Wow, you really are as dumb as people say.
And if a match is a shoot, then they obviously are not working, right?
Here's a definition of work (verb) on Wikipedia's page of wrestling jargon: "The act of deceiving or manipulating a person or persons, which may or may not be done to preserve kayfabe." Those "persons" referring to an audience. In that case, no, a shoot match wouldn't be worked, since the match would occur outside of kayfabe. I heard of some form of wrestling that was only partly shoot, so some aspects would be worked.
But that doesn't mean it's worked well.
I know how to swing a baseball bat, but that doesn't mean I could be a good professional baseball batter.
At that point I was discussing the meaning of "working" or what a "work" is, not talking about how well wrestlers work, whether from today or Doink's era. I didn't say everyone works well or that it's not possible to work well. Now you're fishing for things with which to disagree before I said them.
Before I move on, I hope you'll go back over your responses and ask, "Wow, did I make an impersonal discussion something entirely too personal?" Whether we agree or not, there's no reason to turn what should be a discussion into name-calling. I'm 19 and I know that well enough. If you think you have absolute knowledge of this subject, you're fooling yourself, especially when we both stand from mostly outside perspectives of the industry. Remaining resolutely by your perceptions is a bigger demonstration of ignorance than anything I've said. I'll make concessions when I genuinely feel proven wrong, but so far you've reacted like an angry child.
But it DOESN'T say how well it's worked, which was Borne's point.
Why do I have to keep saying this?
Again, I wasn't talking about the quality of anyone's work at that point, I was discussing the concept's meaning. I'm allowed to review the terms with which we're discussing before moving onto apply them to the relative context. Though in that case, I was clarifying what I consider the definition of "working" to be, as Sara had just offered a slightly different definition. I'm not even being aggressive at this point, so why would you react so angrily?
No, I say that working is different from wrestling because the fact there are two guys in between the ropes wrestling, it doesn't mean they are working.
When Bruiser Brody was no-selling Luger in the cage, he wasn't working. When CZW, or some other stupid indy fed, beat each other up with light bulbs, that's not working. Just because you're in the ring, it doesn't mean you're working. And even if you are working, that doesn't mean you're doing it well.
You're right those examples aren't quite "working," but I wasn't accounting for outliers or abnormal instances. My discussion was on how average wrestling includes working. Again, you're right those aren't examples aren't working, so we aren't even in disagreement at this juncture.
No, it's not all worked. That's a silly statement.
It may all be scripted, but that doesn't mean the wrestlers are working the match.
By the definition of what "working" is (manipulating persons into furthering kayfabe), all the examples I gave are examples of working. You're not just falling on your back, you're landing in a practiced way to lesson the blow, therefore it's worked; you're not just exchanging holds, you're chaining together practiced moves and pretending there's a struggle, when really you're allowing and setting up counters. As far as its quality relative to this era versus Doink's, that again wasn't quite what i was trying to relay at this juncture of my post, I was still discussing what "working" is. Though even if they're not chaining well, not bumping well and not selling either well so as to work the crowd over, it's still "working," just badly. So I agree there's a difference in quality, but we'll return to the discussion of this era versus Doink's later.
You didn't certify that with anything, so what was the point of saying it? In my last section, I think I firmly established how any AVERAGE wrestling (as in not those extreme examples mentioned earlier) is using skills and techniques that are practiced to make what isn't real look more real, which is what working is. It's difficult to wrestle at all without what you're doing to be worked.
Which has absolutely nothing with what Borne said, which was my point from the beginning.
How can you be this stupid?
I originally brought up the point about botching to emphasize how botching can occur more often when two guys go out there and try to work a match without planning ahead of time (that was what Doink was saying he and some elites could do), which occurred even among those legends Doink mentioned. I returned to that point to explain how said botches would undermine, at least partly, the efforts to work over the crowd, as suddenly they're not thinking, "GO BRET, GO!" they're shouting, "YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!" So yeah, it has plenty to do with Doink's comments. It was a criticism of his idea.
