What makes someone good in the ring?

[mrbrownstone]

Ok so I was reading the "Cena did a dropkick" thread and I saw Sly say something along the lines of "Yeah, I bet you dont even know how to define a good wrestler" which got me thinking what attributes should a good (and I want to make this next part very clear, this thread has nothing to do with promos or other outside the ring stuff) in ring preformer have. Here are two that came to mind for me, there are obviously many more but they are for you to come up with.

Working on the right bodypart: I know there is a proper term for this but it escapes me at the moment, someone please tell me if you can think of it. Anyway what I mean by this is working on a bodypart that makes sense, for example if your finisher is the spear then you work on the ribs, if it is the figure four you work on the leg. Now this seems obvious but so often I will see someone work on the arm the whole match and then win with a DDT rendering the arm work completely pointless, that just ruins a match for me.

Ability to get the crowd going: Often I will see what in other circumstances would be an acceptable match but the crowd just dosent respond to it and it kills it. An example of this is WM 18, HHH vs Jericho. Now the in ring action in the match was actually quite good, however, the problem is the crowd. They hardly react to anything, HHH hits the pedigree and there is barely a reaction, Y2J kicks out and there is still no reaction and that completely ruined the match for me.

Anyway those are just two of the millions of things that make someone a good wrestler. So I ask you Wrestlezone, What makes someone great in the ring, what attributes should they have?

 

[Rayne]

What makes for a successful wrestler is the ability to get the fans invested in their character. If people are shouting at you outside your car in a Wal-Mart parking lot, you're on the right track.

Everything else is gravy. Metzler can keep all the 5-star matches he wants; give me the guy who has the audience eating out of his hand.

 

[Slyfox696]

Those really are minor sub sections of what makes a quality wrestling. In the broader sense, I've always said there are 5 things which make a good wrestler:

1) Storytelling
2) Workrate
3) Psychology
4) Selling
5) Charisma


Storytelling - The ability of a wrestler to communicate through his match, a story to the audience. Wrestling is no different than any other type of theater. Every match is about telling a story to the audience, to get them hooked into the emotion of the match.

Workrate - This is the ability of a wrestler to draw a crowd into his matches, to get the fans to suspend their disbelief. It is NOT about how fast the wrestlers move, that's the pacing of a match. Work rate is LITERALLY the rate at which wrestlers can "work" the audience into believing what they see is real.

Psychology - This covers a broad range, including your "work body parts" theory. Psychology is simply the art of working a match the way your character would work the match, and at the same time, working the match in a way that makes sense. For example, if the Big Show were to come out and start chain wrestling, it would be silly because the Big Show is a big strong man who physically dominates people. So he needs to use power moves. On the other hand, a guy like Rey Mysterio should not be doing power bombs and chokeslams, because he's a little guy. He relies on quickness and agility, so he does aerial attacks, and floats around the ring.

Selling - One of the shames the IWC brings upon itself is it's knowledge of selling. Some think selling is unimportant and others think if someone breathes on your right shoulder, you should act like it's hurt for the next 25 minutes of the match. Selling is SIMPLY the art of selling the story of the match through the damage to your body. The perfect example is Hulk Hogan. Everyone criticizes Hogan because of the Hulk Up, but that just shows ignorance. Hogan sells for the majority of the match, to make the crowd believe he CAN be beaten, that he is so hurt, Evil will win the day. And when he begins to Hulk Up, then the crowd BURSTS into life because Good may have a chance to win yet. So, even though Hogan is acting like he's not hurt anymore, his selling was perfect because it got people in the right state of mind for his comeback, so they pop hard when he comes back and wins the match. It's great selling, and it does EXACTLY what selling is supposed to do.

5) Charisma - This is the ability of a wrestler to connect with the fans. It's not limited to promos and mic work, it happens in the ring as well. I'll use Hogan as an example here again. Hogan's charisma was simply off the charts when he was in the ring. He was always able to connect to the audience, to play upon their feelings and emotions, and he knew how to make the audience dance like a puppet. His ability to connect to the audience in the ring has never been matches.


Those are the five basic qualities to any good wrestler. The better you are at those things, the better wrestler you are. You may notice I say nothing about how fast someone works, how many moves they do, etc., because those really have nothing to do with being a good wrestler. Anybody can do 200 moves, but if you can't do the things I listed above with any kind of quality, then you'll never be a good wrestler. But as guys like Steve Austin have shown, you can do 4 moves, and do all of the things above and be one of the greatest in history.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

Experience, Work Ethic, and not choking in front of an audience.

I'm not quite sure what the OP is asking though: does this in ring performer have to be marketable? Because there is quite a difference in having a wrestler meant to sell compared to a wrestler meant to wrestle. Take Lance Storm for example; practically little to no personality, probably sold 0 merchandise, but would you say he was a bad wrestler? Of course not.

And then you have to be able to act. If you can't act then you can't get the audience pumped; whether or not you are meant to be the good guy or the bad. You might as well be a coach or something for another star if you don't know how to sell, portray your character, and talk.