Comparing people going through barbed wire tables and fire and piercing their skin with thumbtacks and taking repeated hard unprotected steel chair shots to the head is completely different from working a strong style wrestling match.
Depends to what extremes either options goes. Hardcore wrestling can be as poised and artistically evocative as any other kind of wrestling, but often resorted to cheap pops in dangerous spots. Strong style has the same
potential tendency.
There's an art in wrestling, there's no art in what ECW was.
Once again, there could be, but so often it was abused and only dulled the senses until there was an untenable situation where the crowds would pop for nothing less than something that shouldn't have been attempted.
Is strong style a bit more dangerous then say WWE's style of wrestling? Yes. And that's what it needs to be, DIFFERENT!
Well obviously you don't need to be more dangerous to differ in style to WWE. There's a host of other things you could do and are done. Being more dangerous is an option, but not the most desirable one. Simply having better stories, more well put together matches are the most obvious preferable solution to offering a better product.
The biggest wrestling fans have nowadays is they can't accept anything different except for the shit they're constantly given,
You can't tout the success of ROH and then say that people don't accept the style they provide. Either or.
yet I could guarantee that if WWE did a strong style type match like NJPW does or ROH does, It'd be acclaimed and accepted and praised for being unique and "different".
I'm not a fan of conjecture. It wouldn't be allowed in the first place, but if it was, I would think there would be a far more mixed reaction than that.
It's second standards and it's something wrestling fans especially those on this forum are extremely skeptical to.
Potentially Strong style is fine. Potentially you can rely on guys to know how far to go, to trust them with what pain they want to absorb. It doesn't detract from the fact that it's a) unnecessary and b) open to exploitation. It means guys will do things on the fly and can lead to broken necks, concussions and the like.
London's the professional. You're not. Davey's the professional. You're not. If Paul London says that's what happened, his perspective of the story goes over yours instantaneously.
Paul London could be Da Vinci, Einstein and Jesus rolled into one. There's video of the incident, which I posted, and that you can watch for yourself, and in that you can clearly see that's not the case. If I hadn't seen the incident then I would take him at his word. As I can watch it retrospectively ad infinitum, my perspective is more valuable than his.
It's plain as day in that video Davey was going for his chest, as he always does, and that the soles of his feet slid because of the sweat coming from Paul and sadly nailed him in the head.
Going for =/= connected with. It doesn't change the fact he felt obliged to go for it despite the high risk of danger because of that strong style mentality.
It was unfortunate, but as Paul London has also said, it epitomizes what wrestling is. It's not ballet, it's not tag rugby. It's a performance where people can, will and do get hurt.
But it doesn't mean you shouldn't try to minimize serious injuries if you have the option.
Hardcore wrestling was about risking your body go ******ed lengths, especially in ECW where the fans were bloodthirsty and wouldn't have been satisfied until someone died.
Actually, hardcore wrestling is often one of the most safest ways of wrestling if done right. Taking a bumps into thumbtacks will hurt a lot at the moment and a bit afterwards, may scar potentially but the potential damage done by someone landing on the back of their head or in an otherwise dangerous fashion. Hardcore wrestling can be made to look very showy without much risk of serious injury or much more than a few cuts/bruises.
Strong style is about aggression and intensity, it can encapsulate what wrestling should be. Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi is an example of that. Bryan vs. Nigel McGuinness are examples of that.
But then I can post a dozen hardcore matches which are the peak of their art.
Potentially, it's all good in the hood and there's nothing to worry about.
Don't be a fucking idiot to try and make your point dude, you're better then that/
I'm sorry but you're
really going to have to go out of your way to explain to me why that isn't a great point. The above scenario is a DIRECT example of your idiotic mantra in practice. Benoit was an old-school wrestler, the kind to finish the show no matter what and not speak up if there was a serious medical problem, perhaps take painkillers instead to numb the pain. That culminated in him having the brain of an 85 year old Alzheimer's sufferer and that was the most prominent cause in one of the most sickening tragedies ever to grace wrestling, and taint it forever more.
That is a DIRECT result of the stiff upper lip, just get on with it, the show must go on ideology that has so much blood on it's hands. It's what worsened The Undertaker's concussion at Wrestlemania, it's what made him endure second degree burns in front of a live crowd at The Elimination Chamber, it's what caused Eddie Guerrero to nearly bleed out from blading himself, it's what meant that neither Kurt Angle nor Brock Lesnar can remember the conclusion of their Wrestlemania match together, it's what got Shane O'Mac dropped onto his head on concrete successive times, all for the name of the spot. You'll have to forgive me if I don;t subscribe to such a monumentally idiotic philosophy.
