Common Match Criticisms

[Loss]

I wanted to use this thread to discuss common match criticisms, both those that you agree with and think are valid and those that you don't quite understand or disagree with. You can take on the role of the criticizer or defender. I'll be criticizer for one and defender for one to get us started.

 

Criticism: The crowd was dead.

 

Criticizer: I've always felt like if a match fails to get the crowd involved, it's failed to reach its most basic and important goal. Does that mean a match can't be good if the crowd is dead? Not necessarily. But it does mean, in my opinion, that a match with a dead crowd can't be a classic. There are matches I enjoy that have a dead crowd and there are matches I don't enjoy that have a hot crowd. I wouldn't go as far to say the louder the crowd the better the match. So it's not the sole deciding factor in determining whether a match is good. But I think it's an important factor, and I don't get it when people don't consider it important at all. Even if I personally enjoy a match, if it doesn't seem to be worked for its intended audience, that's something that I probably will criticize, simply because I think when reviewing a match, we should aim to look at what works and what doesn't not just for us personally, but for the intended audience at the time. I think a good match review takes both of those factors into consideration.

 

Criticism: The body part work didn't go anywhere.

 

Defender: Does body part work always have to go somewhere? Is it always a bad thing if it doesn't? Body part work is about strategy. Sometimes strategies fail. If Wrestler A kicks Wrestler B works over Wrestler B's leg early on, is the match flawed if they eventually go in a different direction? Is there an acceptable point where Wrestler B can stop hobbling around, or is it supposed to happen for the entirety of the match and affect every single thing from that point forward? That seems like kind of a zealot point of view to me, but I'd like to hear the counter-argument. I do think it should be sold, but I also think it's acceptable to move on at a certain point, depending on factors unique to that match like how it is laid out, how much time they are given, whether the direction they were previously taking was engaging or not, etc.

[Childs]

I'm not a body-part zealot either. It only really bothers me when guys build the entire opening of a match around it, then rapidly transition to throwing bombs without any lingering effects. I will say that the body-part attack is probably an overused opening, given that a lot of wrestlers fail to do anything interesting with it.

[dawho5]

To me it doesn't have to be anything major to make it matter on body part selling. It can be worked over early and not play a big role late as long as it is never completely forgotten and progressively sold in such a way as to suggest that it was worked earlier but is feeling better now. Also, the wrestler(s) who worked over said bodypart can always go back to the well if they are in trouble late, just to get the advantage back. That and taking a few moments after a big move to sell, perhaps costing yourself the 3 on the following cover are two of my favorite ways to see it used late-match in a more subtle manner.

[Grimmas]

My problem with the body part thing is if its ignored in selling afterwards. For example the Orton-Bryan match from earlier this year when the leg of Orton was destroyed for the first half and then ignored by him later on.

[Matt D]

My problem with the body part thing is if its ignored in selling afterwards. For example the Orton-Bryan match from earlier this year when the leg of Orton was destroyed for the first half and then ignored by him later on.

 

This is pretty spot on. If you're going to drop it, then either slowly pare down the selling, or never sell so much to begin with. I'm fine when a different body part is worked on and that part takes precedence in the selling. Bursts of adrenaline can be forgiven if they're worked into the match well or the selling comes back afterwards in a believable way. I'm generally fine with compelling early body part work as "control" so long as the selling isn't done to the point that I don't buy it going away all at once.

[Gus_McCrae]

I'm not sure if this is a common match criticism, but it should be. I really like no-selling in the middle of the match. Particularly, if it's a big bomb or slam or some type death strike that was established as devastating early in the match.

 

A great example is from a Masato Yoshino vs. Masaaki Mochizuki Dragon Gate's match from February. I was really into this match. The opening was super hot including this great spot that really struck home. A very basic arm ringer that Yoshino used. He must have rolled under Mochizuki’s arm 4 or 5 times with his arm noticeably twisting tighter and tighter each time he rolled through. Executed wonderfully, with great expressions through out, and illustrative of what was turning into a really good match.

