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| Two rivals whose careers were so great because they made each other look so good all the time Photo Credit: Pro Wrestling Illustrated via WWE.com |
I will never dispute the most visually and aesthetically pleasing part of wrestling for myself and for a lot of people is the width and breadth of different ways wrestlers appear to be hurting other wrestlers. I wouldn't dedicate the first post of every Wednesday to what I feel are the "Best Moves Ever." The ballet of twisted flesh and interlocked limbs comprises the corporeal meat of wrestling's art. However, does the move itself give pro graps its soul? Does the piledriver or the suplex or the three-handled moss-covered family gredunza actually fill the entire demand? I would actually argue the most impressive thing about any move rests on the person taking it.
An offensive maneuver in wrestling without a proper, situational sell is like a subject without a predicate, a sentence fragment if you will. Obviously, no action in wrestling is met without reaction; even no-selling is reacting with blatant defiance at the pain that supposed to have been inflicted by the move just given out. A reaction always happens, but is it the right reaction?
Ric Flair, on the first episode of the Steve Austin Show he appeared, said that selling and making your opponent look good was the most important part of being both a great babyface or heel. Ricky Steamboat, he said, was the master of doing this as a good guy, and hardly anyone out there would disagree if they really were students of professional wrestling analysis. Steamboat made everything Flair, or Randy Savage, or Bret Hart, or Austin, or any opponent he ever faced look like it affected his body like scale-sized carpet bombs. Even when he was on offense, he didn't let the crowd forget that he was still suffering ill-effects from whatever damaged his person from the open hand, closed fist, or bent knee of the Nature Boy.
Flair himself was perhaps the man who best exemplified how to make the other guy's repertoire look like the most dangerous set of combat skills on the planet. The Flair Flop has defined him in the ring almost as much as the Figure Four or the top rope bump to the canvas he'd always take. Sidenote: bumping is not selling, and it never will be. I liken it to the defensive equivalent of an offensive move, like a pick six in football, for comparison's sake. Even more germane to the point, Flair begging off, shaking his head as a plea for mercy (whether or not it was a precursor to a cheap shot) was something he had perfected. Showing fright at the prospect of absorbing more damage can be just as effective as feigning pain. Selling can be psychological as much as it's physical.
The above isn't really to say that KIDS TODAY DON'T GET IT LIKE THEY DONE DID IN THE OLD DAYS STAY OFF MY LAWN. Several wrestlers today like Christian, Sheamus, and Chris Masters for example are among the best at selling damage, making their opponents look like rockstars in the process. I also do not mean to say that Steamboat and Flair sell the only way that it should be done. What doesn't matter are the specific beats; any action or motion or trope that effectively conveys what the aggressor did to you smarts quite a measure is welcomed in a wrestling match. What separates the Flairs and Steamboats from the replacement level wrestler isn't the fact that the former sell and the latter don't.
Davey Richards, for example, sells sometimes. He sells poorly, but to say he doesn't act like what the other guy does to him hurts is inaccurate. When he's not popping right up after a big move to deliver a kick to the chest or a kick to the leg or a kick to the head or a kick to the who cares as long as it makes noise, he makes the motion to himself that what happened may have hurt, and then maybe he'll lay on the canvas for a long time before popping up again for his big comeback. His situational no-selling is atrociously overused, sure, but even when he is acting like what the other guy is doing to him hurts, he looks as if he's bored more than he's hurt, almost as if he's just biding his time before he can show off his AWESUM MOVEZ one more time. The difference between Davey Richards and Ricky Steamboat is the same difference between "The bull ran," and "The prize chestnut steer recklessly charged through the street as if his thirst could only be sated by wanton destruction." Both sentences convey similar ideas, but the latter is so much more descriptive, painting a florid picture that needs no illustration accompanying to drive its point home.
The shame of Richards is that he does have some pretty cool offensive moves, but if all you do is kicks and suplexes and roaring, then you're not a professional wrestler, you're an exhibitionist. He'll be getting a tryout with WWE soon, and part of me hopes he gets shunted into developmental. Wasted potential is the biggest crime against art, and Richards wastes his every time he gets into the ring and decides to trade kicks and chops with dudes rather than tell a story. WWE won't let him onto the main roster if he can't sell, or at least I would think they wouldn't let him there. Judging by some of Triple H's last couple of matches, I wouldn't be surprised if the big Aitch doesn't see a bit of himself in Richards' matches. But I digress.
However, ingrained habits can be very hard to break. I don't know what is in Richards' mind, or any wrestler's mind, when they get into the ring, but the way the end result manifests for Richards flies in the face of good wrestling to me. Ric Flair is the greatest professional wrestler of all-time. He deserves that mantel in part because he knew that wrestling, as a work, needed, and continues to need, teamwork that corroborates the illusion that what they're doing really inflicts pain. I don't know if what Richards thinks he's doing relays that, but I don't get it from his work, and judging from the incredible amounts of backlash he gets, I'm far from being alone on that subject.
Moves are definitely cool, don't get me wrong. However, a move is only as cool as how much it looks like a wrestler gets hurt by it. That tenet is at the core of what professional wrestling should be, and it's why selling, more than anything else, is the one thing every wrestler needs to get a grasp on before they step into a ring.