[1986-01-04-NWA-Worldwide] Black Bart vs Pat Tanaka

[GOTNW]

You don't want a five minute match to drag. This was boring, ok when Bart was sloppily throwing Tanaka around in the beginning but then he started doing armwork, and, let me tell you, few things in wrestling make me question spending my time watching it as much as seeing one man punch another one in the arm. I could've at least understood it as a set-up for a face comeback, but as the body of a squash match? Advances in understanding of how actual fighting works only make matches like this look even more stupid. Fast forward material here.

[Matt D]

You don't want a five minute match to drag. This was boring, ok when Bart was sloppily throwing Tanaka around in the beginning but then he started doing armwork, and, let me tell you, few things in wrestling make me question spending my time watching it as much as seeing one man punch another one in the arm. I could've at least understood it as a set-up for a face comeback, but as the body of a squash match? Advances in understanding of how actual fighting works only make matches like this look even more stupid. Fast forward material here.

1.) You're right. Control armwork by the heel in a five minute squash with a size discrepancy is very likely stupid.

2.) Let me toss out an example, and I realize that this is as far off from MMA as you can get. I really like old Edgar Rice Burroughs Sci Fi. Stuff from over a hundred years ago. The John Carter stories especially. They're fun and pulpy and brisk and hugely imaginative. They're imaginative because they have to be. We knew so little about the universe around us that he had to make leaps of faith or work off of bad science, or theories that have been long since disproven. We know a lot more about science now. Those stories were science fiction, sure, but they weren't, at the time, intended as science fantasy. They were intended as plausible to the extent that people could suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves into the story. If I were to look at them through the lens of modern astronomy and physics, I'd be miserable. Judge the storytelling and how the tools were used (in this case poorly), but don't judge the tools based on what they were never trying to be and what they simply couldn't know to be. You'll be miserable.

 

Punching an arm is awesome, not because it would really work, but because it has a symbolic meaning. You just have to punch the arm at the right time, with the right selling, and to the right effect.

[GOTNW]

I doubt anyone was punching an arm in matches in 1955. Really all I see is using a lazy shortcut becase the heel isn't very imaginative when there are other, more logical and more efficient ways to achieve the goal, whether the goal be filling time in a match engagingly or even the armwork itself. I won't say it's absolutely impossible I could like punching an arm in wrestling, but generally it's bad and I don't remember ever seeing anyone do it right.

[Matt D]

Off the top of my head, best use would be in the midst of a lot of other varied arm offense, maybe as connective tissue from one hold to another to rationalize why the other wrestler is allowing it without fighting back more or as part of a cut off of a hope spot (fighting out of a hold). Those are just quick thoughts, though.