatrics. There were problems with the cookie-cutter approach in terms of look, but I'm thinking we have that same issue today but in terms of style. A guy like Owens should be grabbing limbs and yanking and cranking them anyway he can (kayfabe) to fuck them up. Instead it's like they're afraid or unable to let themselves use anything but crisp technique.

Make sense?

[Your Fight Site]

Makes sense, and in agreement. A lot of matches tend to look too rehearsed, and sure, whilst a 20-move, back and forth exchange looks impressive, it does look rehearsed and phony in the context of simulated combat.

It also makes me wonder what the next evolution of wrestling will look like: as it’s slowly got more and more polished and rehearsed. 

[Sphinx]

Yeah, I absolutely agree and the Kevin Owens part is a point I've made before. Heels like that should be ugly in the aesthetics of their moves.

And yes, wrestlers should have their distinct way of doing moves. That's why I hate shitty forearm back and forths with a spin kick to the gut thrown in for good measure. You could distinctly tell a wrestler's strikes before. Angle's are snappy, Rock's are theatrical, Austin ruggedly stomps a mudhole, Taker took time and sized opponents up before hitting etc.

[BomberPat]

In that respect, I always think about dives - there are so many guys now doing these picture-perfect somersaults over the top rope, and they're visually stunning, but take me right out of the match, because they're so obviously choreographed. Compare that to Sabu, who was really the first person I saw routinely using that kind of offence, and it always felt like he was genuinely launching his body into his opponent because he was out of control, and would stop at nothing to keep fighting.

While you can justify the character work of an acrobatic wrestler throwing in a bunch of flips to show off, to get in their opponent's head, or whatever, a dive out of the ring should feel like a desperation move, or the babyface one-upping a cowardly heel who's tried to escape, not just a predictable crowd popping flippy move.

 

Talking about the likes of Steamboat and Austin, it's fair to say we're talking about two of the best of all time there, so it's not necessarily a fair comparison to compare them to everyone in the current generation - though the initial point is definitely valid. I do think that the best of today's generation still throw in enough personal touches to add an element of psychology to what they're doing, but one of the bigger problems I find is that people see things like headlocks, wristlocks, dropdowns and so on as a means to an end, rather than a move in its own right; you put on a headlock so that someone can push you off into the ropes to set up a shoulder block, not to apply a headlock for its own ends. So wrestlers aren't "respecting" the hold by playing it up as if it actually hurts - you try legitimately escaping a headlock by pushing the bloke putting it on you away and into the ropes and you'll end up with cauliflower ears!

 

In terms of what the evolution of wrestling is, I'm really interested in what we do and don't borrow from MMA - the audience are more educated than ever in terms of what a "real" fight looks like, but also less inclined to believe that's what they're seeing when they watch a wrestling match. But with the likes of Walter, you're seeing people get a significant following because people do believe they're seeing the real deal, on some level, and is that the way forward?

Otherwise, I think someone like Alisteir Black represents the evolution of wrestling - you could have a generic video game Create-A-Wrestler run through his "moveset" and you'd be able to recognise straight away that it was him. He fits the current style, but is unique enough that he feels like something completely apart from the norm and completely different, with everything he does seeming informed by his character.

[Sphinx]

I've seen wrestlers apply a headlock loosely and in the same motion both are moving towards the ropes to go through the motions. That happens a fair bit. I guess that's derived from lucha.

Having said that, I think moving to the ropes from a headlock to set up the shoulder block is fine. You need conventions in wrestling. And you have to consider the pacing of the match. Selling a headlock extensively is fine at the start and this is often done when the recipient pushes the guy's face and back towards the ropes for a break. Selling it extensively in a hot moment will ruin the pace and so you want things to move a bit quicker. Just a grimace from the guy applying it and putting it on snug is enough. Same as in battle royals - when wrestlers have no facial expressions and are barely pushing a wrestler when trying to get them out of the ring. It's lazy.

Whilst I'm here, I've been watching Raw from 96 as it's before my time and Goldust is great so far. Defined character, unique in how he moves, taunts, strikes, sells well, and the audience are well into the faces he's against. Probably because they're all homophobes, innit. Not that Razor Ramon is - on my latest episode, he tells Goldust "I don't want your belt. I want....your ass".

