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Technical Wrestlers Today


Boss Rock

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Technical wrestling and mat work has admittedly never been my favorite style (I've always been partial to brawls and bombfests). However, there are a lot of technical wrestlers today that I've come to admire and enjoy the more and more I see of their work. At its best, technical wrestling is almost like a science and there are many different ways to approach it. So I thought it might be interesting to analyze and break down some of the best technical wrestlers in the world today.

 

Zack Sabre Jr:

 

Sabre is a rather polarizing wrestler. There's been a lot of criticism thrown his way about only doing flashy stuff, killing time for the first half of the match, only making stuff matter in the second half, etc. I understand those criticisms but personally I disagree with them. I view Zack as someone who will break his opponent down over the course of an entire match both physically and mentally. Rather than focus on one limb or method of attack, he busts out as many holds and submissions as possible to wear his opponent down and finish them off when the time is right. Basically, he's playing the long game. This was the story of his winning the New Japan Cup. He imposed his will early and consistently, working over any body part he could grab a hold of until they could simply take no more. And with how smooth and flashy his mat work is combined with his ability to counter almost any move with another hold, he's like a magician rather than a professor like Fred Yehi. And like a lot of magicians, not many seem to know his secrets. Going back to his flashiness, as a face or heel, Zack has always had a dickish vibe about him. He thinks he's the coolest thing around because he can do almost anything to punish an opponent. So taking his character into consideration, it makes sense that his offense would have a "Hey, look at me!" vibe.

 

Fred Yehi:

 

Like I mentioned above, Yehi is more of a professor compared to Sabre as a magician. He's much more of a nitty-gritty technician who grinds his opponents down in logical yet ingenious ways. The way he'll attack an arm or stop on a hand for foot, he constantly finds new ways to hurt his opponent that are in plain sight but constantly make you go "Geez, why didn't anyone else think of that?" I've seen several comparisons to a young William Regal. And even though he's not as flashy as Sabre, he'll still throw in a few neat moves like the Liu Kang chest kick. I can see why some might prefer Yehi over Sabre, but I think they're both somewhat similar in trying to break their opponents down over the course of an entire match. They just have different ways going about it. Sabre takes his time, Yehi is a bit more aggressive.

 

Hideki Suzuki:

 

Given that he's bigger and stronger than a lot of his opponents and contemporaries, Suzuki is much more visceral. He's a heavy hitter who mixes powerful strikes and suplexes with limb-punishing submissions. I saw someone describe his BJW title reign as being like a "final boss" and that sums up Hideki fairly well. He's willing to stand and trade strikes, but why go to that trouble when you can first decimate your opponent's limbs in the most violent way possible? If you're going to fight back, he's going to make you earn it because he's not willing to give up one inch. And while he's not exactly flashy like Sabre, there's a certain finesse in how he dissects opponents. His game is to establish his complete and unquestionable dominance, but he'll enthrall you in the way he does it. Instead of a magician or professor, Suzuki is more like a doctor at his most benevolent and an executioner at his most malevolent.

 

 

Timothy Thatcher:

 

Similar to Suzuki, Thatcher is bigger than a lot of his opponents and takes a sort of bruiser approach. Though the latter end of his Evolve title run saw his work get increasingly dry and bare bones, he's seemingly become more and more aggressive. To Timothy Thatcher, wrestling is serious business and he has no time for those he deems unworthy of sharing the ring with him. He can be very nitty-gritty like Yehi but also punishing and visceral like Suzuki, even if he doesn't quite have the latter's finesse. And while Suzuki is more powerful with his strikes, Thatcher is more aggressive and angry. He's out to punish his opponents whether it be just business or a perceived slight at daring to challenge him. If there was a profession to describe Thatcher, it would be a butcher.

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Love all the guys you mentioned. Also really been digging Jonathan Gresham's stuff lately - he had a couple of matches vs. Jay Lethal in ROH recently that were very, very good.

 

He also has a match vs. Timothy Thatcher from 2015 that's absolutely amazing.

Gresham is great. Everyone should check out his match with Tom Lawlor from Black Label Pro from this year.

 

I don't want to get into the ZSJ argument as it's pointless to express how I feel, but the quote in my sig. is someone referencing his grappling game and it pretty much sums up how I feel.

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Love all the guys you mentioned. Also really been digging Jonathan Gresham's stuff lately - he had a couple of matches vs. Jay Lethal in ROH recently that were very, very good.

 

He also has a match vs. Timothy Thatcher from 2015 that's absolutely amazing.

 

Gresham is great. Everyone should check out his match with Tom Lawlor from Black Label Pro from this year.

 

I don't want to get into the ZSJ argument as it's pointless to express how I feel, but the quote in my sig. is someone referencing his grappling game and it pretty much sums up how I feel.

Yeah, I really like Gresham as well. His match versus Thatcher from Beyond wrestling was quite enjoyable.