You're a dumbass.
I never said they did every night, I used that match as an example of what a high workrate looks like. I could have easily used Punk vs. Cena from MITB last year. I used the Kofi vs. Ziggler match (and I'm referring to one of their many PPV contests, not a Raw match) to illustrate the difference between how well the Undertaker and Trips worked, compared to how poorly Kofi and Ziggler worked. But I also used Kofi and Ziggler because they are a prime example of a pair of wrestlers who try to substitute athleticism for their subpar ability to work a match.
Several sections back, after I responded to an assumption you had made about my comment, I said, "I never said (whatever)," but I didn't call you a dumbass. Yet you called me a dumbass before saying, "I never said they did every night." The tricky thing about having a discussion is sometimes you say something that carries an implication you didn't mean to say. Everyone does it and sometimes they'll be pointed out and the speaker will have to account for it. When he does, he shouldn't just say, "You're a dumbass," for people who noticed those unintentional implications. He's at least partly responsible for covering all of his bases and making sure such implications aren't ruled out. We both failed to do that 100-percent of the time in this discussion. In summation of this paragraph, learn some humility and grant me the benefit of the doubt, just as I'll try to you when there are "loose ends," so to speak, in your comments you may have not intended to have any additional meaning.
So I can withdraw my disagreement, really, since it only applied to what I thought you were saying. I do disagree that Ziggler substitutes athleticism for working. He does both very well. Selling is an eample of working over the crowd. You have to remember we're not the majority of the audience. The majority of fans don't see one of his over-the-top sells and think, "Wow, this guy's really fucking crazy bumping like that," like we sometimes do. Such "smart" fans often make that a point of criticism for Ziggler. However, the average fan is more likely to think "AMG, HE GOT BEATEN THE FUCK UP!" If that is the case (and it's kind of impossible to measure that accurately), Ziggler's selling does work as good selling. Then he taunts and does other things to work well, but fuck, let's move to the next point already.
And the fact it was a phenomenal story, with both men selling the story of the match, making people care about each character, and giving them a reason to become emotionally invested in the match.
You know, because they had a great workrate.
I kind of meant "hype" to refer to the story. And yeah, because they worked to the crowd well. I didn't say they did not. I don't disagree with that.
No, you're just too stupid to understand some of the basic concepts of pro wrestling. Don't blame me and Borne for your ignorance.
That's just mean and demonstrably untrue.
Fuck off, I did no such thing. I was providing an example of what a match with a high workrate looks like, and what a match with two guys who try to substitute athleticism for working looks like.
Wow, you COMPLETELY missed the point. I don't even feel like responding to your utter stupidity here.
Combined two.
I already established that I mistakenly assumed you were implying that because Undertaker/Triple H worked phenomenally at WrestleMania, they were just as on every night and thus represented a superior alternative to today's wrestlers. This can be chalked up to a misunderstanding, for which you didn't need to get so cranky. Really, I didn't just miss your point, you didn't recognize what sub-topic I was hitting on. Or maybe you're assuming those quotes were responding to parts of your comments that were meant to respond to other parts or were just referring to unstated ideas that are floating around. Dialogue is a tricky thing.
No, the problem here is you don't understand that working and popping the crowd are related, but completely different.
You seem to be suggesting that because these guys do fancy moves, they are working the crowd. That's a complete load of bullshit.
In that light, it depends on the setting. An indie crowd isn't going to be "worked over" most the time anyway. They'll just pop for fancy moves, cool chaining and good characters. However, a WWE crowd with its mostly mark viewers will be worked over the entire time, by anything, because some people, especially little kids, think it's real. They're already buying into this kayfabe perspective that they're already worked over by the time someone comes out and does a clothesline. Hell, in that sense, the production of a show can even "work over" someone. Try to think about it creatively, because the examples I'm giving are not black-and-white. There's a lot of grey area and a lot of relativity because of how different any given viewer or crowd might react to certain shows, wrestlers, personalities, etc.
Not work over a crowd, their ability to work in a match.
