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What Does "Storytelling" Mean to You?


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Guest DietSoda

Great thread, and I enjoyed reading your opinions especially, S.L.L.

 

To pick your brain for a second, how would you describe the formula John Cena has developed, and the strengths and weaknesses within that?

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Great thread, and I enjoyed reading your opinions especially, S.L.L.

 

To pick your brain for a second, how would you describe the formula John Cena has developed, and the strengths and weaknesses within that?

You mean currently? Like most of your better wrestlers, Cena works different formulas in different roles, so 2008 secondary face Cena is working differently than 2007 babyface champion Cena, main difference being that there's more of a focus on fiery babyface Cena on offense than on valiant babyface Cena selling heel beatdown. It's kinda telling that the big matches from the last two Raws were six-man tags where JTG worked face-in-peril and Cena got the hot tag. I would assume the logic is that the face champion would have to put a greater premium on selling to get over the threat of losing the title, whereas a non-champion would have to put a greater premium on offense to establish him as a threat to the title. In any case, Cena's selling has always been a bigger positive for him than his offense, so I don't really like him quite as much as babyface challenger/potential challenger than as champion. He's still pretty great, because his offense looks pretty good in general now (save for the Throwback, which actually looks a lot worse now than it did a year ago, but I digress), and if they pair him with heels who can sell well enough, it shouldn't be an issue. Still, hot tag guy isn't really a role that I think he's well-suited for long term. If he's not going to be champion, I'd probably rather see him in a program where he's not poised to challenge for the title, so that there wouldn't be as big a need for him to be "built up", and he could focus more on selling.

 

It might be worth noting that whatever my grievances are, since the draft, the crowd has been 100% behind Cena for the first time since he was feuding with Khali. I'm inclined to think that that's more because of JBL than anything Cena himself is doing, as his heat seems to be tied more to his opponents than to himself, but I might as well bring it up anyway.

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Guest DietSoda

Great thread, and I enjoyed reading your opinions especially, S.L.L.

 

To pick your brain for a second, how would you describe the formula John Cena has developed, and the strengths and weaknesses within that?

You mean currently? Like most of your better wrestlers, Cena works different formulas in different roles, so 2008 secondary face Cena is working differently than 2007 babyface champion Cena, main difference being that there's more of a focus on fiery babyface Cena on offense than on valiant babyface Cena selling heel beatdown. It's kinda telling that the big matches from the last two Raws were six-man tags where JTG worked face-in-peril and Cena got the hot tag. I would assume the logic is that the face champion would have to put a greater premium on selling to get over the threat of losing the title, whereas a non-champion would have to put a greater premium on offense to establish him as a threat to the title. In any case, Cena's selling has always been a bigger positive for him than his offense, so I don't really like him quite as much as babyface challenger/potential challenger than as champion. He's still pretty great, because his offense looks pretty good in general now (save for the Throwback, which actually looks a lot worse now than it did a year ago, but I digress), and if they pair him with heels who can sell well enough, it shouldn't be an issue. Still, hot tag guy isn't really a role that I think he's well-suited for long term. If he's not going to be champion, I'd probably rather see him in a program where he's not poised to challenge for the title, so that there wouldn't be as big a need for him to be "built up", and he could focus more on selling.

 

It might be worth noting that whatever my grievances are, since the draft, the crowd has been 100% behind Cena for the first time since he was feuding with Khali. I'm inclined to think that that's more because of JBL than anything Cena himself is doing, as his heat seems to be tied more to his opponents than to himself, but I might as well bring it up anyway.

 

Great post, and I can see exactly where you're coming from regarding Cena selling as ace babyface vs. Cena offensively as secondary babyface. I was trying to come up with a reason as to why Cena seemed *off* a little since he came back, and I was concluding on maybe his injury didn't fully heal, or maybe because hes been booked primarily in multi-man clusters that aren't known for individual performance. But you're right. I suppose that's the reason why Cena vs. Khali was miles better than any JBL/Cena match this year, which I found really strange, since JBL is much more capable than Khali (the Eddy Guerrero series come to mind, which were about Eddy's babyface selling), and Cena is the best when it comes to selling.

