Tropes in pro-wrestling that you loathe

[Loss]

I stand by it. How many people in this thread have criticized FIP, a Southern tag staple? Nintendo Logic took it to the extreme, but he wasn't the first person to pile on.

[ohtani's jacket]

My point was really that no style of professional wrestling makes sense. I don't see the point in breaking down tropes.

[gordi]

I think that a lot of these tropes only become annoying when pro wrestling is consumed in the form of watching match after match after match after match on DVD or as an .avi file in a (somewhat?) analytic fashion.

 

Of course, that's not how pro wrestling is generally meant to be watched.

 

Of course, that is how very many online commentators watch pro wrestling.

 

Things like FIP, well-established finishing moves, established finishing sequences (of doom), setting up the finisher only for the opponent to escape, outside interference causing max damage, easily-damaged referees, the bad guys taking advantage of a distracted or KOd ref to pull nefarious tricks, bad guys cheating to win, fired-up babyface comebacks, heels repeatedly popping up and then dropping back down and then popping back up to feed those superman comebacks, having the guy trapped in a hold struggle to grab the rope, the crowd chanting for the good guy to twist his body and extend his arm that extra couple of inches...

 

Since moving to Nara and switching my viewing habits from "watching tons of stuff on tape, DVD, and my computer" to "going to Osaka Pro a couple of times a month and other live shows a handful of times a year" I have absolutely fallen in love with all of those tropes once again... and it's glorious.

 

Osaka Pro has a justly deserved reputation for comedy and silliness... but they also runs shows every day and so I'd have to imagine that the roster guys there work in front of a live audience more than almost any other indy wrestlers in the world. They are really really really good at using those basic tricks (and others) to work a live crowd. In a live situation, you can really get caught up in well-executed delayed comebacks and drawn-out transitions... you can get all worked up over the bad guys doing bad guy things and you can pop like crazy for legitimately earned hot tags and subsequent fired-up comebacks...

 

I'm not going to try and argue that all of the above-listed tropes are always a great thing. They are often done poorly. They can certainly become rote and lifeless in the wrong hands.

 

And: I can easily understand - I can absolutely relate to - how watching tons and tons of matches can lead to the feeling that, even when common tropes are done well, it's just something that you've already seen a few too many times.

 

All I'm trying to say is this: Since going back to consuming pro wrestling mainly as part of an involved crowd getting caught up in live action, I think I have come to understand why these things have become tropes. Wrestlers do them because - when they are properly utilized - they work to get the live crowd involved, they work to build the crowd's tension up, and they work to pop that tension.

 

In the hands of a competent worker, all of those tropes can be awesome in a live setting. I mean, those simple, basic, oft-repeated things can still make you lose your shit if you have any reason at all to get caught up in caring about who wins and who loses.

 

It probably won't help... but maybe keeping that in mind might take some of the edge off of seeing those things again and again and again...

[NintendoLogic]

I stand by it. How many people in this thread have criticized FIP, a Southern tag staple? Nintendo Logic took it to the extreme, but he wasn't the first person to pile on.

The funny thing about this is that I came out as pro-FIP in this thread. I'm not a fan of some of the peculiarities of the Southern style, but I love Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Furnas/Kroffat, to take one example. If you think about it, FIP is pretty logical. If you were in a tag team, wouldn't you work on ways to isolate an opponent from his partner and prevent him from tagging out?

[jdw]

I stand by it. How many people in this thread have criticized FIP, a Southern tag staple?

So some folks don't like FIP. Let them, especially if they're willing to explain why they don't like it. That's kind of the point of discussions on a Pro Wreslting Discussion Board.

 

We all have things that we like that not everyone else does... or things we don't like that quite a few other folks like. Jesus... the whole Davey Richards Sux Cox Brigade is largely in response to another brigade thinking he Fucking Rulz!!! If it's a discussion that one actually gives a shit about, it's useful for people to explain themselves. It's vastly more embarassing if they don't explain themselves.

