Random Thoughts III.

[Ambulance Chaser]

Yeah on second viewing I make you right actually.

[Vamp]

It's a bastardised lucha sequence really. That's part of the worldwide style now. Lucha sequence to start, do some dives, chuck in a "you hit me I hit you" and then send it home by dropping each other on your heads. Then just when the crowd goes "blimey if there are anymore near falls I'll miss me bus" finally end it. Sprinkle in some superkicks to taste. 

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It produces a lot of athletic good matches in that style. Eventually people will get bored of it though. 

Doesn't help that so many people are so crisp with their shit though. Probably safer that way (although maybe negated by chucking people on their noggin) but somehow it makes it all look faker. 

[CavemanLynn]

That sort of thing is fine if the two guys actually look like they're trying to go for something rather than tumbling around each other for rolls. That tap on the back as he runs past you in clotheslining range? Fuck off.

It's entertaining for that sort of spotfest, but in terms of believability and storytelling, it's mostly bobbins.

I think any trainee who thinks that's good wrestling worth aspiring to should watch Jake Roberts' WWF debut, particularly the moment when the jobber nips up after a shoulder tackle. Bosh.

[Headbanger Mosh]

Could be worse 

 

[Merzbow]

I guess this thread is best for this.

I was looking up Victor Quinones and saw that his wiki is a tad off

Quote

Quiñones retained strong connections with many professional wrestling federations outside Puerto Rico, and was known for his extraordinary booking/promoting faculty. He was a very rich person and took very good care of wrestlers. Japanese wrestler Taka Michinoku was heavily helped by Quiñones when he had been to outside Japan. Thanks to Quiñones, he could wrestle in ECW, WWF (USA), AAA (Mexico), IWA (Puerto Rico), FMW (Japan), and he has stated that without Quiñones' help, he wouldn't be able to start Kaientai Dojo and that Quiñones was like a father to him.^[1]Kintaro Kanemura reminisced about Quiñones as "If I didn't meet him, maybe I would die in the middle of America" (when he first arrived in North America, he had only ¢20).^[2]Mitsunobu Kikuzawa described Quiñones as the No.1 promoter in the world.^[3]Tajiri has referred to Quiñones as his biggest mentor in wrestling.^[4]

If he wasn't dead I'd have said he wrote that himself.

[CTXRussomark]

I felt like I needed a shower after watching the Hogan documentary. Some seriously scummy people on there. Basically everyone directly related to the case comes across as an utter cunt, on both sides. 

[Egg Shen]

is it on netflix?

[SuperBacon]

18 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

is it on netflix?

It is!!! Just checked this morning. 

[BomberPat]

On ‎23‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 7:05 PM, CavemanLynn said:

That sort of thing is fine if the two guys actually look like they're trying to go for something rather than tumbling around each other for rolls. That tap on the back as he runs past you in clotheslining range? Fuck off.

The tap on the back on a clothesline is something that makes sense in Lucha, but not in any other style of wrestling. I love that wrestling is kind of cross-pollinating more than it ever has, and picking influences from all over the world, but you end up with these little anomalies where, if they're just incorporated because you've seen it done, or because that's part of the sequence, they don't make sense in a modern/North American context.

The psychology of Lucha is very different to the psychology of wrestling anywhere else in the world; whereas in American wrestling all roughly follows the three act structure, and is all about heat, lucha is about momentum. Whichever luchadore has the most momentum is the one in control of the match, but if his competitor is able to take a move and roll through into a position of strength, they can absorb the momentum of their opponent and take control of the match. That's why, in lucha, you'll see a lot of things like the "tap the wrestler on the back" spot, or wrestlers allowing their opponent to flip around on the top rope to set up an arm drag, because the more momentum their opponent has, the more they can take from them. I've probably explained that badly.

It's a similar thing when you see old World of Sport sequences incorporated into American matches - a lot of them are done because someone's seen them, thought they looked cool, and wanted to incorporate them. And that's great, because it keeps the style alive, but done without thought, it doesn't make any sense in an American context. Plenty of times you'll see someone put in a "British" hold in an American indie match, and you'll be left wondering, "why doesn't he just hit him?" - now we might know the hold, and know that it comes from the British style, and know that in Mountevans rules it's illegal to throw a punch, but the majority of the audience won't know that, and they'll be asking "why doesn't he just hit him?" even louder.

It's nice to see the odd subversion of this, though - Mike Quackenbush fought Zack Sabre Jr in CHIKARA recently, and Zack tried the Lady In The Lake spot. This one's always been a bugbear for me when it's used outside of the UK; in Mountevans rules, it makes sense, because you can't attack a grounded opponent. So, when curled up into a ball, you can't pin the man as his shoulders are off the mat, but you also can't do anything else, so you have to take his hand when it's offered, otherwise you're just at a stalemate. It's hokey, but it makes sense. In America? Well, in the Quack/Zack match, Quack just lifted him up and dropped him on his arse. Because there's nothing stopping him from doing that. I'm pretty sure there was a Bryan Danielson/Samoa Joe match where Joe responded to the Lady in the Lake by just punting Bryan in the spine, too.

 

It's part of a wider problem in wrestling of moves and spots being done because they've always been done, not because anyone's putting any thought into why we do them. Something that will always get a pop out of me is someone actually getting tripped up by the drop-down in the International. Most guys do the drop-down in the centre of the ring, for no reason other than because that's the spot, they've either forgotten or never known that they're supposed to be attacking the guy's legs, not just giving him an opening to hop over him and carry on running the ropes to set up the next bit. Similarly, too few people actually sell the headlock and the struggle at the start of that sequence - it's just a headlock, immediately shoved off into the ropes. If someone legitimately gets you in a headlock, are you going to try and get out of it by shoving him away from you while he's still got it locked in tight? At best, that's a recipe for a cauliflower ear.

I find myself, at training sessions, or when watching someone's match back, saying to them, "why did you do that?". My logic has always been that if you can't explain why you do something in a match, then you shouldn't be doing it. The flipside of that is that if I say, "you shouldn't have done that", and you can explain to me why you did it, then that's fine, I'm the asshole. I don't pretend to be right about everything.

I know I'm off on a tangent now, but as an aside to that, and particularly relating it back to the headlock point - I was saying to someone last week; think of it like a GCSE Maths exam, you have to show your working. It's not good enough to just get out of the headlock, the audience have to see that you've struggled and fought to get out of it, and they have to have some understanding of how. It's one of the reasons I love Johnny Saint - he doesn't just skip ahead to escaping the hold, he acts out his thought process, and tries one or two things before the one that works.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Thanks for that post Bomber - really interesting read, lots of things I didn't know or just hadn't realised the reasons behind.

[AshC]

Excellent post.

[Onyx2]

What a superb on-topic post, articulating things I kinda knew but didn't know I knew (if you know what I mean) and shedding light on some wrestling contrivances. You've not been here long Mr Roach but you're doing fine work from beyond the grave.

[BomberPat]

Thanks guys I did ramble on a bit, so I'm glad to know it was appreciated!

I meant to add that the real greats, and the real innovators, are the ones who manage to adapt from one style to the other and make it work seamlessly, rather than leaving these gaping holes in internal logic. I'm thinking Rey Mysterio in adapting lucha techniques to the US style, for example.

[FLips]

Cancelled my network sub earlier. £9.99 was worth it for what I used it for, but NXT isn't great these days, the back catalogue has ran dry and the current main product is awful. Can't justify having it any more so it's gone. For the first time in 16 years I can genuinely say i'm just not really into wrestling.

[Onyx2]

I just realised Nia Jax's theme talks about not being like "most girls". I thought she was "not like monsters".