Chris Jericho said it best on Talk is Jericho two weeks ago, "wrestlings gone soft"
WWE do their examinations and medicals and testing to make sure that everything is politically correct and to ensure their performers and completely healthy because at the end of the day, WWE is spending money on them and if they're not at 100% then they lose money, they being WWE and the performer themselves.
Or because the performers are, y'know, not just pieces of meat. Or because they don't want that Hansel-and-Gretel-breadcrumb-trail of painkillered-up-to-the-eyeballs ex-wrestlers who've died before they reached 50 to lead back to them anymore. Maybe it's just about satisfying the outside media. Or maybe it's a question of morality.
A place like ROH where the majority of the roster is made up of guys from the indies who need to work also know they need to bust their ass every night to continue getting booked.
It is possible to 'bust your ass' and stay safe. Wear a condom.
No but seriously though. Look at Bret Hart. According to his words, he never injured another wrestler seriously and he did alright for it. I know it's a different era, but the point remains the same. If you can't engage people in your work without hurting them, you aren't a good worker. You can choose to do it if you wish, but you need the base of knowing how to work a crowd and tell a story at the very least before you add the slaps and no selling on top.
Jim Ross said it after he attended War of the Worlds, "it's not as strong in numbers, but the amount of effort the ROH locker room puts into their craft is second to none".
Effort is one thing. Safety, another.
If they worked the WWE style there'd be nothing different, It'd be a carbon copy, and wrestling needs something different.
The WWE style is really about storytelling. The in-ring work varies from competitor to competitor, but they are all trying to do one thing, which is engage people with good stories in the ring. ROH can do that, and they can improve upon it by telling better stories, or stories better. You can separate yourself from the WWE whilst retaining the important factors which all wrestlers should try to aim for.
If that means turning up the aggression level and taking a couple of slaps to the face, they'll take them. They're men, not children who need bubble wrap and bandages.
Sometimes men do need bandages. It really sounds like some archaic macho bullshizzm what you're spouting.
Raven has a point, but here's an interesting note - there's a reason Raven isn't relevant anymore.
Indeed, but we don't know that reason with certainty. So let's not try to pretend.
There is a reason guys who worked strong style such as Bryan, Cesaro, Rollins, Ambrose, Punk, Devitt, Kenta, Steen and many others are. It's called "progression".
Perhaps it's an ethic. Perhaps it has nothing to do with in-ring work at all. CM Punk didn't get over because of his ring work. Daniel Bryan got over because he resonated with the audience. Perhaps the defining characteristic of these people is their passion for putting on a good show. There's no progression in that. It's the same trait which has made wrestler after wrestler successful. There's no substitute.
If you want to make it to WWE you have to impress in either ROH or on the independents. Both are extremely competitive and to stand out you have to go the extra mile.
I agree, but there is no consensus for what 'going the extra mile' constitutes in the eyes of the WWE.
I'll give you an example. Michael Bennett is a WWE guy in ROH. His style is a lot more psychology, he's a lot slower then everyone else, he doesn't do hard exchanges or gets into kick-offs or anything like that, and he hasn't had as much success as just about anyone who works the strong style that has became the custom outside of WWE and TNA, such as say Michael Elgin, reDRagon, The Wolves, Johnny Gargano, etc, etc.
He's one guy. One guy that I can't comment on personally, but one guy against a seeming tide of other as you seem to be putting it. It's not possible to convey a trend based on the efforts of one man against the style of many others.
Strong style is actually the future of wrestling, maybe not to much WWE's in-ring future stylistically, but like it is now, just about every name that comes into the WWE with buzz over the next few years will probably be more versed in strong style wrestling and be better off for it then a slower, more psyhological based perspective on how you should approach a match.
For one, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. Furthermore, all conjecture. Finally, as I said before, I think the defining characteristic of people that are signed by the WWE and are later successful is their ability and intrinsic wont for success. Not the style of wrestling they bring. Perhaps getting to the top of an organization like ROH demonstrates, not your prowess at a given style but your fire and determination to be successful and so it's only natural for men like these to be hired. And perhaps they are on average more successful because these guys have sufficient first-hand experience of working with decent sized crowds and other well-equipped athletes. Compared to guys that the fairly inexperienced guys WWE picks up and makes themselves. I mean, put like that, it only makes sense that guys from ROH do well and doesn't imply in any way that it's due to the style they work.
I'll continue to believe that those athletes who are successful in wrestling, are so because of how they can work with an audience, how they pace and present themselves, their experience, their natural ability and other similar traits. I don't think you'll be able to prove to me that isn't the case because a style of wrestling is really not that important. It's not anywhere near as important as how you can endear yourself to the crowd and that isn't going to be because of any fancy moves you do, or because of how much real life punishment you can take. It's about heart. Made me a little nauseous to write that, but it's true.