 

I thought HHH vs. Cena from Night of Champs was the closest Cena has gotten this year to hitting the quality level of his big stuff last year. What was your opinion on that one?

 

Also, not to get too wordy with questions, but what other roles do you feel Cena has proven to excell in? Obviously underdog overcoming odds, but he has since become much more adaptable (Michaels match, Orton match, Lashley match, etc).

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HHH vs. Cena from Night of Champions was kind of a strange match formulaicly speaking, but in a way that actually lends itself very well to this thread.

 

One of the big knocks against HHH is that he's a guy who idolizes Flair and the great NWA champions of the 70's, but is also an egomaniac who hates to look weak, so he tries to work NWA heel champion style, but without all the selling and bumping and other stuff where you make your opponent look superior, which is a bit like trying to make ice without liquid or the cold. Unsurprisingly, this is what happened at Night of Champions, so Cena, presented with an opponent who spends most of the match on offense, ended up spending most of the match selling. I watched the PPV with a friend of mine, and remember joking about how HHH works NWA champ style like an NWA Title challenger, so challenger Cena decided to work the match as the NWA champ. He was getting booed enough to get away with it, anyway.

 

As far as other styles go, I think Cena can work as fiery babyface on offense, but it's more dependent on his opponent than when he's the underdog fighting the odds. Those are both pretty omnipresent roles in wrestling, so it's not like being limited to one or both of those things is really that limiting, especially if you can work that style against a wide variety of opponents. In theory, it should be pretty easy to be an effective underdog fighting the odds against a 7'3" freak of nature like Khali or a big, fat, crazy Samoan savage like Umaga. Playing an effective underdog babyface against 2007 Shawn Michaels...that's a feat.

 

As a guy focused on offense, Cena doesn't seem to have the same range. Best Cena matches I've seen since his comeback are the Orton match from No Way Out and the Michaels match from the Raw Wrestlemania Rewind special. The first match works largely due to Orton being a great foil for an offense-focused Cena. The second was a match based on Cena selling. I thought the second match was better, even though I think Orton is way better than Michaels, so you can see the range and level of quality he can achieve in one role vs. the other.

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Guest DietSoda

As far as other styles go, I think Cena can work as fiery babyface on offense, but it's more dependent on his opponent than when he's the underdog fighting the odds. Those are both pretty omnipresent roles in wrestling, so it's not like being limited to one or both of those things is really that limiting, especially if you can work that style against a wide variety of opponents. In theory, it should be pretty easy to be an effective underdog fighting the odds against a 7'3" freak of nature like Khali or a big, fat, crazy Samoan savage like Umaga. Playing an effective underdog babyface against 2007 Shawn Michaels...that's a feat.

To me, maybe I'm wrong, but I felt Michaels was playing the underdog...at least in that Raw match in the UK, where Cena was dominating an overmatched HBK. I believe Cena called the match, if I'm not mistaken, or so that's how it seemed to me.

 

As a guy focused on offense, Cena doesn't seem to have the same range. Best Cena matches I've seen since his comeback are the Orton match from No Way Out and the Michaels match from the Raw Wrestlemania Rewind special. The first match works largely due to Orton being a great foil for an offense-focused Cena. The second was a match based on Cena selling. I thought the second match was better, even though I think Orton is way better than Michaels, so you can see the range and level of quality he can achieve in one role vs. the other.

Orton seems to be the best opponent for Cena, and vice versa. They have that Misawa/Kawada, Flair/Steamboat, Austin/Rock, etc chemistry going that could really develop into something even better in years to come.

 

I don't recall the Raw Rewind special match...I'll have to get a hold of that one.

 

How do you think Cena would manage working as a heel? Hypothetically, it seems like it would go against what he does well (heels usually control the match and feed comebacks), but he did well as the brash young heel in 2003. This would be a completely different role, but I could see him doing the slightly stoogey powerful heel character well.