[Wrasslin]

Weirdly enough (and I can't believe I'm actually going to say this) but Mr Kennedy made a really good point about this in a shoot a I saw on Youtube. He was talking about how when people would try and pull him out of the corner or away from the ropes he would hang on or try and push them away; as you would if somewhere were trying to do that to you. 

But other guys would complain that it was throwing them off and accuse him of trying to make them look sloppy. The only one who 'got it' was, weirdly enough, The Undertaker. Who told him to keep doing it as it made him look unique. Then the agents told him to stop.

Interesting that it was the older school guy who liked it and didn't care as much about looking crisp.

[Jazzy G]

Yeah, when wrestling is done right you forget all the effort that sometimes goes into planning the match as it looks like a real athletic contest and you can just enjoy it. New Japan does this, I'm sure plenty of the indies do this. Progress does and I've lost count of the number of times I've yelped "It's not real" in spite of myself because of how stiff something looks at a PROGRESS show.

[Kaz Hayashi]

Complete agree regarding dives. Sabu is a great shout, and he gelled so we’ll against an established/polished martial artist in RVD. Although some of RVD’s stuff was a bit too choreographed, it fitted well with the character he was portraying, full of himself, bit of a perfectionist and the athlete opposed to Sabu. Great chemistry.

I also used to love the concept of a big man, slowly making his way up, one rope at a time, the commentators shout “oh god. No he can’t be” etc, usually to be foiled, pushed off, face moves out of the way, because you know if they hit the move, the games over. 

Something I feel is lost these due to big lads routinely hitting high spots. Difficult to get that back unless it doesn’t happen for a long time.

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, Sphinx said:

I've seen wrestlers apply a headlock loosely and in the same motion both are moving towards the ropes to go through the motions. That happens a fair bit. I guess that's derived from lucha.

Having said that, I think moving to the ropes from a headlock to set up the shoulder block is fine. You need conventions in wrestling. And you have to consider the pacing of the match. Selling a headlock extensively is fine at the start and this is often done when the recipient pushes the guy's face and back towards the ropes for a break. Selling it extensively in a hot moment will ruin the pace and so you want things to move a bit quicker.

The whole International sequence is something you're more likely to see at the beginning than the middle of a match anyway, but I get your point and mostly agree with you - it doesn't need to be a solid minute of struggling against the headlock, but I think the point for me is that you need to look like there's a struggle. And when it's a common move, or a common spot, wrestlers often forget that and just rush to the next bit.

Taking the International alone, there are three parts of it that bug me when done badly - that push against the ropes to get out of a headlock, it shouldn't be quick and immediate, show that you've worked your way out of it, rather than just going to the ropes because that's the next bit of the sequence. Second is the shoulder block - why are you just standing there waiting to get hit? This bit can be solved by paying more attention to the first bit; if you sell that you've just been in a painful headlock for a few seconds, trying to get your bearings back, it makes sense that you'd be out of sorts for long enough for the other guy to capitalise and knock you down, but if you don't sell the headlock, you're just stood there like a lemon waiting for your opponent to hit you because that's the next bit. And finally it's the drop-down - too many guys just jump straight down on the mat for their opponent to skip over them, rather than actually diving towards their opponent, or making it look like they're attacking the legs; you're supposed to be trying to trip the guy, not just setting up the next spot.

And it's little bits like that which I notice, that make all the difference. One of the reasons I love watching the likes of Johnny Saint is that he very rarely goes straight for the reversal or escape he's aiming for, he moves around, wriggles his arms and legs, as if he's feeling out the situation, and trying one or two things, until he finds the one that works. If you just see headlocks, wristlocks and the like as a means to an end to get to the next spot, and don't show any inherent struggle to escape them, it makes your opponent look like shit because their holds obviously don't hurt and are easy to escape from, and why are the crowd going to get invested in you escaping a hold if the hold wasn't hurting you in the first place?

 

Lucha's a whole different kettle of fish, admittedly, as the psychology is entirely different - I've talked about that here before, but a lot of guys, particularly in the California indie scene, are borrowing spots and sequences from Lucha Libre (particularly in place of Irish Whips, which I know a lot of younger wrestlers try and avoid), but just placing them into an American context, without a thought to the psychology, they're just doing it because they've seen it done and it looked cool. I think a lot of the future of wrestling will come from the cross-pollination of different styles, but it'll happen when someone makes it work plausibly in an US context, not just someone mimicking what they've seen elsewhere.