 

John

[jdw]

My point was really that no style of professional wrestling makes sense. I don't see the point in breaking down tropes.

Wrestling, like all forms of entertainment, is full of tropes. I don't see any problem with folks walking through the ones they like, and the ones they don't. Sometimes we might learn something.

 

Take the old You Can't Powerbomb Kidman trope. I can't remember if I noticed it before someone else started making a joke about it. I know there were folks who *hadn't*, and once it was pointed out to them it stuck in the brain...

 

Take the Barry Windham Missed Elbow Drop Transition. Beats the hell out of me who pointed that out... probably Frank Jewett. Once you see it, there it is... damn near all the time. It's not even something like Flair Shoves The Ref, Ref Shoves Flair, Flair Bitch Bumps For Ref which does what Gordi is talking about: gets a pop from the crowd. Barry's elbow... it's just there to be airballed so the heel can go on the offense... all the fucking time.

 

I haven't watched much Bret Hart recently, but he has a few like that. Seem to recall he loved crotching himself for transitions, and you could tell whether he would hit the elbow off the ropes by how he came off: Elbow Driver (coming forward on his knees) he would hit, Elbow Drop (landing on his back) he would miss and work a transition.

 

Those aren't big archtype tropes like FIP. Smaller ones, and I can certainly see people finding them annoying when you see a wrestler doing the same shit all the time.

 

Yeah: even the great ones did it.

 

Jumbo loved feeding his back to an opponent to eat a backdrop for a transition. It's great on a level: Jumbo's flat out giving it to the opponent (smart of a worker to feed a transition to an opponent rather than forcing him to pull something clunky out of his ass), it's a logical way to transition (guy leverages Jumbo over, of course Jumbo is going to be dazed), and it's Cool (backdrops are basic Wrestling throws... we even see the occassional backdrop style suplex in MMA).

 

But... when you see it all the time, I can get someone becoming tired of it. I like it. But in turn, I hate Ric bitching out to Refs, while others think it's fucking great.

 

Nothing wrong with breaking them down. Might learn something new, or find out that you're not the only one who thinks that way about something.

 

John

[El-P]

You Can't Powerbomb Kidman style of tropes are the most annoying.

Jerry Lynn has the exact same type of annoying counter spot. It looks great, and is cool to see the first time around. Except he does it every time. It's You Can't Shoulderblock Jerry Lynn in the Stomach While You're on the Other Side of the Ropes. He'll jump above you and drop the leg on your neck while your head is sticking through the ropes. Great spot, except when everyone tries to shoulderblock Jerry Lynn when he's on the other side of the ropes. It's not nearly as annoying as Kidman's because it's a more regular spot, and the counter looks really cool, but still, it's pretty transparent that everyone is trying this shit with Lynn.

[Loss]

I stand by it. How many people in this thread have criticized FIP, a Southern tag staple?

So some folks don't like FIP. Let them, especially if they're willing to explain why they don't like it. That's kind of the point of discussions on a Pro Wreslting Discussion Board.

 

We all have things that we like that not everyone else does... or things we don't like that quite a few other folks like. Jesus... the whole Davey Richards Sux Cox Brigade is largely in response to another brigade thinking he Fucking Rulz!!! If it's a discussion that one actually gives a shit about, it's useful for people to explain themselves. It's vastly more embarassing if they don't explain themselves.

 

John

 

This is a dramatic departure from your typical approach to this stuff. Not to mention that anytime I like something you don't, or dislike something you like, I get an earful. You don't "let me" enjoy stuff that you don't that I'm willing to explain all that often.

 

Misawa/Taue. Muto/Hash. The LA FMW/Santo six-man. The Dangerous Alliance 8-man from '92.

 

Do you "let me" just like what I like in these cases?

 

Not really.

 

When I make a post that you think fails to mention down time in the first fall of that UWA six-man, do you "let me" just make the point without getting that point in?

 

Not really.

 

And you shouldn't. That's the purpose in discussing all of this.

