Best Submission Seller and/or Easiest Submission to Sell?

[DarksideEric]

I recently watched a clip of Angle vs. Orton where Angle won by submission (Ankle/Angle Lock) and really felt Orton sold the pain, need to escape, desperation, etc very well. This reminded me a lot of Angle's match at Wrestlemania 21 against Michaels where, again, I felt the submission hold was sold very, very well.

So, my open question for you all is who (in your opinion) sells submissions the best? Also, as a tag along question, which submissions do you think are easier to sell for than others? Are some submissions much harder to sell for (due to positioning, what part of the body is being worked on, etc) than others?

 

[Rayne]

I recently watched a clip of Angle vs. Orton where Angle won by submission (Ankle/Angle Lock) and really felt Orton sold the pain, need to escape, desperation, etc very well. This reminded me a lot of Angle's match at Wrestlemania 21 against Michaels where, again, I felt the submission hold was sold very, very well.

So, my open question for you all is who (in your opinion) sells submissions the best? Also, as a tag along question, which submissions do you think are easier to sell for than others? Are some submissions much harder to sell for (due to positioning, what part of the body is being worked on, etc) than others?

That was a great match they had at One Night Stand. Randy Orton made you believe his ankle was literally being torn off.

For the best seller of all time, I want to say Ric Flair, but someone's going to have a better example. The easiest hold to sell I'd say would be the Crippler Crossface- your body is prone and constrained, and your face is covered so you don't have to worry too much about camera shots. Easy-peasy.

 

[Uncle]

Without a doubt Ziggler is by far the best at selling pain/injury. Which is why i think he is being kept down. He can make anyones attack look good.

Id have to say a very close second is Tyson Kidd. Hart training nuff said there..

Now for the follow up question. Id say the easiest move would be the figure four. Just lay there and thrash. The hardest is hard to say cuz i havent been in alot of them. but from the looks some of the move that have arms right in your face would be unpleasant.

 

[DarksideEric]

Without a doubt Ziggler is by far the best at selling pain/injury. Which is why i think he is being kept down. He can make anyones attack look good.

Id have to say a very close second is Tyson Kidd. Hart training nuff said there..

Now for the follow up question. Id say the easiest move would be the figure four. Just lay there and thrash. The hardest is hard to say cuz i havent been in alot of them. but from the looks some of the move that have arms right in your face would be unpleasant.

Some submissions, unfortunately, that I sometimes feel are too easy to be "undersold" are all the different types of "crab" holds, such as the Boston Crab, Lion Tamer, Sharpshooter and Texas Cloverleaf.

I say this because of how limited you are in body movement to "showcase" pain. For instance, a lot of the time in such holds people are just shaking their head no over and over again until around when Austin did his famous Sharpshooter fight. I know, in my opinion, I don't get the same feel as watching someone try to crawl to the rope when they're in the Sharpshooter as I do when I see something like I described with Orton and Angle.

 

[shalliin]

An easy sell is Cobra Clutch/Million Dollar Dream. Just wave loose arm around while slowly relaxing your facial features and closing your arms. Let arm hang loose so Ref can do the lift 3 count. Let whole body start to relax and boom, it's done.

One that is hard to sell is most kinds of arm bars. Not the Kimura lock style, but along the lines of the cross armbar or arm stretch. While it can when done fully break your arm or elbow, as a move in a wrestling lock, it's not very visually impactful and looks weak and ineffectual at the best of times.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

The easiest in my opinion is your common headlock. Just sway back and forth with your arms flailing and then slowly stop and go limp.

As for best submission seller, that's a bit tough. I generally think of a seller as a seller of anything, and in this day and age it's Dolph Ziggler. But looking back at old Eddie Guerrero matches, I think Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho did a fantastic job selling submission moves. So I give it to Rey and Y2J.