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Yeah, I kinda blanked on the Raw match for some reason. You're right about that one. It certainly helped that Shawn was way more on-point than usual in that match, too. Again, I think it's a role he can play, just not the one he's best suited for.

 

2003 heel Cena never did much for me work-wise. Overall, he's a lot better now than he was then, so he'd probably be able to work that role better now, but there's no real reason for him to do so, and it goes against his biggest strengths anyway.

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I was just this week watching AL SNOW: SECRETS OF THE RING. His contention was that there's really only one story to be told: You are either trying to win (or else not lose). He argued that the fans know it's all worked these days, of course, the same way they know Tobey McGuire can't walk up walls, but they want to be given a reason to suspend their disbelief. So you have to make them believe that you really care to win.

I think it's simply a matter of having a character and wrestling "in character."

 

The important thing is that whatever the angle, storyline or feud is, all of that is just set-up. You need to pay it off in the match.

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  • 9 months later...
Guest Kenta Batista

A story progresses with by the characters causing certain events to happen or certain events causing characters to act or do something a certain way. From there its all about the psychology.

 

I've always broken down 'psychology' in a wrestling match into two categories...

 

Ring psychology and crowd psychology.

 

Ring psychology (or at least, good ring psychology),is basically the story of the match, the strategy of the wrestlers. It's stringing together the moves of the match in a way that makes sense. If that involves working the back to lock on a submission (probably the most obvious 'psychology) for your finish or playing up size/strength/speed/personality differences or simply focusing on character growth. It's the story being told of the match.

 

 

Crowd psychology is working your audience. This is what Jake Roberts goes on about all the time. It's taking them on that emotional roller coaster ride, with all the ups and down, until your reach that final exhilarating climax. Timing moves for the best possible audience reaction, working holds, using personality, understanding what your audience wants, etc., etc. Guys like Hulk Hogan and the Rock are terrific at this type of psychology.

 

 

The reason I break it down into these two categories is because they don't always go hand in hand. You can have a match with good crowd psychology, but not good ring psychology, or vice versa. A guy can run a match where he's working his opponent's arm perfectly. The strategy he's employing makes sense. It's sound ring psychology. But that doesn't mean the fans are going to be into it.

 

When I first saw my first TLC match, I was blown away. Upon my second viewing, I couldn't get through it, it just felt like an orgy of meaningless spot, which it was. I seriously can't sit through one these days without blanking out and rewinding, seriously! I can't even force myself to watch it because there's nothing that's interesting. I mean violence gets boring and there's a certain limit of highspots you can do before you can't do anything more dangerous, so even that gets boring.

 

I feel the same way with 90% of what ECW did, it bores me. It's just meaningless garbage. Obviously, when you've seen your 1000th hardcore chair shot and 100s of New Jack table spots, you get bored. It's no coincidence that when I actually made a list of ECW matches I liked, many of them focused less on violence (most had no chair shots etc.) and mroe storytelling.

 

Someone once told me, "Thomas that's disgusting." Because that person hated violence. I hate violence... well pointless violence. So I showed that person the 6.8.90 AJPW match and explained that these guys are telling a story, ones grumpy, the others a punk... pretty simple. That person soon realized, hey, this is more of an art and they're doing something interesting.

 

Psychology for me is something the some matches have that allows me to continually go back and enjoy it because there's something interesting going on. I hate pointless violence, it's boring.

 

"Wrestling is something a ten year-old should understand." and "there's nothing to get, you either get it or not." Because it's true, and it simplifies and cuts out all these internet reviews I hate that claim all this learned psych, or how they're playing off history, or talking about complex transitions (no I'm not dissing anyone here). If you have to think about a match or try and understand it, the wrestlers are doing something wrong. Psychology, you either get it or you don't.

 

The best matches are always the ones that bring the character from point 'A' to point 'B' in the most logical fashion that emotionally connects with the crowd.

 

ANYONE can tell a story in the ring. A 120 pound guy in the indy scene trying all match to lift his 400 pound opponent is telling a story. Is it a good one? Depends on the psychology. Its unavoidable.

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  • 1 year later...