 

I have stated my claim on face in peril so many times that there is nothing I can possibly add at this point that I haven't already said. I don't see the point in going through that entire argument every single time the topic comes up, because I think it's this unnecessary need for innovation and reinventing the wheel that I find puzzling. I also think this is the mindset that gave us Vince Russo and eventually killed a lot of my interest in continuing to watch modern stuff. I think it's so insanely self-evident that "new" in wrestling almost always sucks, and that innovation in wrestling is a terrible, terrible thing. It's so ridiculous that I can barely be bothered with it, and it shocks me that not everyone sees it the same way sometimes. It truly is the wrestling equivalent of someone saying the sky is green to me.

 

You have said over the years that opinions can be wrong. You also enjoy using the analogy that anyone who has the opinion that Sid is a great worker has a wrong opinion. This is my Sid is a great worker.

 

Nintendo Logic is perfectly allowed to say there has never been a great Southern tag, but that's a pretty sweeping statement, and I don't understand why you're not responding to him for saying something you very obviously do not agree with. Instead, for some reason, your focus is on me dismissing the opinion.

 

You started the woodpile for things to get tossed on, remember?

[FLIK]

It's not nearly as annoying as Kidman's because it's a more regular spot, and the counter looks really cool, but still, it's pretty transparent that everyone is trying this shit with Lynn.

Naw i'd say Lynn's is by far the more annoying of the two.

 

What bothers me about the Lynn leg drop is that it's so unnatural. Under regular circumstances almost no one would ever throw a shoulder block through the ropes to a guy on the apron 99% of the time but it always happens in every match against the 1 guy who happens to have a counter for that move? Dumb.

 

With Kidman and powerbombs, atleast a good portion of the people he's wrestling, especially cruiserweights, use a powerbomb as part of their normal offense anyways so I was fine with that and barely ever even noticed "you can't powerbomb Kidman" until it became a running gag online.

[MJH]

Counters as regular offence suck - period.

 

It's one thing to have x amount of transition counters that you like to use... shit, you watch enough of anyone you'll see them repeating spots like that.

 

And the worst offender is Taiyo Kea. His hiptoss-counter-DDT actually has a name.

[jdw]

This is a dramatic departure from your typical approach to this stuff. Not to mention that anytime I like something you don't, or dislike something you like, I get an earful. You don't "let me" enjoy stuff that you don't that I'm willing to explain all that often.

 

Misawa/Taue. Muto/Hash. The LA FMW/Santo six-man. The Dangerous Alliance 8-man from '92.

 

Do you "let me" just like what I like in these cases?

 

Not really.

 

When I make a post that you think fails to mention down time in the first fall of that UWA six-man, do you "let me" just make the point without getting that point in?

 

Not really.

 

And you shouldn't. That's the purpose in discussing all of this.

I walked through why I think the LA Six-Man was a spectacle but not really a great match.

 

I didn't say your belief that it's a ***** or MOTYC match was "embarassing".

 

I think the 1995 Misawa-Taue matches are great... thought it at the time, still do. On Mutoh-Hash, I think for 16 years I've been the biggest proponent of the match. So it would be a stretch to say that I have called you opinions about them "embarrassing". We don't disagree at all that they're Great on some level. What we have are smaller disagreements on how the rank relative to each other and/or other matches, and why.

 

We didn't even had a discussion on the Dangerous Alliance 8-Man Tag. You posted your thoughts on it *5* years ago, and I wasn't even in the thread. I tossed up thoughts on it last month from a random match watching get together. Called it a really good Thunder style match, but because there were so many guys in there that it came across as something of a spot-a-thon and like one of those disposable Jumbo & Co vs Misawa & Co six man tags. Wait... I like those All Japan six mans a lot, even when they're of the "Fall Out Of Bed" type that aren't at the Great-Great-Great~! level.

