Flip Gordon and Flipping

I read that yesterday and, overall, he impressed me with his answers because he didn't mark out for high spots while calling the more traditional style of wrestling most fans are used to boring, outdated or whatever.

On the indie scene, the vast majority of companies are lucky if they put on one show a month, a significant number do less than that. As a result, all the focus has to be on the action of the matches, which means lots of spots and/or flips while heavily cutting back on storytelling and selling; most of them don't have shows often enough to have any real stories going on for the fans to get invested in, so they have to rely on what they can fit into that brief window of opportunity and for a lot of wrestlers, that means flips and high spots. The wrestlers HAVE to get themselves noticed and seeing as how many of the top guys out on the indie scene, most of them really, are on the smaller side, that means they have to be able to show off their athleticism.

It's sort of its own double edged sword, however, as continued over reliance on the "indie style" is looked down upon by a lot of fans; it doesn't mean that their athleticism isn't appreciated, but it's hard to become invested in a match when there's no substance to it. I'm not a fan of the style myself because the flips and spots are just too much and, if anything, put more emphasis than any other style on just how "fake" wrestling is. For instance, I watched the most recent episode of ROH and the main event was the Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Rocky Romero & the Best Friends and I absolutely hated the match because it was nothing but nonstop flips, high spots, heavily pre-planned spots, no storytelling and virtually no selling for over 20 minutes. Unfortunately, it's a style that's come to define ROH for much of this decade and it's a shame because guys like Bryan, Punk, Joe, Styles & Cesaro were able to do just fine without their matches being spotfests; I like some exciting moves as much as anybody, but dives, flips and flops lose any and all spectacle, for me at least, when you see an entire match made up almost of nothing but them.

That's not to say that wrestlers can't get over and aren't good if they rely more on their in-ring skills, few things can be further from the truth, but that's where the use of psychology and storytelling come in along with selling the effects of being in a "fight." In spite of what some say, that does every bit as much damage to the credibility of pro wrestling, maybe even more when you get right down to it, than WWE's more "sports entertainment" approach does at times.

 

Personally i don'T know who this guy is because i'm not really into Indy wrestling but i kinda agree with him. That's kinda the problem with indy wrestling now, You have so many guys that want to be wrestlers and want to be booked so they really don'T have a choice, they have to do crazy stuff to get notice and get more booking. The problem with that mentality is that a lot of the bigger names in indy wrestling start believing their own press and start thinking they they are big stars because they have a lot of buzz on the indy scene so when WWE give them a call and they decided to sign with them, they get a reality check and some don't like it because the culture of indy wrestling isn'T the same as the WWE.

That's the problem, fans that goes to indy shows don'T care about the well being of the wrestling, they just want to be entertain and see those crazy spot, that's what the current wrestling scene is. It's too bad because of this mentality, guys that normally could at have a 20 or 30 year careers, can't anymore because the style is more demanding then it was back in the days of the territories. But in the end, that the culture we live in now, fans want to see car crash and guys like meltzer encourage that mentality because they know that this is what the current wrestling fan want to see.

The style as positive and negative on both side but in the end, they might get notice easier by doing crazy bump but it's at the expanse of their health which will take time off their career, so for thing to change. it's in the end of the performers and promoters, what's more important in the end, making money and being notice on the indy scene or their health.

 

Flip does have the right idea as far as how to grasp attention. He was total nobody at the start of the year and now he's in ROH after a notable stint in The Crash on some pretty high profile matches. Part of it certainly was "the flippy shit" but the other half of it was the exposure with Being The Elite and showing a character on top of his wrestling.

Will Ospreay and Ricochet are both examples of that too, starting out with their ludicrous high-flying style before going on to show more depth to them. Ricochet doing it in Lucha Underground while Ospreay was almost wrestling like a completely different person in WCPW with a pretty damn great heel run there.

Some guys find a balance and when to step away or back into the so-called indie style. More often than not, it's the guys who end up standing out the most in that scene like a Ricochet or a Will Ospreay, even The Young Bucks have some damn great matches that depend on heavy psychology rather than their off-beat shenanigans. It's just a matter of where and when to showcase that instead.