[OT]Wrestling... how much is fake?

[Furn_Darkside]

Re: Warning: SPOILERS for SUMMERSLAM (sorta)

Angle ducking Mysterio's first 619 at Summerslam was probably just as planned as the one he took to the face later in the match.

Mysterio is an impressive wrestler- I hope they don't screw him up like WCW did to most of their wrestlers.

Argh, why did they bring that dork Bischoff to WWE? The guy is horrible. I hope he has absolutely no creative control.

FD

 

[bolen]

A&E had an interesting show on this. The ref is kind of the stage manager. He tells the wrestlers when to rap it up. The show implied that they had a general idea of what was going to happen but the action was not completely staged (all the hits and so forth are worked out on the fly).

 

[Westwind]

If you get a good camera angle on wrestlers when they are in "rest holds" you can see their lips moving. What they are doing is discussing the next spot (unless you're Buff Bagwell, in which case your entire in-ring package consists of rest holds). Some wrestlers have great chemistry so they don't need to do this as often as others and other wrestlers have repuations for being able to make anyone look good (Angle and Benoit, for example).

 

[Requiem]

WWE is the perfect level of cartoony-violence for me- though when they hit women, the channel gets turned - Furn-Darkside

Hi,

I'm very interested in your point of view there..this has been rasied by many as woman wrestlers etc have increasingly become a bigger feature on wwe over the past couple of years perhaps you could provide me with some insight.

Why do you feel the cartoony violence becomes unacceptable when it involves a woman? Do you feel the same about tv series like Buffy etc which involve women often get beaten up by men?

To my mind its all just "acting" and I dont draw any distiction between them.

Requiem

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Why do you feel the cartoony violence becomes unacceptable when it involves a woman?

I don't care for any displays of violence against women- cartoony or realistic.

Do you feel the same about tv series like Buffy etc which involve women often get beaten up by men?

I think Buffy is a stupid show, but I get your point.

Let me use Xena for example- the violence against women in that show is non-existant. You can tell no one is getting hurt.

Violence against a woman in a more dramatic show/movie makes me uncomfortable, but if it fits the mood of show- then it does not bother me enough to turn it off. It is part of the story. (Though I could tell a self-humiliating anecdote about Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.)

However, I watch wrestling to see silly storylines and great wrestlers like Benoit and Malinko. Watching women getting really hurt, even in a "safe" environment is not my cup of tea.

Personally, I think there are too many women in WWE outside of the matchs as well. If I wanted to watch porn or a strip show, then I would go do that- I watch wrestling for wrestling.

To my mind its all just "acting" and I dont draw any distiction between them.

I have seen and been in too much violence in my life to be able to draw that distinction easily.

Wrestling at its best (holds, moves, counters, silly story lines) is a live action cartoon/display of skills.

FD

 

[Requiem]

Hi,

Thankyou for the insight.

However I do believe some of the woman wrestlers are as talented (if not more so) than the men and therefore matches involving woman are, imho, as viable entertainment (for the reasons stated by yourself) as those involving men.

However I think the WWE's treatment of the woman of wrestling has done severe damage to the the whole womans wrestling movement and has reduced it to a mere T&A sideshow.

Requiem

 

[Black Omega]

I'd agree women wrestlers can be just as talented but then I watch the Japanese women wrestlers and they are amazing. The WWE product is all T&A, as they basically admit.

A thing I saw interesting, I think it was on Wrestling Observer, was how even with steroids, the massively juscles wrestlers tend to have a longer career than the smaller guys doing the dangerous bumps. Which might explain Brock's push. By himself he seems like an almost total zero.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I was caught a cable channel while in a nowhere hotel room showing "minor league" wrestling.

It was very enlightening about the level of skill the top level people have. Since the up and coming amateurs perform let me really see some of the tricks they used; they were not slick enough yet to get the timing right to hide techniques.

Things I noticed:
--a stomp on the mat timed to make the "hit" sound impressive as the attacker lunges forward
--punches that don't land
--arm swings and elbow swing that appear to strike the head (because the head is thrown back in response) but connect with the striker's own hand/forearm or victim's feebly raised arm/elbow to make a good amount of noise
--huge windups that look impressive but a mostly to help the timing, i.e. so the victim knows when to throw himself back

After seeing these guys I had a new appreciation for the top pros. It takes a lot of skill, practice, hard work to make a variety of moves look good. And it is not just your punches require practice, but being on the receiving end does, too.

I am sure it is a tough business to be in. The training is hard work. Blows do land, rarely or never at full force, but I am sure it is painful. Jumping onto a bouncy, padded, spring floor can still injure you badly. Accidents happen.

 

[Squire James]

I remember watching a supposedly rare match between two "good guy" teams on TV once (lordy, 15-20 years ago!). They shook hands a stupid number of times during the match, helped each other up, etc. Interestingly enough, on one of those "jumping to avoid opponent's rush" moves, one guy didn't jump quite high enough. I think the "accidental head to the groin" really was an accidental head to the groin. Even the "bad guy announcer" was wincing over that one!

Aside from that, I agree the sport is mostly "scripted outcomes" and "mostly unscripted but choregraphed moves".

 

[Grazzt]

Things I noticed:
--a stomp on the mat timed to make the "hit" sound impressive as the attacker lunges forward
--punches that don't land
--arm swings and elbow swing that appear to strike the head (because the head is thrown back in response) but connect with the striker's own hand/forearm or victim's feebly raised arm/elbow to make a good amount of noise
--huge windups that look impressive but a mostly to help the timing, i.e. so the victim knows when to throw himself back

Yeppers- and ring mics (usually 3-5 microphones placed under the ring itself) add to the "thud" made when someone "connects" or hits the mat.

Basically- to sum it up- wrestling is a male-oriented soap opera.