No Selling

[enterkey]

Alright people wrestling fans as a whole have been debating a lot lately about whether no selling moves causes the quality of a match to go down, i.e. SuperCena. Like most things this can be both good and bad: when the Undertaker/Kane takes a huge move and does his no sell sit up the crowd goes crazy and they hang on his every move until either he hits the tombstone or his opponent finds a move powerful enough to keep him down for good and then you have the infamous Hulking up of Hulk Hogan that caused millions of fans to tune into every match he wrestled int he 80's hoping to see it and it caused his popularity to shoot through the roof while conversely you have the likes of John Cena who will get beaten up 90% of the match and then miraculously hit a single move and no sell his moves by sprinting across the ring as if not hurt that has caused a massive split in the wrestling community. The question here is what is your take on the effects of no selling a wrestling match?

I don't want it just to be a John Cena hatefest but please do rip into him as I rather enjoy seeing innovative ways for people to take the shit out of that man.

To me I feel that if done by the right person no selling can lead to a massive hike in his popularity and set him on the path to becoming a living legend in the ring (Taker, Hogan, etc.) but if the person does not have the right charisma or a blatant inability to correctly call the no sell in an effective way such as Cena's beatdown followed by a no sold finish could initially bring in some fans but overall will most likely turn away more people than that. The process of no selling though does devalue a lot of moves that used to be devastating finishers only to make the man look strong in an unnecessary fashion. I remember the times that simply barely kicking out of the finisher screamed that the wrestler was tough and borderline a badass, especially those that were against a main event caliber opponent that fans in no way expected him to defeat. When that happened it didn't matter whether or not the underdog won the match, in the eyes of the fan he was a legit contender just by that single act. Think back to the Raw Elimination Chamber match a few years back when Jeff Hardy kicked out of Triple H's pedigree and all of a sudden everyone went crazy[ier] for him.

To quote the iconic and wise redneck Stone Cold Steve Austin from "The Stone Cold Truth": "And you guys gotta sell. Not selling offense kills the business. Hell, selling in the proper degree is a lost art. The boys who perfect it will take a huge jump forward to the Promised Land."

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

Like most things in wrestling no sells can work both ways:-

Good - a short while ago Homicide gave Rob Terry an unprotected shot to the head that bust 'The Freak' hardway, but the big man didn't even flinch -he grabbed Homicide and gave him a real nasty chokeslam. Rob is billed as a 'Freak' and this illustrated a monster aura.

Bad - ANY Thunderdome match, spotfests are running constantly and moves that normally have the guys down for long periods hardly keep them down at all. So much for suspension of belief! On the other side of that some MITB matches oversell and undersell in one bout. IMO spotfest matches really do need meticulous planning to balance suspension of belief and "Oh, Ah!" moments.

Basically, in post kayfabe times, only monsters should be no selling because it creates empathy for the (inevitably) face opponent.

NB: I'd just like to say that in this day and age with the medical evidence so damning - the above spot featuring Rob Terry was truly abhorent and something I personally never wanna see again. It might have worked in this instance but imagine it'd went the way of the Goldberg superkick on Bret!

 

[LigerBomb]

Could of sworn this has been done before, but then again there really aren't too many new questions to be asked about the pro-wrestling industry now is there?

Like anything else the "no sell" is just another tool in the toolbox. There is a proper time and place for it's use but it's really only works the way it's intended to in very specific situations. Maslow's hammer (aka law of the instrument), "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail", is an apt expression for this concept.

No-sell everything and what's the point? You've effectily removed the drama from the entire match. Pro-wrestling/Sports Entertainment, what have you, is all about heroes, villains, conflict and resolution. Without the conflict there can be no resolution. Well where's the conflict in a guy that isn't in any harm? There isn't, hence the resolution means fuckall and you don't care about the hero and/or villain. Congratulations, you just killed the business.