 

Then they lost me at the back end of the second act – where they started a no selling sequence, which included some very heavy moves. The no selling detracted from the match, it was distracting and really broke up the flow. I hated it. Outside of that sequence the match was great.

[Ditch]

On limb work, I've had many drawn-out arguments on the subject with people who aren't much concerned with selling and think I'm being overly critical. But I'm not expecting someone to sell a kick to the knee for 15 minutes; I think it should be proportional and consistent.

 

-If someone works a limb for a minute, sell it for a minute. Shaking it off a couple times is enough.

 

-If someone works a limb for an extended 5 minute control segment, it should be sold longer and should prevent certain moves from being done. Otherwise, the limb work was filler, and I'm not a fan of filler.

 

-"My limb hurts too much to do (move)" is vastly more compelling than "ow I just did (move) and now my limb hurts but I'm going to keep doing moves with it". For instance, a much-hyped match between KENTA and Nakajima on 3/1/09 featured Nakajima going after a leg constantly, and KENTA still was able to do his full arsenal of athletic moves without problem aside from selling afterwards. Very problematic.

 

-"(body part) of iron" can be fun, but it needs to be established and sold as such. Another match that I debated about was Tanahashi vs Nakanishi from 5/6/09. Tanahashi worked the legs, and Nakanishi ignored it the entire time. The announcers kept putting Nakanishi over as "leg machine", i.e. his legs are so strong that Tanahashi's attack doesn't hurt much. Given that Tanahashi goes after the legs constantly, I would have no problem with Nakanishi no-selling or semi-no-selling some of those attacks since they're stale and it would be dramatic. But it needed to be *active* no-selling to demonstrates the "leg machine" gimmick. Instead he would sell the move and then not sell the leg once on offense.

 

There are times when limb work goes bad because of the person doing the focus, but mostly it's on the recipient's end. What I find especially wrong-headed is that selling goes a long way towards building heat and drama. Someone who's going to win the match has even more reason to sell, because it makes their win seem more meaningful; that they overcame adversity. Selling is something wrestlers can do to entertain and get over without taking bumps/risks. With how much of a physical toll wrestling takes, I'm amazed that guys won't do everything possible to get over with things like selling.

[goodhelmet]

The #1 overwhelming match criticism for the 1980s sets so far has been...

 

Loved the match but hated the finish.

[sek69]

Televised matches in the 80s tended to have inconclusive and/or bullshit finishes since the money was in the house shows in those days, but I think a lot of people these days don't seem to realize that (present company excluded of course).

[PeteF3]

I don't know, there are quite a lot of house show matches on those sets. Lots of Joel Watts footage from Mid-South, and the Houston matches are essentially house shows with cameras, a la MSG and the Boston Garden. Stuff from the Mid-South Coliseum. And then there's everything from AJPW and NJPW and the lucha promotions, who were seemingly never bound by the "don't give anything away on TV" model. Still lots and lots of bullshit to parse through.

 

The finish is like the checkout line--the last thing you remember. A particularly good or bad one can sweeten or sour the entire experience.

[Ricky Jackson]

Watching a ton of 79-80 WWF for Titans, and I'm only slightly exaggerating (or maybe not) when I say that I can count the number of conclusive finishes on one hand, not counting TV squashes of course. Most of the matches are at MSG and the Spectrum. And it doesn't really bother me. Clean finishes are overrated.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I agree. I love it when people go on about how things should be like "it used to be, with clean finishes" . When was this magical time?

[PeteF3]

I'm not opposed to non-clean finishes, when I think of bad finishes I think of shit like that Slater/Reed no-disqualification disaster.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I think that double DQ , count outs , screw jobs, whatever you have aren't bad finishes on their own. It depends when they're used . Like I've said, Flair/ Nikita at Starrcade was a terrible finish because it was an amazing show where the main event ended like shit.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm probably as much of a body part work zealot as anyone, so I guess I'll explain where I'm coming from. Wrestling is a form of narrative fiction, and leaving major plot points unresolved is bad storytelling. A wrestler doesn't have to be wedded to a single strategy for the entire match, but there should be clearly defined reasons for any shift in strategy. Everything doesn't have to lead to the finish, but everything should lead to something.

