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BLAH

Making Wrestling Interesting For Dummies (And The Fans Too)

I've watched A LOT of wrestling over the course of my short lifespan, and I think I'm qualified to have a job in the industry. What makes me qualified, you ask? Well, I'm creative, open to criticism and above all I'm a fan who loves wrestling and wants everyone else to love it as much as I do. I probably wouldn't make it as a wrestler considering that I have Chris Candido's size coupled with Mick Foley's physique, so I'd probably do better in a behind-the-scenes capacity. Now I'm not saying that I would like to be the head booker or anything, but I'd ideally like to have a job similar to that of Pat Patterson in that I help wrestlers come up with ideas for finishes, spots, moves and things of that nature. Quite frankly, most North American wrestlers are in dire need of some help in this area. In this position, I would go on a fucking crusade to eliminate the things contained in your average wrestling match that make me want to fast forward. I would do it with my 8 point plan. It's not that hard to eliminate these annoyances, it just takes a little effort. Which brings me to.....

Restholds:

Of the many things that are boring, total FF material and pain me to watch, crappy restholds rank the highest. I mean, look at the Booker T vs Stevie Ray match from Souled Out. Booker gets the crowd going with his cool shit and what does Stevie do? He totally fucking kills the crowd deader than Kelsey's nuts by wasting everyone's time with his shitty chinlocks. Lex Luger puts up an actual effort despite being unhappy with the booking in his match with Yokozuna at WrestleMania 10 and that fat tub of butt absolutely KILLS the match with upwards of five minutes of shitty restholds. I mean, how fucking hard is it to rest while doing something interesting? The human body is only designed to bend so many ways. How hard can it be to find a unique way to put a reasonably believable hold on a guy that allows both guys to rest and doesn't send the crowd out for nachos? That's why I don't rag on Konnan as much as countless others. Back when he bothered to make an effort he would put on all kinds of goofy submission stuff. It may not have worked all of the time, it at least required some effort and/or creativity. And do *something* while in the resthold. Pull the hair. Deliver a few forearms to the guy's nose. I mean, jeez, there's not that much effort required. Tag matches should have almost no resting whatsofuckingever, unless the guy in peril needs a break and his opponent can't carry someone who's tired. If you need to rest then tag the fuck out and let someone fresh take over. It's not rocket science, people. When a hockey player is tired do they grab onto some guy's jersey and play dead? Nope, they go to the fucking bench and get their ass off the ice. Why do most wrestlers care so little about keeping people entertained? You don't have to be like Jeff Hardy and try to kill yourself to keep the fans enthralled, but you shouldn't be like the Nasty Boys circa 1993 and totally kill the crowd with shitty resthold upon resthold either. Sid is almost unredeemable because he even insists on doing restholds during squashes. He did a chinlock and nerve pinch when facing Kenny Fucking Kaos for chrissakes! Squash the jabrone, hit the fucking shower and get the fuck off my TV. My solution is to take these guys aside and say that if they insist on wrestling in front of paying customers that they get their lazy asses in gear. That, and showing them tapes of Ric Flair (feet on the ropes), Fit Finlay or Steve Regal (palm thrusts and forearms to the mush), Owen Hart (hair pulling and taunting) to illustrate how they can do *something* to keep a match interesting if they need to rest. Any effort is better than what goes into most restholds. Who knows? Maybe they might even be able to fool everybody into thinking that it was a "submission" hold instead of a wind-sucking window. Hell, it might even add to........

Psychology:

If a wrestler has the upper hand, why don't they come up with a move which works one part of the body? Preferably, it should lead to softening the guy up for the finisher, otherwise you have your old crappy NWA match where a guy works the arm for five minutes and then finishes the match with a totally unrelated move. The match should not be a submssion-fest either. There are enough high impact moves and creative ways to do them that they should far outnumber the holds. I love matches that achieve that rare goal of making psychology exciting. Shawn Michaels vs Mankind from IYH: Mind Games is a ***** classic in my books, not only for the cool and innovative spots, but for the infuckingcredible psychology and how the two were woven together. Notice how Shawn rams Mankind's Mandible Claw hand into chairs and steel stairs and how we all oooohed and awwwwwed? It's taking away Mankind's finisher and involves doing really cool, violent shit to the guy. Speaking of cool, violent shit, a few guys need some of that in their existing........