Zombifying an old thread because of a conversation I was having last night with my brother. He's not a wrestling fan, but he puts up with my constant rambling. He sat down with me and watched the Austin/Jake match that ended with the 3:16 promo.

 

I was telling him the next day that the more I think about Austin, the less comfortable I am with the character. What I mean is that I realized I don't like cheering for an anti-hero who is an asshole. Oh, I will enjoy a full out heel, like a Jericho or a JBL. But Austin (and Rock and others) are supposed to be "cool" - they're mean and sarcastic and cruel, and we're supposed to cheer for them.

 

As we were talking, I found myself saying that I don't want subtlety in storytelling. In my rasslin, I want clear bad guys and clear good guys. I want to happily boo villains like Punk while cheering for Rey to kick his ass. It doesn't mean I don't like Punk, and I certainly think he's one of the most talented in WWE right now. But if I were there live, I wouldn't cheer him.

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I don't think Stone Cold started out in "supose to be cool" mode. The WWF couldn't have intentionally written a cool heel at that point if their lives depended on it. It just happened.

 

I kind of like cool heels. The best heels when I was a kid was a dude with a helmet over his face and a shark. You didn't see either of those two begging off in the corner, running to the dressing room, or bumping for refs. They put the fear of god in the babyfaces, whose selling for the heels put the fear of god in us: We'd be in deep shit if we were in the place of Luke or Chief Brody. Hell, most of us would have rather been Darth than Luke. :)

 

John

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I, for one, am fascinated with how in the space of 6 years fans could go from cheering Hogan or "Lex Express" against Yokozuna to booing the All-American, milk-drinking, vitamin-taking, Olympic hero Kurt Angle and cheering a character like Austin.

 

It's the complete reversal of family values. But you see it across American culture of the period. Look at something like Batman in the 90s. By 1999, Bruce Wayne/Batman is as dark and twisted himself as any of the psychotic villains he faces.

 

I think it was a cultural moment in which which traditional morality was flipped on its head. George Bush Sr. famously talked about wanting Americans to be more like the Waltons than the Simpsons. By 1999, Bill Clinton was telling us he did not have sexual relations with that woman and Jerry Springer was on TV 5-days a week as myriad couples wore infidelity on their sleeves and were proud of it.

 

What slightly amuses me about this moment, however, is how sanitized it all was. This wasn't proper counter-culture a la the late 50s or 1960s, this was the similacrum of counter-culture. An ersatz version of it borne of a certain kind of individualistic thinking.

 

So what counted as "evil" in 1985 was someone attacking traditional family values.

 

What counted as "evil" in 1999 was someone stopping you doing what you wanted to be doing.

 

I am convinced there is a great academic book to be written about wrestling one day.

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Wrestling mirrors the rest of America. In fact, it trails behind. I'm sure Jerome and OJ can point to movies where things changed well before wrestling. Batman in the movies isn't anymore dark than Frank Miller made him in the comics back in the 80s.

 

John

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The truth is, the change to what wrestling fans wanted to see didn't happen in a six-year span. Hogan was starting to lose steam thanks to the Iraqi turncoat Sgt. Slaughter angle that wasn't truly over the top and the fact Hogan's matches became more about getting fans to pop for certain moments rather than a well laid-out match.

 

Vince tried it again with Luger, and while fans cheered him, it wasn't the rabid following Hogan had. They then made Nash a Hogan-type character when they put the top title on him and that falled flat for many reasons, but one on them being the fans wanted to cheer Big Daddy Cool, not a Hogan reincarnation.

 

Austin was something truly unique and the booking over time caused more fans to get behind him. When they turned Bret heel, it became the era in which heels were certainly telling the truth, but they were all about lecturing how America has no values and fans not wanting to hear it... after all, they hear it enough from politicians and the religious right. :)

 

Anyway, with Angle, it worked the same way, just that Angle played it with more subtlety.

 

And I've written about Batman before: Sure, he took a far different approach to go after the bad guys, but he still believed in doing the right thing. Plus he had plenty of motivation for doing so... he suffered mentally because he lost his parents at the hands of a criminal, so he wants criminals to feel the same anguish he felt. It's something I think more people can relate to, which is why he suddenly became more popular than Superman.