[Ditch]

Just saw a fantastic bit of selling that is worth noting in the context of my last post. Kojima & Nakanishi vs Nagata & FFujita from the 8/8/98 dome show. Nagata applies the Nagata Lock (a leglock) to Nakanishi. Kojima delivers an elbow drop to Nagata to break it up, then he and Nakanishi get in position for a sandwich lariat from opposite corners. Kojima does his part, but Nakanishi's leg gives out and he drops to a knee. Big crowd reaction, and Kojima smacks Nakanishi on the back of his head out of frustration. They delivered a pop and put over Nagata's then-finisher through logical selling. It's that easy!

[ohtani's jacket]

Body part work is a wrestling cliche. If wrestling were a work of narrative fiction it would be the equivalent of "it was a dark and stormy night."

[Timbo Slice]

Body part work, like any other part of a wrestling match, is a story catalyst. If the story is around a weak body part, the match will be built around said body part. The trick is whether or not the guys in the ring want to make that body part matter or not.

 

Everyone goes crazy about Kawada's selling in the 12/3/93 tag, but the thing isn't that he dragged a weak leg around the rest of the match the moment he got it attacked. It's that he made it part of the story and made the moves that happened after the initial attack make sense. It's not a cliche so much as it either represents the story a match is trying to tell or not.

 

In NJPW juniors matches during the 90's, "body part work" was mainly an introductory period of some type of struggle that ended up meaning nothing at the end of the match because that wasn't the story they were trying to tell. Then Ohtani and Samurai turn that on its ass in their 1/21/96 match, where the ENTIRE match revolves around the body part work of both guys, and it looks to be brilliant in retrospect because they decided to make the body part a focal point of the match.

 

Ric Flair worked thousands of matches where he went after the knee, slapped on the figure four and the leg work meant nothing in the long run because that wasn't the story he and the guy across from was trying to tell. Hell, we just saw Zayn and Cesaro have a match where the injured knee became a focal point, and very few people even elected to talk about the fact that he was jumping around doing the Toyota Roll and the top rope rana.

 

The problem is when the people watching the match at home are left wondering how hurt the guy is because he got his knee worked on for five minutes and that because people sell "body part work" differently (some subtly like Kawada, some over the top like Zayn, tons of others in between) that there's a single way to sell the work. It's never been that way and it never will be.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I think it's also important for us to remember, that as hardcore wrestling fans, we're like the comic book geeks who are upset that Captain America's costume or motivation is slightly different than issue #247 in 1975. For 98% of fans, somebody selling the knee for a few minutes is all they need to 'get' it. They don't need the injured guy to be subtly selling the knee during the finish. So, while we may be tweaked by it, a wrestler shouldn't change what he's doing, no more than the writer of The Avengers 2 should listen to the guys complaining about continuity from the mid-80's.

[Tim Cooke]

http://theboard.f4wonline.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=166911&start=50

 

This doesn't fall into either example Loss mentions above but the arguments in this thread are based on not liking a style or having a grasp on how pro wrestling is worked

[goodhelmet]

Tim, you gotta cut and paste for people who aren't members.

[Loss]

It's a back and forth debate with lots of quote boxes that I think would be very difficult for anyone to copy and paste because it goes on for a while, but the gist of it is that they are arguing over wrestling norms -- specifically in lucha libre -- and what's acceptable and what isn't. Non-members will just have to take his word.

[Tim Cooke]

Quoted parts are CocaineSpeedBoat from F4 Board:

 

Quote:

Overall, mat-wrestling in first 2 falls contained zero resistance to the holds. I'm aware Lucha Libre matches allow for a bit more silliness in submissions, but much of this match went beyond the limits of "poetic license.]

I'm not Bihari or Cubs Fan or Phil Schneider who watch every modern lucha match but I've seen almost everything that is average to great on tape from the 80's/90's and always check out the recommended modern matches. This stood out to me as being something really good, probably great. It felt like Virus was Damiancito el Guerrero taking on a lesser version of Cicloncito Ramirez in 1997 but it's 2014 and it is still getting good heat.