God, you're stupid. Have I mentioned that yet?
WORKING is establishing or maintaining kayfabe. A "work" is something that's fake and is only true to the kayfabe universe. Working IS working over a crowd. Their ability to work in a match (or promos or anything the audience sees) is how they work over a crowd. Maybe you're not being particular enough of what you consider "working" to be. I'm basing this off my definition of "working" from the Wikipedia glossary of jargon I mentioned earlier. If you have a different authority who presents definitions of what working is IN CONCEPT, share it and I PROMISE I'll consider it objectively.
You do realize that wrestling is 100% worked, right, as in staged? I mean, it can hurt. Bumping hurts. It can hurt to get hit sometimes, depending on who's striking. Even in Doink's example of how he'd work a match with experienced guys, it was still "worked," as in staged. Instead of scripting the match ahead of time or stopping to discuss spots mid-match, they were familiar with each other or knew the ropes well enough that they could exchange holds or blows without communicating. They were still letting each other do these things, there was still no genuine struggle, they were only pretending for there to be a struggle (again, let's not try to contradict this with abnormal examples) just not planning it ahead of time.
Before you get mad at me again, know I'm NOT trying to put words in your mouth, I'm just trying to firmly establish what exactly you think is actually going on between those ropes. If you get mad that I missed your point, guess what, you've done it with me too or made assumptions that I said things I didn't mean to say. Again, try to be more understanding.
Completely false, because you're assuming that everything before the particular moment you refer to was equal as well. Which is NEVER the case.
For example, if Batista and Mason Ryan were to do the exact same thing, Batista would receive the much better pop, not because the fans like him better, but because Batista has shown himself to be a far superior worker over the years. And because Batista was the far better worker, fans cared more about him than they do Mason Ryan.
Batista is better than Mason Ryan, because he was far better at selling a match than Mason Ryan is. Batista was better at working the match than Mason Ryan.
That was a complete hypothetical. I mean two guys who do everything the same but are still different people we can identify as such. Let's just say, they both work very well. Your example isn't what I was getting at, because you pointed out two people who are kind of the same in the sense they're both big men, but still work very different styles. I'm pretty sure, and bare in mind this is a while ago, was to point out how relative fans' impressions of two workers are. It really can be relative to the time, place, audiences, etc. I don't think it's the only factor, but it sure affects things.
Another stupid comment. Why would the WWE NOT want to make money? The WWE puts the guys who know how to make fans care in the big money spots. They don't care who it is, all they care about is making money.
Those guys who know how to work in the ring, are the ones who are far more likely to make people care about them.
Sometimes they don't know the guy can work that well or sometimes they just don't have room to book him into a story. My point wasn't that WWE knew someone was a good worker and thought, "Nah, let's not use him." Though they could. I'm sure they knew Bryan was a good worker before they hired him, but they sure as hell took their sweet time offering him a contract. Even when they do recognize someone could potentially work a crowd (and in Bryan's case, he's even needed some opportunities to show just how well he can work in other areas) well, they can't just drop everything to put him in there. Though if WWE ONLY put good workers into big spots, why have guys like Khali been world champions? He's awful in just about every respect. Sometimes they think other aspects that go beyond what's traditionally "working" might get them buys.
So, basically, your entire post was an exercise in ignorance and stupidity. I highly suggest you just stop before you embarrass yourself further.
No, this was a demonstration of how fickle a dialogue can be, especially when the perspectives involved don't quite agree on how the very terms with which the subject is being discussed are defined. Regardless of whether you disagree with me or not, you should concede you made some false assumptions (as I did), made things personal when they didn't need to be and really lacked the sort of patience necessary to conduct a mature argument. Argument isn't bashing your perspective into someone's face until he gets it. You need to try to find out WHY we disagree (are we lost in translation?, for instance) and how we can reconcile those disagreements. It can just be simple miscommunication and that's something I tried to work through in this response. If you aren't willing to, don't just assume you're right and start calling me names.
That was fun. Hopefully you'll move with a more cooperative attitude.