 

But with that said, they've made Superman a more complex individual over time, so that's helped him as well.

 

Anyway... to the point... John is correct that wrestling tends to be behind the times a bit because the tendency is for promoters to go with what worked before. It took a lot longer than six years for WWF to reach a direction that allowed them to go back to a high level and it took WCW many years to find the angle that would make their product truly unique. With the current WWE product, I can only see a change coming once Vince is no longer in charge, because he's set in his ways now and won't change. TNA, meanwhile, is a joke and has, for some time, needed somebody to enter that promotion and let them know it's time to quit acting like it's still 1999.

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Daredevil and Wolverine were the first two comic book heroes to have dark shades of gray put into their characteristics. Daredevil was a notorious drunk, womanizer, and crippled a foe. Wolverine just killed his enemies, like during the Dark Phoenix Saga with the Hellfire Club's personal army.

 

I, for one, am fascinated with how in the space of 6 years fans could go from cheering Hogan or "Lex Express" against Yokozuna to booing the All-American, milk-drinking, vitamin-taking, Olympic hero Kurt Angle and cheering a character like Austin.

Hogan got stale, Angle was "too American" in his arrogance, and Austin represented what most American's wished they could do. Austin is a character like a Dr. House, Sherlock Holmes, Daredevil, or Batman. He is fundamentally good, but has some serious underlying issues as well. He wasn't the cookie cutter good guy like Hogan or the patronizing American super-hero like Angle. Most people, and I am generalizing here, could probably relate to Austin more so than the other two. From Hogan to Austin is a bigger change than from Austin to Angle. Hogan represented the George Bush Sr. ideology of traditional American values (whatever that means) compared to Austin representing the new generation of young adults who were not going to be thumbed back by "the man." Or something like that :)
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I was telling him the next day that the more I think about Austin, the less comfortable I am with the character. What I mean is that I realized I don't like cheering for an anti-hero who is an asshole. Oh, I will enjoy a full out heel, like a Jericho or a JBL. But Austin (and Rock and others) are supposed to be "cool" - they're mean and sarcastic and cruel, and we're supposed to cheer for them.

I've always felt the same way. I don't want my heroes to be some kind of warped Mary Sue character, where whatever the hero does must be right and good because hey, he's the hero! I have never, ever been entertained by allegedly heroic protagonists who go out of their way to inflict gratuitous suffering on random people. Whenever the Marx Brothers were harassing some poor bastard for no reason, I wasn't laughing; I was wondering what the fuck was wrong with these criminal motherfuckers that they'd cause such torment to complete strangers. It's the same thing when Austin would do stuff like Stunning helpless innocent victims for the cheapest pop in the world.

 

Part of it comes from my indy experience. As a ring announcer and a referee, I couldn't begin to count the number of times that various wrestlers randomly abused me just to get themselves a tiny bit more over. I mean, every fucking night with that bullshit; never anything that was called by the booker, just guys going into business for themselves with shoving the announcer or mocking the ref or whatever. THAT GETS FUCKING OLD. But even before all that, I still didn't like stuff like Rock being so inexplicably cruel to everyone he ever interacted with, even his alleged friends and allies. What kind of incredibly insecure asshole are your supposed heroes, when they need to take advantage of the weak in order to make themselves strong?

 

I kind of like cool heels. The best heels when I was a kid was a dude with a helmet over his face and a shark. You didn't see either of those two begging off in the corner, running to the dressing room, or bumping for refs. They put the fear of god in the babyfaces, whose selling for the heels put the fear of god in us: We'd be in deep shit if we were in the place of Luke or Chief Brody. Hell, most of us would have rather been Darth than Luke. :)

I think you're describing a monster heel, not a cool heel. Darth Vader and Jaws have more in common with Andre and Big Van Vader, giant monsters who can fucking murder you, but eventually lose in the end. That's not really what I think of when I hear the phrase "cool heel". To me, a cool heel is someone like the nWo, or Triple H during his most self-indulgent periods, or guys like the Sheik or Tiger Jeet Singh when they never lost; an unstoppable badass villain who mows down all the heroes in a nearly effortless fashion, laughing all the way. Someone who's positioned on the card and in the storylines as a heel, but whose actions seem more like those of a clever and gutsy babyface. The sort of heel who is selling more merchandise than most of the faces. That kind of heel undercuts the entire storytelling dynamic, and can sabotage a company in the long run if they're not reigned in soon enough.