I'm curious to know what lucha matches you think are great. Reading your criticisms, you seem to have inherent problems with how lucha is worked. Interested in your thoughts on the best stuff you have seen from Mexico.

Quote:

Specific contrivances/flaws:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JLXMte85i0&t=65s
Titan is doing the side-slaps for the surfboard but Virus's arms go back, Titan doesn't take them, but side slaps again, and the arms go back out. And then slaps again to get the arms back before taking the surfboard. It's absurd.

The arms go forward on the second slap to the side, not back. They go back on the first and go back again when Virus gets his hands to connect to Titan's arms. But beyond arguing that semantic...

Wrestling is absurd. When a wrestler hits a splash from the top rope and lands it, he/she is automatically fine. If the wrestler on the mat moves, that same splash ends up hurting, when both should hurt the guy performing the move equally. But in 99% of matches, that's how it goes. It is just something you accept in wrestling, like rope running. Trying to make logical arguments for these types of things doesn't lead anywhere.

Quote:

An armbar submission countered with a push-off the legs into a wacky leg-reversal? What?!

This is why I asked above about what lucha you think is good. This is a standard lucha cross armbreaker counter. Santo did it against El Espanto Jr. in 1986, El Dandy did it in 1990 against Angel Azteca, Negro Navarro did it again El Dandy in 2001, to name three examples off the top of my head. Beyond not seeing what is absurd about that, it is a standard spot. Destroyer and Mil Mascaras did this in one of their classics in All Japan (10/73 or 7/74). 1973/1974 in All Japan was all about working tightly to make it look as good as possible, yet this was a regular part of Destroyer and Mascaras mat work.

Quote:

Titan laying on the ring apron, Virus runs towards him right into the monkey flip over the turnbuckles. There was no offensive manuever even attempted here. It was literally him taking steps into a telegraphed spot.

Same thing can be said for any monkey flip spot in the middle of the ring. The guy taking the monkey flip is just running the ropes and not going for any offensive move but I haven't seen that criticism given for the times that Rey Jr, Eddy, Santo, etc. did it.

But beyond that, it's also a call back spot to the 1996/1997 Damiancito el Guerrero vs. Cicloncito Ramirez trios, tags, and single matches. I'm not arguing that Virus and Titan did this spot in 2014 as some deep psychology, but it was clearly a spot Virus is holding out for special occasions. I haven't seen him pull that out against anyone lately but I do admit to not watching everything.

Quote:

Titan hits springboard frog splash for a nearfall, Virus kicks out and reverses into submission hold, Titan's arms are straightened back without any reason, well, except to give Virus the hold on purpose.

Feeding a body part is a part of all wrestling. Your classic RINGS matches where Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura would feed an arm to transition to another mat "high" spot is based on the concept of feeding to your opponent. Misawa hitting two elbows and then going for his spinning elbow which Kawada ducks and proceeds to hit a backdrop driver on Misawa is a feeding spot.

The Virus/Titan feeding spot doesn't look out of place in this match nor in any pro wrestling setting. It might look a bit out of the norm in 1998 RINGS but RINGS was going for as much realism as possible.

Quote:

This part is more subjective, but really? That submission hold is the finish?

Again, you could argue this for almost any finisher. When Jericho was doing the liontamer in WCW, he always wrenched back, making it look painful. He changed it up when he went to the WWF for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, it was still a viable finisher.

In terms of lucha submissions, this finisher looked as hurtful and visually pleasing as you can get.

[Tim Cooke]

Not trying to derail this thread from focusing on the truly great matches of 2014, so hopefully this will be the last I say on this particular Titan vs Virus match...

cooket8 wrote:

I'm curious to know what lucha matches you think are great. Reading your criticisms, you seem to have inherent problems with how lucha is worked. Interested in your thoughts on the best stuff you have seen from Mexico.