[Sphinx]

The point about cross-pollination of different styles is interesting. I feel the cultures of Japan and the US are different but sometimes things are copied from there and used here that don't translate very well. For me, it's most noticeable when you have wrestlers take a move/strike, no sell it, fire themselves up and counter with their own. I won't pretend I know a great deal about Japanese culture, but I feel that resonates more broadly in Japan than here. Again, I may be being simplistic but I think of things like anime shows where this seems to happen - it seems to be about fire and spirit. Over here, I feel it looks more fake despite the strength of the strikes than if they'd just stay down and sell it. In what appears to be a case of wanting to look more legitimate, they manage to take me out of the match and remind me wrestling is fake.

I also understand Hogan obviously had the hulking up which worked, but a) Hogan and the 80s were about OTT characters and b) there's a difference between taking a punch to the head and teasing the crowd over some ten seconds or so into the hulk up and someone being thrown on their head, getting right back up, screaming and lariating someone's head off.

That's not to say elements of strong style can't be used here; they already have and have had success. I just think that for a mainstream audience, certain parts of the style that work there won't work as well here and parts of US wrestling won't work as well in Japan.

As for the shoulder blocks, I think it's Benoit who I always noticed would throw someone against the ropes from a headlock, keep looking down and selling his head and lift up just in time for the shoulder tackle. Simple, but it works. Austin is great for feeding into things as well. A lot of the wrestlers who respected someone like Benoit or Michaels as a wrestler look past the intricacies that made them who they were. They see the flashiness or the stiffness without seeing the little details or doing things for a reason.

In terms of the sleep, I never really notice anyone just drop straight down from a standing position. They tend to be diving across towards the feet. Whilst maybe it can look lazy, you can't really go too aggressively into the sleep or you could fuck the sequence up by putting the wrestler off their run. Wrestling fans are used to the sleep by now. They know what it is - it's safer to not go overboard with it in order to keep things flowing and not fucking up the wrestlers' timings.

[Carbomb]

Back when I was doing wrestling training, one of my trainers was going through various things he hated seeing on the indy scene, one of which included the "stand-off", i.e. athletic reversal after athletic reversal after athletic reversal, knock each other down, get up and stand there facing each other in a ready position for a few seconds, and wait for the crowd to clap.

He explained to me the reason why he hated this was because it was basically being over-used, and completely out of context, and that it was a spot originally only used for a very specific scenario: when two athletic opponents are facing each other who are either former or current tag partners are trying to out-do each other, but neither can get the upper hand, due to knowing each other so well. You'd expect to see this between, say, Jannetty and HBK when the Rockers split up, or between the Hardys when they had their mini-rivalry while still a team, but not between two guys who were just having a match and weren't known for having much of an association or friendship. Of course, the toothpaste is now out of the tube, and the stand-off spot is now a regular feature on the indy scene.

[tiger_rick]

The phrase "cookie cutter" has been around for years, mostly defining wrestlers who all look alike but it's been a big fear that we'd end up with guys who all work alike and I think we're on the verge of that. In WWE, it's almost inevitable because so many guys take the same path up now and are all polished in the same place. It does seem to be the same everywhere though. Years ago, you'd rarely see the same things in multiple matches other than the absolute basics of wrestling, kicks, punches and clotheslines. Now I think a lot of matches on the same card seems to have the same basic structure and that's before you factor in the proliferation of dropkicks, superkicks, etc.

The thing that really grinds my gears now though is the oversaturation of punches and kicks. They happen far too often particularly as a transition. There seems to be such little thought involved now in how you get from one spot to another or how you turn the momentum. It's just a punch or a kick and some move. It's so unimaginitive and there's no interesting reversal of a punch.

I think a lot of it comes down to the pre-planned nature. I'm not against it because the old way wasn't always dynamic but we seems to have lost the art somewhat. Wrestling used to be about thinking "What would I do here?" and it's become "What am I supposed to do here?" I'm not going to cry about matches being pre-planned because that's not the whole problem. Randy Savage was notorious for planning everything out but he still had a unique style that looked genuine and nothing he did looked thought out.

It's no wonder that when someone comes along now who looks or acts remotely different to everyone wlse that we all cream our pants.