 

Look at the original thread back in 2007 on it. Most of the posters, including you, put it into the context of really good/great TV match. That's what I did. I also said:

 

"From nearly all of these guys, you'd rather watch some matches +/- four months that let you see the individual workers have more time to show what they can do. But that I don't mean only singles matches, but akin to the tag mentioned right above where we're able to see more from Barry, Dustin, Larry & Austin that then can flash here because (i) they have slightly more time to work, and (ii) they don't have to share that time with double the workers."

You had this match #53.

 

Sting, Dustin Rhodes, Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Eaton

 

#59 - Arn Anderson vs Dustin Rhodes (WCW Saturday Night 01/04/92)

#38 - Windham & Rhodes vs Austin & Zbyszko (WCW SuperBrawl II 02/29/92)

#19 - Vader vs Sting (WCW Great American Bash 07/12/92)

#11 - Rick Rude vs Ricky Steamboat (WCW Beach Blast 06/20/92)

 

The only person not in one of those matches is Eaton.

 

Set aside whether Arn-Dustin was a better match or not: you have them *close*. On the broader point I was trying to make, which would you rather have to get a picture of just how good Dustin and Arn were at that point? The singles match opposite each other, or the tag where they're sharing so much time with others?

 

You've got four of these guys in a match a week later. Which would you rather keep?

 

etc.

 

If you want to discuss it, I've given you plenty of leg and certainly haven't shut down any other folks from thinking that it's a really good / great TV match... because that's exactly what I thought it was.

 

 

I have stated my claim on face in peril so many times that there is nothing I can possibly add at this point that I haven't already said. I don't see the point in going through that entire argument every single time the topic comes up, because I think it's this unnecessary need for innovation and reinventing the wheel that I find puzzling.

So just say that you love FIP.

 

I don't have a hell of a lot to add to FIP, but add in some comments about All Japan "peril" which isn't quite pure old school FIP... but can be pretty damn excellent / great. The objective wasn't to bother much with the FIP Rulz! or FIP Sux!!! debate, but to try to get people to think outside narrow typecasting all Peril segements as FIP. Misawa on 12/06/96 was something beyond a "face' those last 14 or so minutes. Kawada wasn't a "face" down the stretch on 12/03/93, and wasn't really a "heel" in an 80s WWF-style Heel In Peril segment. Those are two of the great Peril segments in AJPW history... just fucking awesome. Think beyond the box.

 

 

You have said over the years that opinions can be wrong. You also enjoy using the analogy that anyone who has the opinion that Sid is a great worker has a wrong opinion. This is my Sid is a great worker.

Of course opinions can be wrong. We argue that all the time.

 

Nintendo Logic is perfectly allowed to say there has never been a great Southern tag, but that's a pretty sweeping statement, and I don't understand why you're not responding to him for saying something you very obviously do not agree with.

I said that I'm pro-FIP. Go look at my post.

 

As far as "Southern Tag", I've always thought it was a bullshit name. I suspect if we got a years worth of main even film from the Miller Brothers out on the west coast in the 50s, we'd see them working "southern tag" before it was "southern tag". We'd see it Chicago if more tag existed rather than all those singles matches that exist. We'd see it in what became the AWA territory in the late 50s and early 60s. I'm sure Yohe well tell you that all tags in Los Angeles were worked along those lines.

 

It's just standard tag team wrestling, and probably was invented about five minutes after the first tag match where only one guy was allowed in the ring at a time (rather than the tornado rules that researches think were originally used). Heels... faces... put a face in peril just like we do in singles... find ways to distract the ref just like we do in singles... except it's easier with a partner and the face outside the ring over there... BINGO!

 

So when I see Southern Tag, I tend to roll my eyes. It's just tag wrestling, common elements that we see all over the wide world of tag wrestling, and god bless southerns for wanting to take credit for something else in life.

 

So why would I argue with someone when they claim they've never seen a Great Southern Tag Match when I think Southern Tag is a bullshit made up concept?

 

Instead, for some reason, your focus is on me dismissing the opinion.

Because it was actually a decent thread on different tropes. You got annoyed by people not liking a trope that you love, and dismissed the whole thread.

 

 

You started the woodpile for things to get tossed on, remember?