Movesets:

Few things piss me off more than guys with limited movesets. How hard is it to go to a fucking gym one night on the road and work on a few new moves? Why does a guy like Lex Luger, who's 15 years removed from their debut still only have 3 offensive moves? Why did Triple H go from doing swank knee submission stuff as a rookie, to mostly using his knee as he approached his current status? Why do guys drop moves from their repertoire without sustaining an injury or some other excuse for limiting their offense? Guys like Chris Kanyon and Nova are always exciting to watch because they come up with really cool shit to do to their opponents. Even Kanyon is guilty of holding back as he has only done his Fameasser/Stunner hybrid thing and his second rope piledriver once each from what I've seen. Now, it's not appropriate for everyone's character to be that innovative, but there are ways to create an interesting moveset for any wrestler with any character. And, as ECW and Joey Styles demonstrate, there are endless cool names you can give said moves that can fit in with a wrestler's character. Double team moves should be even MORE creative. I'll invent one right now: I'll call it the Russian Electric Chair (in honor of a suicidal stunt that Dennis Hopper did while ingesting large amounts of drugs and booze.) Basically one guy puts an opponent on his shoulders (therin lies the electric chair part) and his partner stands on the top rope and Russian legsweeps them to the mat (therin lies.....you should have it by now). See? Any punk kid with a reasonable intellect can come up with these things. Even basic moves strung together in rapid succession can have a killer impact and keep the crowd riveted. One of the best things I've ever seen is the superkick/clothesline/DDT combo from Furnas and Lafon at IYH: Final Four. I'll come up with one now: dropkick to the knee/bulldog/elbowdrop. Here's another: wishbone leg-splitter/seated dropkick/legdrop. It's about as hard as a fucking jumbler, people. I should write a book called Wrestling Like The Midnight Express For Dummies. Hell, you could even pass yourself off as innovative. Now, to REALLY get on my good side you'd have to show a little............

Intensity:

Eddy Guerrero and Tajiri impress the fuck out of me by kicking guys right in the face and doing other dickish (tm Scott Keith) things to each other. Presumably you want to win your match, right? This is achieved by putting the hurt on your opponent as much as possible, no? Why not wrestle with feeling then? Instead of stomping your opponent why not dropkick them in the face? Or the knee? Or the shoulder? Whatever the psychology suits. Just look like you're going to actually hurt your opponent. How hard is that? Why do you think we on the Internet love Chris Benoit so fucking much? It's all in the realism, man. The crowd is so used to guys giving each other love taps that they actually ooooh and awwww for any degree of stiffness or intensity. People are actually interested in watching blows in a wrestling match being seen as something resembling a real fight. This is in opposition to watching Roddy Piper's lame punching combos expose the business and hearing the audible groans they draw from fans. If everyone looked like they were into what they were doing, then the business wouldn't look so fake. These guys must think that everyone knows that it's fake, so who cares if we don't make it look real? That's akin to an actor delivering their lines by talking to the camera. Minimal effort is required to make a match look good, so why not put forth that effort? Guys like Hulk Hogan make me want to go all fat Elvis on my TV and shoot out the screen with the lack of feeling in their matches. The guy wrestles with a teenage girl's offense and doesn't let an opponent get a move in edgewise because he's afraid of getting hurt. To paraphrase Dean Wormer from Animal House: A shitty offense and a lack of a willingness to take bumps is no way to go through life, son.

Bumping:

You don't have to take HOLY SHIT bumps to make a match interesting. The injuries sustained by guys like the Dynamite Kid, Ricky Steamboat and Shawn Michaels show the perils of bumping too much. But jeez, don't be afraid to take your shots like a man. Watching a Hogan match makes you realize how the guy can still be active while Shawn is retired. Hogan wrestles like he doesn't want to get hurt at all, and as a result his matches suck donkey balls and probably will until he finally retires for good at the age of 70. The math is simple: Shitty bumping = Shitty wrestling. A match cannot look the slightest bit realistic if guys don't bump and sell moves properly.

