Botches: hurt matches or make them more real?

[Ferreira]

I was just thinking, when in a real fight or in UFC two guys land a punch at the same time it's not a botch, it's normal, both of them want to hit each other so they may fail or even hit each other at the same time.

In the wrestling business when something doesn't go by the plan in terms of wrestling moves it usually is called a "botch", meaning that one of, if not the two, the guys botched the move he was supposed to do.

If you think about it don't you think botches make wrestling matches more real? I know Wrestling isn't real so it should be highly performed and executed almost to perfection but when you think about real life it's not perfect, you can pick two random guys in the street fighting and you won't see a perfect struggle, or even, hitting all their punches or kickes.

Does botches only hurt the matches or it can be seen also as a "reality" factor?

 

[MrMojoRisin]

Depends on the botch I guess, and the severity of it.

One example of a bad one would be the other week on RAW, when Del Rio put his cross armbreaker on CM Punk, but did it on the right arm. Wrestlers are always taught to work the LEFT arm, since the right is almost always the dominant one and working the right can impact what a worker can and cannot do for the remainder of the match.

This wasn't a match, although if I remember right, Punk had to go back out and work later, so his work could have been affected by Del Rio's botch, which hurts both Punk and whomever he was working with.

Now a botch where someone misses a move, but doesn't hurt anyone or affect the course of the match, isn't a big deal, and yes can add to the realism of the story they're trying to tell.

Botches that happen because one worker just forgets how he's supposed to work... to me that's another story altogether.

 

[#hamler]

Depends how the wrestler handles the botch. For example, if Sin Cara botches a top rope maneuver and falls straight to the floor, he should obviously sell the botch. He should never get right back up and try it again. That's when botches become annoying and unbearable to me. There have been plenty of wrestlers over the years who have become synonymous with botching a move and not selling; Sabu being the major one. I can't count how many times Sabu has fucked up a move, land awkwardly, only to get right up, set the chair again and do said move another time.

Look, there is nothing wrong with botching, I'm sure everyone does it. But it becomes a problem when the wrestler can't even improvise and sell the damn botch. It's one of my biggest wrestling pet peeves. So yes, it does add a little reality but sell the move no matter how bad it's botched.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

It really does depend. Hamler used Sin Cara as an example, when he failed to hit his version of the Flux Capacitor, he fell to the outside, got back up within a second, got back into the ring and performed the move without even weakening his opponent. Now, if Sin Cara for example were to do a Springboard Moonsault to the outside of the ring and land but land awkwardly and people call it a botch, that to me isn't a botch and it shouldn't just be Sin Cara's fault. The wrestler catching him is as much to blame for not being in position and even at that, in-terms of a move like that I think it makes it more realistic anyway.

Really it all depends. If you botch something where you should sell and you don't then it takes away from the match, if you perform the move, botch it yet still land it to a degree where you can both work off it, that to me makes it more realistic. If wrestling is to come across "real" then they can't get every single manuever correct every time. It's impossible.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

In reality all botches add to the reality of the match. Sure not selling the botch hurts the realism but it all goes back to how bad the selling is. I agree with Hamler that Sin Cara should have at least sold the fall, instead he looked frustrated and embarrassed thus breaking the fourth wall to a very minor degree. If a guy botches and the mistake does not draw that much attention then he does not need to sell it to the max. If he botches a big move like Sin Cara did then he at least needs to make it look as if it hurt. Botches will happen to the best, it is not really a big deal unless it is REALLY bad. How authentic you can make a spot look is only part of what goes into being a great superstar

 

[Dagger Dias]

Botches hurt the matches. The "fighting" in WWE is different from UFC or "real" fights due to the fact that they have predetermined moments that they go by and therefore need to know ahead of time what they are going to do. You don't do that in a "real" fight, you just fight until someone loses. If you were putting on a show with predetermined results you need moments (called spots) that map out how you get there. If someone botches then it can mess up both guys' train of thought and it hurts the match because they need to focus on getting everything done correctly for the fans.

 

[poppycock]

If the match is a good one it really does not make a bit of difference for me. People who get too offended by botches remind me of people who go to gigs with their arms folded and anytime a wrong note is played...look to their friend with a tut tut expression. Botches are bound to happen from time to time, people make mistakes but if the match is captivating enough I will usually be far to involved in enjoying it to even notice a botch. The harder the wrestlers push to entertain us the more chance of something going wrong happening so I tend to look past any mistakes and not let it effect my view of the match. Obviously there are exceptions and every once in a while something will happen that even I think badly about but genuine mistakes that can't be helped and just come about because of the nature of the sport and the physical aspect of it...those really don't hurt a match for me in the slightest. Perhaps this is because I don't watch with a technical eye and am just as much into the entertainment as I am the wrestling, if a fan is way more into the technical wrestlers I could see how a big mistake could effect a match in their eyes. Things like wrestlers making is so obvious that they are stalling whilst climbing a ladder or cage (not in a good or even believable way just ridiculous speeds or climbs that look awul) get to me far more than a botch.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Depends how the wrestler handles the botch.

True. Some wrestlers are so adept at improvising that they can incorporate a botch into the series of moves, to the point the audience might not even recognize a botch has taken place.

Of course, some botches are such in nature that no one can make them look like anything but what they were. In that case, you just go back to what you were doing and accept that a mistake has been made. Personally, I don't see a problem with this. That mistakes take place only shows how hard it is to perform as a pro wrestler.....and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, a little contrast is a good thing.

This is live theater, after all. In filming movies or TV shows, if a mistake is made, the director yells "Cut!" and they re-film the segment. Pro wrestling, like stage plays, doesn't have that option; they have to work through their botches.....and do it in front of thousands of people and the arena and millions watching at home. The wrestlers should be applauded for performing under this pressure.