Search this board for woodpile in posts by the author jdw and see how many times I've used it here and the context. I found just 4, and I don't think any of them fit into what you're thinking of. I try not to go there anymore (or certainly as often) because it became a jdw trope.

 

There isn't anything wrong with disagreeing with an opinion. We all do it... often strongly. It just came across that you were tossing the Whole Discussion on the Woodpile. If it wasn't worth repeating what you've said before in your love of FIP or other tag tropes, the pass on it.

 

I'm going to take the rest in another post so it doesn't get lost in what is in the end a less significant discussion above.

 

John

[jdw]

The above is generally pointless, but you did hit one thing that to me is a more worthwhile discussion:

 

I also think this is the mindset that gave us Vince Russo and eventually killed a lot of my interest in continuing to watch modern stuff. I think it's so insanely self-evident that "new" in wrestling almost always sucks, and that innovation in wrestling is a terrible, terrible thing. It's so ridiculous that I can barely be bothered with it, and it shocks me that not everyone sees it the same way sometimes. It truly is the wrestling equivalent of someone saying the sky is green to me.

Innovation in entertainment isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean that basic elements / structures that have worked don't still work.

 

In the 50s, Lucy and Ricky couldn't sleep in the same fucking bed.

 

In Deadwood there's a brief post sex scene with Bullock and Mrs. Wolcott that is one of the most naked and honest moments of any "great television" shows that I've ever seen. It flashes by so fast, and it's not one of the Really Big Dramatic / Action / Funny Moments that Deadwood / Sopranos / The Wire are famous for, so if it doesn't strike you quickly as you watch it... it's gone into the vapor because the next big moment is a scene or two away. But it says so much about the characters (both in the series prior to it and what's coming), and so much about ourselves if we've been there (which maybe all of us haven't)... that it floors me more than just about anything in what I think is a great-great-great show.

 

They couldn't have done that scene, had that moment in the 50s. Not on TV. Not in the movies.

 

That doesn't mean that there are elements / structures from the 50s that don't still work in TV and the movies. Tons do... an incredible amount.

 

But there have been a lot of innovation in TV and movies that have made for great things, be they small great moments (like the one I'm referring to above) or big great moments (Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back couldn't have been made without a lot of people innovating their asses off on technical elements that supported what were really cool / great old school storylines).

 

Innovation in the arts and entertainment isn't a terrible, terrible, terrible thing.

 

It just is in the hands of idiots like Russo, or wrestlers who get lost in the punch of innovation for the sake of innovation and at the expense of good elements like storyline.

 

The powerbomb was a really cool innovation. When Onita pins Tenyru with the Thunder Fire Power Bomb, beating the guys who did as much as anyone in Japan to put over the Power Bomb as a big finisher, that's pretty cool. There is so much more about the match that is also cool. But that the two of them had finishers that had been innovated during their careers and were quite credible meant that we had a cool finish rather than a conference finish with a schoolboy and a handful of tights. Not that there probably aren't some great matches out there with conference finishes... but I suspect that most of us think that was the Right Finish to that tag match. And it was with something that had been innovated. This isn't having a MOVES! boner, but appreciating that the power bomb was a positive element that both Tenryu and Onita brought to the table and they gave it significant meaning in the stories they told.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Loss: you probably aren't as extreme in your views on innovation as you made above... it just came out that way. I suspect we're not terribly far apart that a lot of innovation is pointless or poorly used or over used or diminishes from the greater whole... etc. But that we also appreciate good / decent / great innovation when it's weaved well into forms of entertainment that we like.

 

John

[Matt D]

Would innovation just be moves? Would it be match type? Or is it more that he's talking about elements of psychology? Or even elements of what wrestling is? I had a post saying some of the above but I didn't like it and scrapped it. I think we should probably break off on innovation though.

[jdw]

There's all sorts of innovation.

 

Tag Team Wrestling was an innovation. Frank Gotch certainly didn't wrestle any tag team matches in his career.

