Heels shouldnt be cheered, Which, when they do, shows they are outpreforming the face to a very large degree, and the crowd recognizes, and supports it. Edge rarely gets cheered eh??? yea rarely except for like, you know everytime his music comes on, when he makes his entrance. Other than that, yea, pretty rarely lol. And by Trips last heel run, I meant after he came back from his sabbatical after the Batista feud.
I watch Edge come out all the time. Where are these cheers? And, I could have sworn I heard good face pops for Triple H against Cena...
I never said it was correct, or thats what I thought. Im explaining to you how its pushed, how its sold to be. And to tell me its not, is simply foolish. Ken Shamrock never used to lay a beat down on anyones ankles either. Its how its sold. The sharpshooter didnt place as much pressure on a single point as the ankle lock does. If that move was applied for real, you could break someones ankle with it easily, in mere seconds, the angle is extremely awkward. Its sold to not have to be worked into. Watch a kurt angle match in your life.
It's pushed and sold to be that, because the workers using it don't bother to take the time to do differently, not because the move is that devastating. And, if you've even been in the Sharpshooter, you'd know how ridiculous it is to say it doesn't hurt every bit as much as an Ankle lock.
Oh really??? I seem to remember...
Wrestlemania 19, Vs Brock Lesnar for the WWE championship
Wrestlemania 20, Vs Eddie Guerrero for the WWE championship
Wrestlemania 22, Vs Rey Mysterio Vs Randy Orton fot the World Heavyweight Championship.
My mistake. I forgot 20. Probably because it's mired in obscurity behind the Triple threat.
Of course, the funny thing about that is that the one Wrestlemania of those that he actually did headline, drew the worst Wrestlemania buyrate since Wrestlemania 13...and counting.
Im actually very familure with Rhodes work in other promotions. But isnt the WWE the pinnacle of our sport??
Not when Rhodes was doing much of his work. In fact, Rhodes was very much established as one of wrestlings greats by the time the WWF took off. Faulty logic.
So if rhodes was so great, wouldnt he have had more than a year stint in yellow polka dots with the company??? I would think so. Vince Mcmahon decides pushes right??? Well lets see...Kurt Angle, multi time champion, multi time wrestlemania main eventer....Rhodes, not so much....but he is SO much better??? Guess you know better than vince then...And I am very much taking into account Rhodes territorial work, and NWA work. Which is why i made the comparisons between rhodes feuds, and Angles feuds.
This whole paragraph was a waste of your time, as your entire premise is faulty to begin with. The NWA when Rhodes was making a name for himself, was every bit as respected as the WWF. It wasn't until about 1985 or 1986 where the WWF had truly separated itself.
All of the guys who feuded with Angle were superior workers?? Please, spare me. Thats your opinion. a convienent one. YOUR excuses are weak and convieint.
They are superior workers. Guys who understand ring psychology and who can tell a story are superior workers.
To say mine is, when the move is CLEARLY sold to be that damaging, and always has been before Angle even used it, is ridiculous.
No, claiming that a move is so devastating that no prior work needs to be done to a joint is ridiculous. Claiming that because one previously bad worker used it as such makes it ok for Angle to use it as such is ridiculous. Your justification that one bad worker can use it in that regard because another bad worker did is astounding.
And as many times as others have told you, you still dont seem to understand your opinion is NOT fact.
Yeah, and it's the same piss poor argument it always is. Because, apparently, unlike me, this whole time you've mentioned over and over again how Angle being better is an opinion and not fact. Please. Quit being hypocritical. And quit using lame ass, piss bucket excuses to try and make your argument sound stronger than it is. "it's your opinion, not fact". What a fucking stupid thing to say, and I get so tired of people weaseling out of arguments using such piss bucket excuses.
Sly, I am 100% in disagreement with you here. And we'd been doing so well, hadn't we?
Oh well, I guess it's time to take you to school again
I cannot fathom the patience it would take to wrap quotes around every single one of your "points" in that oversized post in a desparate attempt to prove you wrong by isolating everything you say sentence by sentence. Instead, after reading your post, I will respond to some of your more egregious mistakes by posting my own account.
Luckily, I have that type of patience.
Kurt Angle's amateur background prepared him for professional wrestling better than ANYBODY ELSE in history. Bret Hart and Chris Benoit had fair amateur background, but the only two truly "prolific" amateur wrestler turned professional wrestler I can name are Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar. As a result of the understanding they both had of the weight and leverage of the human body, they were both able to make the change from the mat to the squared circle almost flawlessly - Angle more so than anyone else.
Shelton Benjamin was quite the accomplished wrestler as well. Charlie Haas. Bobby Lashley. The list of accomplished amateur wrestlers in professional wrestling is much longer than you say.
But, you know what? It doesn't matter. Because amateur wrestling and professional wrestling are two completely separate entities. Always have been, always will be. The only advantage amateur wrestlers have is a possibly increased credibility with fans. That's it.