 

I, for one, am fascinated with how in the space of 6 years fans could go from cheering Hogan or "Lex Express" against Yokozuna to booing the All-American, milk-drinking, vitamin-taking, Olympic hero Kurt Angle and cheering a character like Austin.

I remember Raven Mack wrote something along those lines in one of his rambling twelve-pack reviews. He was watching something like a Sheepherders vs Rock & Roll Express match, and noted pretty much the same trend. A dozen years later, the ugly bastards in camo pants would probably be cheered much more than their long-haired pretty-boy opponents.

 

Wrestling mirrors the rest of America. In fact, it trails behind.

One of my favorite examples of that trend is Sting's makeover which blatantly ripped off The Crow... almost three whole years after that movie came out. And that was when wrestling was at its most innovative and ahead-of-its-time. Or even the ECW Pulp Fiction promos, again years after the original inspiration.

 

Daredevil and Wolverine were the first two comic book heroes to have dark shades of gray put into their characteristics. Daredevil was a notorious drunk, womanizer, and crippled a foe. Wolverine just killed his enemies, like during the Dark Phoenix Saga with the Hellfire Club's personal army.

Not really the first, there were plenty before them, going back from early Alan Moore all the way to the earlier works of Will Eisner and other of his ilk. But they were certainly the first "dark" characters to get incredibly popular and sell a shitload of comics, so I see your point.

 

Austin is a character like a Dr. House, Sherlock Holmes, Daredevil, or Batman. He is fundamentally good, but has some serious underlying issues as well.

The problem there is that wrestling is a pretty shallow storytelling medium, and Austin never really had to deal with his flaws. They were hardly even mentioned; he'd always Stunner some poor defenseless schmuck who didn't deserve it, and we were supposed to cheer him for that. It's a really selfish, almost sociopathic attitude when you think about it. His antisocial violence towards everyone and everything (partly a product of Russo's writing; on his shows, two guys can never be standing in the same room together without getting into a fistfight) was just kind of ignored when Austin's place in the storylines was basically that of a tradional top babyface. He was micro-booked like a psychotic heel, but macro-booked as an upstanding superman.
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Do you think Hogan was a hero, really ? Hogan acted like an egotistical dipshit, he was jealous of the succes of his "friends", he only cared about himself, he was acting like a heel in the ring. And from a foreigner point of view, the *uber* american patriot act mixed with bigotry looked like a perfect illustration of Reagan's america. In a way, really Hogan was everything bad about the USA's imperialistic policy. Yeah, I'm going a bit far, and I'm not saying 10 year old me hated Hogan for all these reasons, but looking back at it, it seems obvious Hogan in the 80's was the representation of something really horrible when you think of it. Luger doing the american gimmick was a lot more sympathetic actually, more blue collar in a way. Hogan's character was just unbearable to me, that's why his heel turn was so right on the money, and that's why Heenan saying Hogan has always been this way was perfect, because even in a kayfaybe way, that really was the case. Hogan was about steroid, money, manipulation, stealing his so-called best friend woman, and pretending friendship to get his belt back at any cost. Hogan a hero ? My ass.

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I've always felt the same way. I don't want my heroes to be some kind of warped Mary Sue character, where whatever the hero does must be right and good because hey, he's the hero! I have never, ever been entertained by allegedly heroic protagonists who go out of their way to inflict gratuitous suffering on random people. Whenever the Marx Brothers were harassing some poor bastard for no reason, I wasn't laughing; I was wondering what the fuck was wrong with these criminal motherfuckers that they'd cause such torment to complete strangers. It's the same thing when Austin would do stuff like Stunning helpless innocent victims for the cheapest pop in the world.