 

I just used the Tenryu-Onita tag as an easy example:

 

* people love the match

* people love Tenryu

* the power bomb was innovated during their careers (1)

* Tenryu was key in popularizing the power bomb in Japan

* I don't think anyone would claim it was a terrible innovation

 

(1) I know Thesz did a power bomb-ish move. It wasn't the power bomb, and it certainly didn't get popular.

 

We can point to a lot of stuff. Wrestling on Television was an innovation.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

Carbon based life forms - innovation!

[JerryvonKramer]

Where does stuff like Steiners vs. Luger and Sting fit in?

[El-P]

Where does stuff like Steiners vs. Luger and Sting fit in?

In the "Overrated spotfest" category.

[ohtani's jacket]

A trope you loathe isn't a trope anymore if we're going to play by the rules.

[Guest Slickster]

Agree on the 'move I always miss in order to give the babyface an opening' spots being annoying. To me, the most grating offenders are Ted DiBiase's diving back elbow drop off the second rope and Bully Ray's middle rope senton.

[NintendoLogic]

There's also an issue of semantics. "Not truly great" is not the same as "bad" or even "mediocre." There may not be any US tag that blew me away, but there are plenty that I think are really good. It's not an insult to Death Magnetic to say that it's not on the same level as Master of Puppets.

[jdw]

Another trope I loath:

 

Old time wrestlers talking about "not getting smartened up to the business until..."

 

You always wish they would explain what the fuck the mean by that.

 

Didn't know that it was entertainment dressed up as fake sports?

 

Didn't know that you stamp your foot when throwing a punch, and make sure to not throw the punch like you do in a real fight to avoid knocking your opponent goofy?

 

Seriously... how could someone by their mid-teens not know it is what it is? Honestly, I never knew how people past "The Easter Bunny Is Real" age could watch wrestling and not see the obvious stuff that gave away the ghost on it.

 

So...

 

What aspect of pro wrestling were you "Smartened Up" to at that point?

 

John

[El-P]

Trope I can't stand : bringing in a masked guy usually called "Executionner" and trying to sell him as a true menace. When in fact, every masked guy called "Executionner" ever was a jobber.

[NintendoLogic]

Another trope I loath:

 

Old time wrestlers talking about "not getting smartened up to the business until..."

 

You always wish they would explain what the fuck the mean by that.

 

Didn't know that it was entertainment dressed up as fake sports?

 

Didn't know that you stamp your foot when throwing a punch, and make sure to not throw the punch like you do in a real fight to avoid knocking your opponent goofy?

 

Seriously... how could someone by their mid-teens not know it is what it is? Honestly, I never knew how people past "The Easter Bunny Is Real" age could watch wrestling and not see the obvious stuff that gave away the ghost on it.

 

So...

 

What aspect of pro wrestling were you "Smartened Up" to at that point?

 

John

It could just be them being carnies and implying that in their day, they were all such good workers that everyone thought it was real.

[sek69]

Another trope I loath:

 

Old time wrestlers talking about "not getting smartened up to the business until..."

 

You always wish they would explain what the fuck the mean by that.

 

Didn't know that it was entertainment dressed up as fake sports?

 

Didn't know that you stamp your foot when throwing a punch, and make sure to not throw the punch like you do in a real fight to avoid knocking your opponent goofy?

 

Seriously... how could someone by their mid-teens not know it is what it is? Honestly, I never knew how people past "The Easter Bunny Is Real" age could watch wrestling and not see the obvious stuff that gave away the ghost on it.

 

So...

 

What aspect of pro wrestling were you "Smartened Up" to at that point?

 

John

 

I had suspicions for a while, but I realized after Paul Orndorff debuted in the WWF that he'd been piledriving people for weeks and no one suffered a career ending broken neck yet. Then one of the replays they showed in a squash match showed the jobber's head didn't even come close to hitting the mat (but he still sold it as death) and the horse was out of the barn for me.

[artDDP]

I hate thigh-slapping for effect with kicks. If your kicks really made that sound it'd be your shin breaking, not someone's face.