The other day I was watching an episode of RAW and saw the total lack of intensity in the crowd with all of the struggle submissions. Then I thought about how intense matches get when superstars are executing a submission finisher. Granted, I know that sometimes submissions are used to give both wrestlers a breather and slow the match down, but does anyone else LOVE the intensity when a struggle submission isn't just used as a "breaktime"? Think about Hell's Gate, the STF, ADR's armbar, etc. Those are in some cases the peak of excitement in a match. I'm not saying every wrestler should have a submission finisher, but I am saying that each submission should be more exciting. And WAY more matches should end via submission. But as it is right now, the crowd is totally dead when a submission move is applied, and the reason is obvious, the crowd knows it won't end with a submission. The crowd is only cheering when the hold is almost broken or if a hot tag is about to be made. Can you imagine how much more exciting each match would be if submissions played just HALF the role finishers do? Can you imagine how great each match would be if you traded the typical submission hold reaction for a Hell's Gate reaction? Let me know what you think.
Submissions Need To Be More Exciting
- Thread starter cubuff37
- Start date
No, that won't do. Those struggle submissions are just suppose to wear down a part of the opponent but not make them submit. I'll still prefer that finisher submissions are the only ones that can end a match.
Btw, can the torture rack of Ezekiel Jackson hurt(or make it look like) his opponent? I believe that the opponent is much more enjoying it rather than being hurt
it's like riding on a carousel or something similar to that.
Btw, can the torture rack of Ezekiel Jackson hurt(or make it look like) his opponent? I believe that the opponent is much more enjoying it rather than being hurt
it's like riding on a carousel or something similar to that.
i agree with OP that there should be matches ending in submissions, they dont need to have submissions as their legitimate finishing moves but like, throw us off guard a little bit change it up dont always gotta win with a finisher do it out of the blue spontaniously like when sheamus won with the [texas]cloverleaf
BulletVonAwesome
Dark Match Jobber
Sheamus using the cloverleaf could have worked if he had kept using it, as a fellow irishman i think a four leafed clover idea could have worked, but that's just me..
back to the OP,
Remember when Benoit used to attempt to Lock in The Cross Face....THAT was a struggle, like the ankle lock or the lion tamer or the sharpshooter, they were sold and sold well....
But you'r overlooking the fact that what you want is actually happening ....Zeke's torture rack(although crap) is working that way, not to mention Dolph and the sleeper hold(albeit he's not using it so frequently anymore but when he does you really see his opponent fade) and Bryan/punk/del rio all have great submission moves that ocassionally get shown on tv and when one is locked in i find that the match could actually end that way.
I still find most exciting(except cena's, because when that's locked in.....YOU KNOW IT'S OVER, and unlike when benoit/y2j or angle did it, i don't enjoy that thought, i anticipate it and then feel let down when the company goes that way with a finish. Like they are taking the easy way out. I'm not a Cena hater btw, i like him...i do however think he doesn't need the belt, we get it, he could be champion......that doesn't mean he has to be
back to the OP,
Remember when Benoit used to attempt to Lock in The Cross Face....THAT was a struggle, like the ankle lock or the lion tamer or the sharpshooter, they were sold and sold well....
But you'r overlooking the fact that what you want is actually happening ....Zeke's torture rack(although crap) is working that way, not to mention Dolph and the sleeper hold(albeit he's not using it so frequently anymore but when he does you really see his opponent fade) and Bryan/punk/del rio all have great submission moves that ocassionally get shown on tv and when one is locked in i find that the match could actually end that way.
I still find most exciting(except cena's, because when that's locked in.....YOU KNOW IT'S OVER, and unlike when benoit/y2j or angle did it, i don't enjoy that thought, i anticipate it and then feel let down when the company goes that way with a finish. Like they are taking the easy way out. I'm not a Cena hater btw, i like him...i do however think he doesn't need the belt, we get it, he could be champion......that doesn't mean he has to be
TWJC: The Beginning
Royal Rumble Winner
The bolded sentence is entirely and 100% wrong. You basically said "rest hold" without saying it. Ask Al Snow or Terry Funk how they feel about rest holds. "Rest holds" don't exist anywhere except for smark minds and amongst baggy-pants wearing gymnists. "Rest holds" are really WORKED holds used to get the crowd behind the babyface and make it seem like the heel wants to win the match. You slam a guy, what next? Pick him up just to do another move? Fuck no. You go for a pin. He kicks out. Then what? Pick him up? Fuck no, he's more dangerous on his feet. You slap a hold on him to keep him down and if not to sub him, to wear him out. It's a very VERY basic part of ring psychology. You think CM Punk continually goes for a headlock against Cena just for the fuck of it to kill time until they get to their main stuff? It's all part of the in ring story.