 

Part of it comes from my indy experience. As a ring announcer and a referee, I couldn't begin to count the number of times that various wrestlers randomly abused me just to get themselves a tiny bit more over. I mean, every fucking night with that bullshit; never anything that was called by the booker, just guys going into business for themselves with shoving the announcer or mocking the ref or whatever. THAT GETS FUCKING OLD. But even before all that, I still didn't like stuff like Rock being so inexplicably cruel to everyone he ever interacted with, even his alleged friends and allies. What kind of incredibly insecure asshole are your supposed heroes, when they need to take advantage of the weak in order to make themselves strong?

I agree with a strong percentage of this. Not familiar with Mary Sue so I can't commetn on that but I never liked heroic protagonists who go out of their way to inflict gratuitous suffering on random people. I might like or love some of their personality traits but that trait is HORRIBLE.

 

Yeah, I liked the Rock overall but as some people on the board here know I hate it when people take advantage of correctly or incorrectly percieved weakness in order to make themselves strong. This was a big part of the Rock's personality and it was something I couldn't get behind. That being said, it did and does and always will work as it is something that appeals to the lower part of man. When you combine it with Rock's engaging super charasmatic personality and an excited WWE fanbase, it's going to go over like crazy. People LOOVED the put downs.

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Jingus and RE described what I was trying to say better than I did. Whether intended or not- and based on the Jake 3:16 segment I am guessing not intended - the way Austin treated people became "right" (and Rock too, ultimately). That's what I didn't like. You guys are right, too, about Hogan acting the same way a lot of times. I think that's a case of his natural personality bleeding through, and it was certainly distasteful.

 

I appreciate the analogies to House or Daredevil or Batman. But they fall short because wrestling doesn't have time to provide the kind of nuance they can get. House has conversations with Wilson and Cuddy and Cameron about what a jerk he is. He suffers loneliness. His "victims" respond with their hurts. The point is yes he wins while acting like a cool heel, but the audience has time to understand why he is flawed. Same with the comics guys - and when they aren't given depth, such as in a lot of the early Image books, then they become boring and even offensive.

 

Wrestling doesn't have the time or inclination to explore those subtleties of character. It's a much more basic model of story designed for kids that needs to appeal to everyone. You should know right away what's good and what's bad. They shouldn't try to alter the foundation model because it won't work right. I like watching Punk treat everyone like crap because he's a very very good performer. But there's no question in my mind that he needs to be smacked by a good guy like Rey. (I don't want Punk or Piper or Heenan or Bret 1997 or JBL to always come out on top, no matter how much I enjoy their work -- that's not how the story model in wrestling works.)

 

All that said, I know that it's the fans who ultimately decide. And they made Austin and Rock superstars. Vince had to run with it. So I am really just pissing in the wind.

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Just to go back to the OP for a second, one thing people haven't mention in this thread is that the size and basic assets of the two guys involved already tells half the story.

 

If you watch classic NWA - with Schiavone or Ross on commentary. Or any event on which Jesse Ventura is on colour, this never fails to come through.

 

If there's a size or power mismatch, then the smaller, weaker guy needs to work out a strategy to compensate for that. For me, that's where the story starts.

 

I blame commentary for not selling this type of thing enough since the mid-90s. I mean Schiavone used to be amazing talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors as they'd lock up. How much weight one guy was giving to another and so on. And when what you were seeing in the ring matched up with the analysis, that's some great storytelling.

 

I don't know if it's that in the Attitude Era guys stopped working in that way, or if they just stopped pointing it out, but "storytelling" to me means THAT.

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A comment I was making on another forum about Punk/Orton fits here, too:

 

I don't think Orton works as a Face at all. He doesn't know how to get the crowd going because his real talent is getting them to hate him. You can't use your same moves and just suddenly be a good guy when your schtick includes kicking downed guys in the head -- and slithering around like a snake. Those are heelish attitudes.

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