You claim that heels are supposed to be entertaining by making the face entertaining. That is saying that no heel should be independently entertaining. This is a very archaic statement. With this, you are telling us that professional wrestling should forever be face vs heel, good vs evil, and that heels who are entertaining for their own sake RATHER than the sake of elevating the face are doing a disservice to the business. If that is true, then the mega-face characters Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock would not have come to be. Both were heels, and both were massively entertaining.
Wrestling cannot draw as face vs. face. It cannot. It never has and never will. Wrestling is every bit the same medium of entertainment as movies. People want to see bad guys, and see good guys give bad guys what they have coming. Always have, always will.
I haven't seen it, but I'm pretty certain Austin was booed after Wrestlemania 17. And I know Hollywood Rock was booed.
NOW let's take your boy John Cena. He was a heel on Smackdown and part of his heel schtick was rapping to deride the home fans and his opponent. Fact is, it was so entertaining and funny, that fans started to cheer him. That elevated him to US Champ and now to the WWE's #1 guy. I understand in the 80's, WWE would force face and heel turns down fans throats with major events that caused the shift in heel / face status. Starting with the likes of Steve Austin and Bret Hart, fans started to gradually influence the status of these wrestlers, forcing the WWF's hand in making them turn.
John Cena was a heel for about a year. Sure, he caught fire doing raps, but it wasn't because of his in-ring style that got him face pops. Like it is with Angle.
Kurt Angle is a fantastic heel in his promos and his outside-the-ring actions. He sets himself up as a heel prior to a match. What makes him so effective is that fans also RESPECT HIM. Fans understand that Angle can beat their favorite face in a split second. It creates intregue in the match, and as a result, fans show him respect by offering a face pop. Doesn't mean that he's a face, just that he's an accepted and popular heel.
The problem with this is, every thing he does as a heel outside the ring is ruined inside. That's the point I've been making from the very beginning. Angle has no concept of heel psychology.
You claim Angle should have used a "toned down" style to accentuate the babyface and force the fans to cheer for them.
Yes. Because his high impact offense pops the crowd, and eventually makes them cheer.
Ridiculous. You are saying that Angle should have depleted the overall spectacle and intensity of his match just to prevent the fans from cheering!?
No, of course not. But, if the only thing Angle has in his ability to make fans appreciate the spectacle and intensity of a match is his high impact offense, does that not once again show you how limited in the ring he is? If he can't work a crowd without using pop-inducing offense, then he's a poor professional wrestler.
Which is what I've said from the beginning. A good professional wrestler can make the crowd care about him and the match, regardless of the moves they do. Because the story in the ring and the psychology behind it is so much more important than moves ever can be.
Angle is so intense and unpredictable in the ring, when some face DOES defeat them, it's more exciting. It feels like a VICTORY. The fans don't cheer the face because they are supposed to, or because they hate the heel, but because they respect the idea that the face wrestler just defeated one of the most dangerous and respected antagonists in the business.
That can happen any way. I mean, did Roddy Piper use a bunch of pop-inducing moves? How about Bret Hart as a heel. Hell, how about the IWC's golden child Ric Flair? How many pop inducing moves did he use? The only big spots Flair used were when the face came out looking good because of it.
Now I get how great Rhodes was in the NWA. I agree with you there. I don't look at Rhodes' WWF work as a microcosm of his overall career, he was a mainstay in the territory system and the NWA, which I have immense respect for. But lest we forget, Rhodes did a fair amount of booking work in the NWA. A few people have mentioned it in their books, not the least being Ric Flair, who often described Dusty's propensity for constantly going back to "The Dusty Finish" to end his matches. How much of Rhodes's success could potentially be attributed to his role on the booking team? The same way we run down HHH, Hogan, Flair, etc for doing the same thing?
What does that have to do with Dusty being good in the ring? Being a good draw? Having more charisma in his pinky than Angle does in his whole body?
Furthermore Dusty as a booker happened after he had already won a couple of NWA Championships, as well as various other titles. So, it's really a moot argument. Just pointing out that his booking had nothing to do with him being good.
Maybe you only place stock in storytelling and ring psychology, but wrestling ability and athleticism mean something to me and the rest of this board. As a result, Angle goes over Rhodes in a classic.
Wait...did you say that I may only take stock in storytelling and ring psychology, and then say wrestling ability means something?
God. C'mon IC, I thought you better than that. Wrestling ability IS about storytelling and ring psychology. Not how many fake moves you can put on, which is usually more of a result of your opponents athleticism and not yours. It's not about how many moves your opponents sells for you to look good. Wrestling IS about storytelling and ring psychology. It's about working the crowd. Not some artificial criteria made up by the IWC because they've been worked by the business to think the only good wrestlers are the ones who "wrestle" meaning technical wrestling.
You take Rhodes from his prime and put him against Angle today, and I guarantee this poll is different. Dusty is just fighting IWC ignorance and time on this one.
