Good wrestling isn’t a guidelines.
At occasions, it looks like there may be an assumption that after we speak about “good wrestling,” we’re all in settlement about what which means. You’ve in all probability heard somebody say, “it wasn’t a five-star match, however it was enjoyable.” However what do folks imply once they say one thing is a five-star match? On this article, I ask how a sure fashion of wrestling turned the fashion of wrestling amongst critics and followers and suggest another: that good wrestling is within the eye of the beholder.
Wrestling followers love numbers. From the tedium of TV scores to minute-by-minute updates on ticket gross sales and purchase charges, numbers are a part of the way in which that wrestling followers perceive success and failure. There are historic causes for this, such because the framing of the Monday Night time Wars by WWE and numerous retrospectives, which elevates TV scores because the proxy of on-screen high quality. On the opposite aspect is the important assessment, an evaluation of the “artwork” of professional wrestling as one thing distinct from the enterprise. In principle, important opinions ought to be a lot broader and extra subjective, but on this sphere, too, the dominance of numbers, most notably within the type of star scores, hinders the way in which we speak about wrestling. At its worst, this obsession with quantitative metrics bleeds into our important evaluation, in order that “good wrestling” turns into a guidelines of in-ring actions, reasonably than a wider appreciation of the distinctive artwork of wrestling in all its varieties and parts.
By way of critic tradition, the concentrate on the bell-to-bell as a metric of high quality and the next allocation of scores mirrored the pre and early-internet period, the place watching wrestling exterior of TV broadcasts meant shopping for tapes. Throughout the tape-trading scene, star scores have been a shorthand information for patrons to make sure they despatched their checks for one thing good. This early scene of newsletters, tape buying and selling, and web boards was the continuation and evolution of the “smark” tradition, which outlined itself in opposition to the “marks” who took wrestling at face worth. With wrestling within the Western hemisphere being dominated by WWF/E’s gimmick and storyline-heavy model of sports activities leisure, it was not stunning that the oppositional smark tradition would tack the opposite approach, intellectualizing professional wrestling with a precedence given to the bodily and technical prowess versus the characters and emotional parts.
Each Olympic yr, somebody floats the thought of professional wrestling as an Olympic sport, akin to gymnastics or ice skating. It’s an concept that definitely is sensible inside this technical-athletic paradigm that sees good wrestling as primarily the mixture of excellent strikes and the way they’re executed. For instance, in Olympic sports activities, the issue and execution are paramount elements of the judging rubric. All of us have a number of examples of a match that featured wrestlers we knew nothing about entering into and have been received over on pure efficiency. For me, and lots of others, the Michinoku Professional 6 man at ECW’s Barely Authorized PPV in 1997 is emblematic of this phenomenon.
The overwhelming majority of the stay and tv crowd knew nothing in any respect about these wrestlers, and certainly there have been even a number of ironic ‘Energy Rangers’ chants made earlier than the bell rung, however by the point the bell rang a second time, the ovations have been raucous and the match the stuff of legend. The well-known Hardys vs Edge and Christian from No Mercy 1999 is one other match that involves thoughts, the place followers have been received over by pure potential within the ring reasonably than an funding in characters or storylines (does anybody bear in mind the “Terri Invitation Match?“). Maybe these matches would make good candidates for an Olympic occasion.
However to say that professional wrestling ought to be a sport is to make a reasonably express declare that there’s a shared assumption about what makes professional wrestling good. Typically the time period ‘workrate’ is used to outline this fashion, however extra appropriately, workrate refers back to the ratio of “work” to relaxation, i.e., the athletic stamina of a wrestler within the ring. We might higher describe this fashion as technical-athletic or maximalist. So, what defines it? Matches with tough strikes, severe sportslike presentation, lengthy epics, a number of false finishes, and cushty work all appear to be usually authorised parts of the very “finest” matches that dominate end-of-year lists. To be clear, this doesn’t imply that wrestling followers and critics are a hivemind, however as a substitute, there’s a normal pattern in direction of the technical-athletic maximalist fashion being acknowledged because the fashion of wrestling that results in the vast majority of critically acclaimed matches.