I haven't watched Lucha Libre matches with any regularity in many many years, so I'm not going to be one to provide a whole lot of historical examples of what should be great Lucha. But if someone tells me there's a great Lucha Libre match I should watch, I'm intrigued and I'll take a look. Mistico vs Averno comes to mind, as does Negro Casas vs Hijo Del Santo from 1997. My memory for great Lucha trios matches over the years is rather bad so I won't even attempt that.
As I noted, I don't have much trouble with the lucha style itself. There's a lot more "fantasy" I'm willing to accept in a lucha libre match than U.S. or Japanese style. But it still has to fit inside the realm of "pro wrestling logic."

cooket8 wrote:

Wrestling is absurd. When a wrestler hits a splash from the top rope and lands it, he/she is automatically fine. If the wrestler on the mat moves, that same splash ends up hurting, when both should hurt the guy performing the move equally. But in 99% of matches, that's how it goes. It is just something you accept in wrestling, like rope running. Trying to make logical arguments for these types of things doesn't lead anywhere.

Yes, these are examples of what fits in "pro wrestling logic." When you throw a dropkick and it hits the target and you land, it doesn't hurt, but when you throw the same dropkick and miss, the landing hurts. That's acceptable. That's the well-established norm.

What falls outside of pro wrestling logic is when there's a readily-defined aspect of what steps wrestlers will take in performing a specific move or set of moves.

In the case of a surfboard, a wrestler laying flat on the mat who has his legs hooked in a surfboard-type hold is supposed to do everything in his power to not also give his opponent his arms.

So when this match contains a spot in which the wrestler on the mat stiffens his arm backwards because of the step taken by the dominant wrestler to gain them, but doesn't take them, and slaps again and they go forward, and then slaps again and they go backward, it removes all plausibility from the spot. There is no logic to what they are doing, and it stands out as silly sloppy work.

CocaineSpeedboat wrote:

An armbar submission countered with a push-off the legs into a wacky leg-reversal? What?!

 

cooket8 wrote:

This is why I asked above about what lucha you think is good. This is a standard lucha cross armbreaker counter. Santo did it against El Espanto Jr. in 1986, El Dandy did it in 1990 against Angel Azteca, Negro Navarro did it again El Dandy in 2001, to name three examples off the top of my head. Beyond not seeing what is absurd about that, it is a standard spot. Destroyer and Mil Mascaras did this in one of their classics in All Japan (10/73 or 7/74). 1973/1974 in All Japan was all about working tightly to make it look as good as possible, yet this was a regular part of Destroyer and Mascaras mat work.

I'll take your word for it that historically this is the norm for Lucha Libre. But other than 2001, all of these example pre-date the MMA era where the effects of cross armbreakers are well known in the real world, and pro wrestling in the U.S. and Japan seem to have adapted accordingly to varying degrees. Whether the wrestlers sell the arm/elbow pain like crazy, or find a semi-plausible way to reverse the hold, or scramble for the ropes, etc. But this particular reversal spot seemed to be based in a different world entirely, and if that world is "well it was done in matches from the 70's," maybe it's something that shouldn't be the case anymore because it takes you out of the match unless you have that nuanced historical knowledge.

A fresh set of eyes is not going to have that historical knowledge in order to understand why that particular reversal is ok.

CocaineSpeedboat wrote:

Titan hits springboard frog splash for a nearfall, Virus kicks out and reverses into submission hold, Titan's arms are straightened back without any reason, well, except to give Virus the hold on purpose.

 

cooket8 wrote:

Feeding a body part is a part of all wrestling. Your classic RINGS matches where Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura would feed an arm to transition to another mat "high" spot is based on the concept of feeding to your opponent. Misawa hitting two elbows and then going for his spinning elbow which Kawada ducks and proceeds to hit a backdrop driver on Misawa is a feeding spot.

The Virus/Titan feeding spot doesn't look out of place in this match nor in any pro wrestling setting. It might look a bit out of the norm in 1998 RINGS but RINGS was going for as much realism as possible.

Feeding body parts in this specific manner shatters the illusion the performers are trying to create. They're "skipping a step" in the process of how the arms end up stiffened backward. That's bad work by the wrestlers.

[goodhelmet]

Thanks for posting that Tim. I am sure non-subscribers will appreciate it.