If you make submissions, non-finisher submissions mean more then you'd devalue submission wrestlers. Instead of "Daniel Bryan can make you tap" it's "who gives a fuck, so can wrestler A, B, C, and D". Plus in the pro wrestling universe it doesn't make sense. A guy not known for submission wrestling winning on a grapevine?
Wrestling was more submission based and "everyday" submission moves were used as finishes....in the 30s and 40s. Then they realized that it was shitty because having a story in a match was better than the unpredictability.
Not every move NEEDS to get the same reaction as a finish. The reason finishes get the reaction they do isn't really because they end the match (it's part of it), but because of the BUILD.
Think about ADR for a second. Yes, his finisher is an armbar, but does he go straight for that? No, he works the arm and does other minor arm submissions to wear the arm out. Sure the crowd knows he's just "softening" the arm up. However, if he doesn't do that, and equally as important, if the babyface doesn't sell the arm, then the finishing stretch when ADR is going for the arm and the babyface is trying to avoid it doesn't have the same despiration.
There is a basic formula to a match. Babyface opening fire, heel cutoff, heel control segment, hopespot 1, heel cutoff, heel control segment, hopespot 2, heel cutoff, heel control segment, hopespot 3, babyface rally, finishing stretch.
It's basic, but it's a bare bones outline for a match. Great pro wrestlers can dress it up and sell and tell a story and you don't even know the formula is happening. This wouldn't be possible without the minor submissions. Instead the crowd would feel like they had been cheated. It'd be like if the good guy caught the bad guy in the first 30 minutes of the movie and the other hour of the movie you just watched the bad guy in jail. You work people's expectations and if you are good at structuring your match and good at selling, they buy into everything more. Treating these holds as rest holds is exactly why some people don't give a shit about it.
Not only all of that but there is a lot of merit to having a move that people expect to end the match and a segment of the match people expect it to be over. It starts with the babyface comeback, the "5 moves of doom" if you will. The crowd starts expecting something to be the finish. So then you can use roll ups to build that tension, especially when you counter a finisher with a roll up. People see the beginning of the finisher and start thinking it's the end, when you counter with a roll up, it's in their mind that it could possibly be the finish. Perhaps you could counter a finish into a submission, but it'd have to make sense. You'd have to have worked on that bodypart the whole time, which you would have had to do other submissions for.
The excitement from finisher submission counters is that people think the match is over. It's because you have worked a bodypart, you have gone into the climax part of the match, and you have build up a move as a killer.
S.J. Maximus
Championship Contender
I personally would like to see more submissions end the match because (as the OP said) it would make more submissions more important, thus making them more exciting. Long gone are the days where every star has a submission maneuver that they use and even longer gone are the days where multiple matches in a night end in submission. I think it's important to bring this aspect back and hopefully they do, but they probably won't anytime soon.
TWJC: The Beginning
Royal Rumble Winner
If more people won with submissions would that actually make them mean more? Or would it make them mean less because everyone does them? Back in the early 1900s, it was more common to see an inside-the-part home run. Now, not so much. Are they more exciting now or then? The answer, since I wasn't born then, is probably now. The more you see of something the less special it feels.
You can say "long gone are the days of..." but you also have to remember that up until about 1995, about 75% of all regular matches on normal, non-supercard shows were squash matches. So it made more sense to win on a non-finisher move and then in your feuds on supercards have it take a finisher to win.
Paralyzer Z
Fuck honor
TWjC is right submision breaks are used to tell stories and ring psychology.
:
Most of the time it gets the crowd to cheer the babyface (right before he makes a constipated face and screams
) and it woks to get the crowd invested. I dont necessarily find them entertaining and rather boring but the casual fan crowd certanly reacts to it. before i joined theese forums i saw a post by Slyfox saying that if something (like flips and sibmission holds) are done too much they loose value and interest.by the way you use the "make people give a fuck" line way too often
Submission endings should not be used too often. I think of it from a kayfabe perspective.
Wrestlers are known for taking a great amount of pain and working through it to defeat the other guy, proving they're better than than their opponent and possibly achieving another goal. They'll take slams, punches, and all sorts of other painful maneuvers, but they'll push that aside in order to win.
When a wrestler is pinned, it's not because they willed it, it's usually because they've been "knocked out" or their bodies aren't physically able to answer the 3-count.
When a wrestler submits, they themselves are willingly giving up on their goal. Their mental capacity for pain is exceeded. They are admitting that their opponent is hurting them too badly for them to continue. They are willing to throw all of the previous effort away in order to make the pain stop.
Tapping the mat is supposed to be a difficult decision. Can I get out in time to prevent further injury? How long am I willing to endure the pain? Am I willing to give my opponent the satisfaction of making me quit? Will I have to endure those "You Tapped Out" chants?
If you're able to make your opponent submit, that is (and should continue to be) a relatively rare thing because it means you've mentally broken their will.
If guys are giving up on a regular basis, that meaning becomes less significant. "I Quit" matches and the like become less significant. Like people became jaded to the innumerable chair shots during the Attitude Era, so too would people become jaded to innumerable submission endings.