And I’m one in all them too. I’ve rated matches 4 stars, which I forgot a few month later. I’ve rated matches low that I actually loved however did not tick off the undefined guidelines in my head that claims a four-star match must do sure issues. Briefly, I’ve been letting different folks outline the parameters of how I specific my enjoyment of wrestling. It’s not that I don’t just like the technical-athletic fashion, I do, however there’s additionally so many others varieties of professional wrestling on the market, from cinematic to the hyper-real, from comedy to narrative, from hardcore to the avant-garde. There are such a lot of totally different genres of wrestling, so why can we deal with the “finest” as just one.
Again in 2020, Rob Hutton, in his assessment of the cult basic Akito/ASUKA single mild tube deathmatch, famous that “Match of The 12 months” was usually reserved for 25-minute epics, however known as for wrestling critics to broaden their horizons as to what makes a seminal match.
For my very own half, I’ve tried to construct on Rob’s name, placing Muta’s final match in opposition to Chono (all of two minutes) on my checklist just because the unequalled environment, in addition to the fully off-the-wall inter-dimensional odyssey that was the principle occasion of TJPW’s HYPE present. Something that makes you are feeling excited, snicker, cry, or punch the air is worthy of calling nice, regardless of how they acquired there.
Wrestling can be extra than simply matches. One of many issues with star scores or websites like Cagematch.internet is that they slice up wrestling in order that we solely charge what occurs between the bell to bell. But matches are additionally the fruits of tales and angles, of promos and entrances that get you excited. It’s synthetic to separate this stuff. Maybe there may be another universe the place star scores got for total exhibits as a substitute of particular person matches. However, in our universe, the template has lengthy been that matches are the elemental constructing block of critiquing wrestling.
Wrestling is about narratives and characters as a lot as it’s about motion. The story of a wrestler, each kayfabe and “actual,” the promotion a match is going down in, the promos, the music, the entrances, the video packages, the storylines, the stakes, the matches that got here earlier than, even those who got here after. All of those, whether or not we consciously acknowledge it or not, contribute to our enjoyment. To make issues much more sophisticated, match scores themselves have turn out to be a story for a lot of, with sure wrestlers and matches assigned speculative scores even earlier than the match has begun!
Lastly, a very powerful factor is that all of us come to wrestling from totally different positions. Maybe most significantly is the way in which that wrestlers join with us on a private degree. We could like sure wrestlers as a result of they arrive from the identical city as us, or possibly we establish with them as a result of we, too, really feel like an underdog at occasions, or possibly as we get older, we begin to admire the veterans extra. Rising up, I used to be a lot smaller than most of my classmates. Is it any marvel I grew up a fan of Rey Mysterio Jr. and different cruiserweights? Sure storylines, of affection misplaced however not forgotten, of resilience, preventing spirit, and pyrrhic victories, could converse to the contours of 1’s personal life extra keenly than others. How can we fake that the standard of wrestling is goal when every of us has traveled our personal street towards it?
Sarah Kurchak’s latest article on Tetsuya Naito is an effective instance of how totally different positions create new and legitimate views. Whereas Naito could have bodily slowed down lately, Kurchak argues that for a lot of of Naito’s ardent followers, this hasn’t affected their enjoyment as “the principle attraction has at all times been his potential to convey—and elicit—emotion.” This doesn’t imply it’s a must to agree along with her, or get pleasure from Naito matches, however merely acknowledge that there could also be a couple of legitimate opinion on a wrestler or match. Whereas I’m not a fan of the way in which the positioning aggregates numbers into an alleged consensus, one factor I really love about websites like Cagematch.internet is the power to learn two fully totally different opinions of a match and agree with the nice factors of each.
So, in abstract, in terms of high quality in wrestling, there’s nobody true fashion that’s higher than the others. There’s no such factor as objectivity in wrestling, and there are not any Olympic gold medals for style.
So let’s overlook the numbers and discuss ball.