 

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I find that Sabre Jr. routinely disappoints me and that his "technical" work leaves a lot to be desired. It feels like a lot of his submission holds go nowhere and he's just grabbing body parts for the sake of being technical. He's pretty much being a spot monkey by using grapple fuck all the time. I actually like him better in multi mans where he can't get into the grapple stuff and has to keep a better pace to his matches. Also, he could stand to eat a cheeseburger every now and then and put on a couple of pounds.

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He's pretty much being a spot monkey by using grapple fuck all the time.

It is, I think, kind of a common problem with a certain kind of young wrestler. Stringing move after move together with a kind of "Look at me! Look how many moves I know!" type of attitude rather than trying to tell any kind of coherent story or develop dramatic tension or whatever.

 

It not just jumpy flippy guys who are spot monkeys.

 

Hopefully they'll grow out of it eventually.

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When it comes to Sabre, I see him as someone who's offering something different. Now whether or not "different" is good in this case ultimately depends on the viewer and personal preference. Working over one limb is effective storytelling, but not necessarily something I want to see every time. But one of the things I really like about Zack is that even if he's stringing multiple holds together, he's doing it in a way that looks legitimately painful to his opponent. It goes back to my argument that he's playing the long game. Break down his opponent physically in so many different ways that they won't know what to do to stop him. And I can understand the argument that a lot of his matches being longer means that it's tougher to bite on submission attempts early in the match, but by the same token I don't necessarily bite on submission attempts Thatcher and Yehi are working on five minutes into a match. I know that most of the time it's not until the Koji Clutch or Fujiwara that we're going to see a finish.

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He's pretty much being a spot monkey by using grapple fuck all the time.

It is, I think, kind of a common problem with a certain kind of young wrestler. Stringing move after move together with a kind of "Look at me! Look how many moves I know!" type of attitude rather than trying to tell any kind of coherent story or develop dramatic tension or whatever.

 

It not just jumpy flippy guys who are spot monkeys.

 

Hopefully they'll grow out of it eventually.

 

One of my favorite talking points over the years is how wrestling is symbolic and everything a wrestler chooses to do, be it matwork, a garbage spot, a high spot, a strike, or even just playing to the crowd, is just a tool, and it's all about how the tools are used (and to a lesser degree how they're executed). The tools, in and of themselves, are not necessarily better or worse, though they may lean more towards your preference or may signify a trend of specific-tools-being-used-better-than-others-historically. I feel like it's never gotten all that much traction.

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He's pretty much being a spot monkey by using grapple fuck all the time.

It is, I think, kind of a common problem with a certain kind of young wrestler. Stringing move after move together with a kind of "Look at me! Look how many moves I know!" type of attitude rather than trying to tell any kind of coherent story or develop dramatic tension or whatever.

 

It not just jumpy flippy guys who are spot monkeys.

 

Hopefully they'll grow out of it eventually.

 

One of my favorite talking points over the years is how wrestling is symbolic and everything a wrestler chooses to do, be it matwork, a garbage spot, a high spot, a strike, or even just playing to the crowd, is just a tool, and it's all about how the tools are used (and to a lesser degree how they're executed). The tools, in and of themselves, are not necessarily better or worse, though they may lean more towards your preference or may signify a trend of specific-tools-being-used-better-than-others-historically. I feel like it's never gotten all that much traction.

 

 

That's an argument I've always leaned towards. Obviously anything can become excessive, but I've always believed that it's HOW you use certain spots rather than the spots themselves. Sort of like how Onita would always build suspense towards the barbed wire explosion or how Rey would weave high-flying moves and acrobatics into his comebacks or early blitzes to catch his opponents off-guard.

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The issue with Zack for me isn't just the moves he does. It's that the way he does them requires his opponent just sit there and not fight back at all to make them work. There's so many cute arm and finger manipulations where I'm just sitting there going "...Just punch him. Punch him with your other arm." His opponent just sits there wincing but not otherwise reacting.

 

Thatcher I always find a bit overwrought in his presentation. Guy just seems really strangely over the top, particularly in his physical posture. I know that's nitpicking but just the way he stands is weird.

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I feel like a dick now because I don't really like anyone mentioned in this thread. I guess Thatcher is fine and Zack, to a degree. Hideki Suzuki is so frustratingly inconsistent I've pretty much given up on him.

 

Why did Fred Yehi get pinned with the "technical wrestler" gimmick? Every match I see him in he quickly moves on to hitting his stomps and other funny spots. I like him and with a little more focus and a subtle meanstreak he could become the indy Finlay. I'll take indy guy with a legit background working as Mongolian Stomper over any other indy guy for sure.

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I've really turned a corner on Thatcher. I feel like now his grappling has meaning. Maybe him aligning himself with WALTER gave him new life. Also have to pimp out some lucha and give a shout out to Hechicero. He has all the tools and it's always a blast watching bring it all together with his mat work.

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