Wrestlers are known for taking a great amount of pain and working through it to defeat the other guy, proving they're better than than their opponent and possibly achieving another goal. They'll take slams, punches, and all sorts of other painful maneuvers, but they'll push that aside in order to win.
When a wrestler is pinned, it's not because they willed it, it's usually because they've been "knocked out" or their bodies aren't physically able to answer the 3-count.
When a wrestler submits, they themselves are willingly giving up on their goal. Their mental capacity for pain is exceeded. They are admitting that their opponent is hurting them too badly for them to continue. They are willing to throw all of the previous effort away in order to make the pain stop.
Tapping the mat is supposed to be a difficult decision. Can I get out in time to prevent further injury? How long am I willing to endure the pain? Am I willing to give my opponent the satisfaction of making me quit? Will I have to endure those "You Tapped Out" chants?
If you're able to make your opponent submit, that is (and should continue to be) a relatively rare thing because it means you've mentally broken their will.
If guys are giving up on a regular basis, that meaning becomes less significant. "I Quit" matches and the like become less significant. Like people became jaded to the innumerable chair shots during the Attitude Era, so too would people become jaded to innumerable submission endings.
The 1-2-3 Killam
Mid-Card Championship Winner
There is a lot of psychology to a wrestling match. No crowd (save maybe a Chicago crowd) is going to be on their feet chanting and cheering the entire match. I don't want to here that if wrestling were better people would be, because it's just not true. There are ups and downs, highs and lows, and different points of intensity throughout a match. If it's a short match, you don't get a lot of submissions. Nobody wants 45 seconds of a headlock in a match that's only 4 minutes long. That's just stupid... But you get a 30 minute title fight at a PPV, and you're going to get probably 3 or 4 super intense periods, and maybe more if you use a lot of near-falls. The struggle submissions you want to see be more exciting are used to build momentum into the next part of the match. Often it will set somebody up for the their signature, or if they really want to milk it, a quick break before another submission. Of course the crowd doesn't believe a match won't end with a mid-point break submission. That would be STUPID. If CM Punk were to tap out to a back-breaker/ chin-lock combo from Cena, you'd never hear the end of it. How do you expect him to kick out of an AA or reach the ropes from the STF if he can't even come back from a struggle submission?
On the other hand, submissions can be way to predictable. You know Cena is going to hit his STF at some point in the match, and you know del Rio will use the Cross Armbar. It's going to happen. It's inevitable, predictable, but it still makes the crowd pop. What we're missing are guys like Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit that could lock in the move from anywhere, at any point. You'd never know when they'd hook you with one of their 10 submissions, or their finisher. It was exciting to watch because you just didn't know how the match was going to turn out. That being said, most talents today aren't taught originality. They are taught the FCW, which gives them a skill set of chain grappling, 3 unique moves, and a finisher. Name one person that is incredibly fun to watch in the ring AND had the majority of their training from FCW. I dare you...
So yes, in a lot of ways submissions do need work. But there is a method to the psychology of the match. You don't end thing with a regular move, becuase they're trying to build larger-than-life heros.
On the other hand, submissions can be way to predictable. You know Cena is going to hit his STF at some point in the match, and you know del Rio will use the Cross Armbar. It's going to happen. It's inevitable, predictable, but it still makes the crowd pop. What we're missing are guys like Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit that could lock in the move from anywhere, at any point. You'd never know when they'd hook you with one of their 10 submissions, or their finisher. It was exciting to watch because you just didn't know how the match was going to turn out. That being said, most talents today aren't taught originality. They are taught the FCW, which gives them a skill set of chain grappling, 3 unique moves, and a finisher. Name one person that is incredibly fun to watch in the ring AND had the majority of their training from FCW. I dare you...
So yes, in a lot of ways submissions do need work. But there is a method to the psychology of the match. You don't end thing with a regular move, becuase they're trying to build larger-than-life heros.
Btw, can the torture rack of Ezekiel Jackson hurt(or make it look like) his opponent? I believe that the opponent is much more enjoying it rather than being hurt
it's like riding on a carousel or something similar to that.
dude trust me when i say this, as a guy speaking from experience, torture racks are up there with ankle locks for worst submissions to take. The rack dont hurt as such but when you are being bounced up and down and someones shoulders whilst being streched it makes you feel rather sick and messes your equillibrium up if done right. I used to wrestle a bit for a local promotion and i had it done to me and i hated it so fucking much.
As for the topic....rest holds are the key stone to any match. That is where the wrestlers begin to plan ahead and also take a breather like you said. Sure they maybe dull at times but they are very important and without them then you just have a spotfest that is likely to be sloppy.
Submissions are not supposed to be flashy. They are not RKO's. They are hard hitting and more realistic. They don't get much of a crowd response because they are long to the point. The reaction comes from the win, not the move itself.
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