Selling:

How hard is it to pretend like a body part that has been worked on is hurting? Really. This shit is like Remedial Acting 101. If a guy does nasty things to a body part of yours, then show it. This one problem area owes a lot to the size of the egos in the business. The "I'm so much more over than you, so why should I make you look the slightest bit good?" Big Poochie mentality must DIE. It pisses me off when one wrestler's hard work goes for naught because some egotistical moron doesn't want to lower themselves. Hello!! Just because you are more "over" than a guy, doesn't make you some sort of superman (unless of course that's part of the character). That is another thing that totally exposes the business and pisses me off to no end. Arrrrrrgh! Oh well, on to something that might cheer me up.

Highspots:

A brief note on highspots: Fucking do them!! No one want to see mat wrestling for an entire match. No one wants to see kicking and punching. No one wants to see mindless foreign objects shots. Make *something* in the match memorable so that the entirety of the match isn't forgotten the second it's over. It would also help greatly if the spots were set up believably, separated by some wrestling and/or selling and fucking HIT PROPERLY. A guy lying on a table for 30 seconds waiting for the big spot after a couple punches to the head isn't believable. Walking around and doing nothing between spots is not good. Worst of all, blowing a spot badly makes the wrestlers involved look like idiots and exposes the business. There's a reason why people love Hardy Boyz and Suicide Blondes matches. I can still recall EVERY spot in the damn ladder match and how much I marked out like a high school kid with a fake ID. They were all set up believably, had reasonably good transitions and every damn spot, no matter how complicated, was hit nearly flawlessly. Transitions aren't that important in North American wrestling. Most fans don't grasp the concept of flawless transitions and therefore don't give a shit if the transitions are puroresu perfect. A mediocre match can even hold your attention, if only for a second, with a cool spot. The Acolytes vs NAO match from the Rumble had a spot where Bradshaw has one of the Wrong Heat Outlaws set up for a Blockbuster when the other one charged. He gave him a big boot to the head while still holding the other guy in a spot that drew a reaction out of everyone who saw it. See, something like that can elevate a bad match beyond a DUD and several of them that get the crowd into it make for a......say it with me......good match.

Finishes

A good finish is also important. Does anyone remember the Mankind vs Austin match from Survivor Series '98? Remember how the match was a typical good match between the two. Remember how horribly shitty the ending was? An out-of-nowhere or a bad finish taints the whole match. I wouldn't give that match more than **1/4 because of how bad the finish was. If you read the results of a card you'll read something like: Mankind d. Austin (14:04) via a lame-ass Gerald Brisco chair shot. In all fairness Ray Traylor was absent for a run in, and the Stooges had to improvise, but the horrible ending nearly negated the awesome Shane McMahon screwjob and was so bad that the finish was NEVER aired on WWF TV. The finish should be one of the hottest and best executed parts of the match, and should always be suitable for replay. The fans instinctively cheer the end of a good match, so why not make those cheers louder? That's the whole point of this rant: MAKE THE CHEERS LOUDER! MAKE THE FANS CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING!! I feel like I'm teaching a kindergarten class here. How can these "professionals" not get something this easy to grasp? Anyway, on to the closer.

In Closing:

I just don't get it. For a nonunionized profession, these guys are collectively the laziest motherfuckers on the planet. It's not hard to be entertaining in the ring, but most wrestlers fail miserably. The solutions I have outlined don't require much more effort than what almost all wrestlers are currently putting forth and would result in infinitely more watchable matches. It pains me to hear fans pop like nuts for good in-ring action and have people saying that "wrestling isn't important anymore" and " can't get over without mic skills". Guys like Edge and Kidman get good pops for being good workers, and to paraphrase The Rock, "It doesn't matter if they can work a mic or not!" Ringwork can get over, just so long as it doesn't suck. If the bad wrestlers would pick it up a notch and the good workers would help them out a bit, then people would begin to feel less apathy towards what's going on in the ring. Maybe then the wrestlers can dig themselves out of this "Sports Entertainment" hole and make people care about the name on the marquee again..........WRESTLING.

~ICON~ out.

~The ICON~
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Guest column text copyright (C) 2000 by the individual author and used with permission