Instead, they have Vince McMahon, seemingly existing in a state of perpetual rage if the slightest slip-up occurs. It's too bad, because his expectations are unrealistic.

I've always equated this kind of thing to car racing. Enthusiasts of that sport insist they don't attend just for the possibility there will be a crash. Yet, if there was no chance of crashes, would as many people go to auto races? I wonder.

 

[Karilas]

Depends how the wrestler handles the botch. For example, if Sin Cara botches a top rope maneuver and falls straight to the floor, he should obviously sell the botch. He should never get right back up and try it again. That's when botches become annoying and unbearable to me. There have been plenty of wrestlers over the years who have become synonymous with botching a move and not selling; Sabu being the major one. I can't count how many times Sabu has fucked up a move, land awkwardly, only to get right up, set the chair again and do said move another time.

Look, there is nothing wrong with botching, I'm sure everyone does it. But it becomes a problem when the wrestler can't even improvise and sell the damn botch. It's one of my biggest wrestling pet peeves. So yes, it does add a little reality but sell the move no matter how bad it's botched.

Had a feeling somebody would have already said everything I wanted to say on the subject!

If properly incorporated into the flow of a match a botch takes nothing away, in some rare cases it can add that extra "WTF!?" factor to an epic encounter, too. The problem with botches, for me, is that if someone badly whiffs a drop-kick and their opponent sells it anyway, it looks plain bad, or if somebody flubs a high-spot and ends up crashing and burning, they should definitely sell the pain of cocking it up, there's always going to be another opportunity to reverse the flow and regain the upper-hand, whereas if you no-sell a top-rope fall you seriously undermine the perceived impact of every other slam and suplex.

Major complaint here is that it shows a lack of talent, in my mind, when someone misses a spot and immediately attempts to repeat it, unless it's something so quick so as to not allow their opponent time to recover. I had a good rant about this in the [post=3437138]Pro-Wrestling Pet-Peeves[/post] thread.

Note, the post linked above is just the start of my input to that thread, it's only short, but further on I go into it in more detail when I whinge about [post=3452957]consistency[/post].

 

[The Brain]

Depends how the wrestler handles the botch. For example, if Sin Cara botches a top rope maneuver and falls straight to the floor, he should obviously sell the botch. He should never get right back up and try it again. That's when botches become annoying and unbearable to me. There have been plenty of wrestlers over the years who have become synonymous with botching a move and not selling; Sabu being the major one. I can't count how many times Sabu has fucked up a move, land awkwardly, only to get right up, set the chair again and do said move another time.

Look, there is nothing wrong with botching, I'm sure everyone does it. But it becomes a problem when the wrestler can't even improvise and sell the damn botch. It's one of my biggest wrestling pet peeves. So yes, it does add a little reality but sell the move no matter how bad it's botched.

This is exactly right. Sorry I haven't spread enough rep so I can't rep this post. I hate it when someone botches a move and then immediately goes for the exact same move. It looks terrible. This happens a lot with younger wrestlers. It's so embedded in them that they need to stick with the plan that they don't know what to do when something goes wrong. They can't work on the fly. If an old school vet botched a move he would just keep going. That makes it look more real. The young guy trying for the same move immediately after a botch makes his opponent look foolish as he has to awkwardly sell the move a second time instead of react to the first botch.

Another big factor is how the commentators react to the botch. Gorilla Monsoon used to be the best at this. If a wrestler missed a move Monsoon would call it. He would flat out say the wrestler missed or he shouldn't have tried that. That added realism. We all saw the botch so for a commentator to pretend it didn't happen makes everyone look bad. Monsoon would call the botch and the fans wouldn't think anything of it. It would have been much more noticeable had he tried to cover up the botch.

 

[Karilas]

Another big factor is how the commentators react to the botch. Gorilla Monsoon used to be the best at this. If a wrestler missed a move Monsoon would call it. He would flat out say the wrestler missed or he shouldn't have tried that. That added realism. We all saw the botch so for a commentator to pretend it didn't happen makes everyone look bad. Monsoon would call the botch and the fans wouldn't think anything of it. It would have been much more noticeable had he tried to cover up the botch.

This is another important factor, glad you mentioned it, it hadn't even occurred to me. I'm pretty sure Heenan used to do it too on Nitro, helps sell the realism of the fight if handled properly both in the ring and on the commentary, as no real fight is super fluid ballet, really. Really? Really. Sorry, shit got too real for a second, there.

 

[Lockard23]

Botches make the match better. If anything, the biggest problem with a lot of matches are that they are way too clean. I like matches to be unpredictable and with botches, that happens.

 

[Defekt]

It depends.

I (and most people) who watch wrestling know it is not a real fight, and evaluate a match on different variables than I would a real fight between two people.

A botch that throws off the tempo of the match takes me out of the moment even if it is "more real." An example is RVD vs Cena at ONS 2006. This was a white hot match, but RVD tried for a fireman's carry and had trouble lifting Cena. It's realistic, but it killed the two's heat for a moment, because everyone knew it didn't work.

On the other hand... UT vs Mankind at KOTR 98. The Undertaker choke-slammed Mankind from the top of the cage and he went straight through it to the ring. This is one of the most memorable moments in the history of professional wrestling, and I'm sure (aside from Mick Foley's family) no one would take this botch back.

But the KOTR '98 botch is atypical; most are simple mistakes that take away from the match. I appreciate the UFC in different ways than I appreciate the WWE, and ultimately i just like seeing well performed professional wrestling matches, reality or not.