Match Psychology Buried...

[Luke Flywalker]

What in the world happened to the 3 drops of the arm in a submission? In recent years, if a guy is put in a sleeper and falls out, the ref will either call for the bell right then and there, or lift the arm only once. I've not seen a guy get his arm lifted once since... well... I can't really recall when. Perhaps Benoit vs. Angle when Benoit had Kurt in the Crossface?

My point being... you've still got some guys who use submission holds, and these submissions could really be built as significant if they actually had people submitting to them left and right. Sure Del Rio's armbreaker is getting more and more dominant, but that's not really what I'm on about.

I know you all remember it (if you were watching wrestling then). Back in the day... Roddy Piper locked Hulk Hogan into a Sleeper Hold. Hogan would elbow his way out and throw Piper into the ropes. Hot Rod rebounds, and slaps the sleeper back onto Hogan who goes down to his knees. Hogan fades, his face "turning purple". It looks like Piper is a lock to win the match. The referee grabs Hogan's wrist, and lifts... Hogan's limp arm falls back to his side. The referee repeats... the same. The ref grabs Hogan's wrist one more time, lifts it high above Hogan's head, and let's it go. It drops... but stops just short of falling to his side and the crowd goes insane, and the blood is flowing. Hogan is getting pumped up working his blood so the oxygen can make its way back to the brain. Hogan gets to his feet still locked in the Sleeper Hold and the people are cheering. Piper wrenches at the Sleeper but Hogan gives him a few elbows to the gut and adjusts himself to hit Piper with a back body drop. Piper is down, and Hogan is down, ready to sell his Hulking up... and the crowd is ferocious as the referee commences his 10-count. Piper wins back to his feet and tries to punch Hogan who gets a few punches in and lays Piper out. Piper distracts the ref and hits Hogan with a low blow as he crawls to the corner to rip the pad off the turnbuckle. Piper comes back over to a kneeling Hogan and punches him, to no avail. Hogan is Hulking up and nothing Piper does can faze the giant Tanning Bed Billboard. And the crowd goes fucking wild!



Yeah, basically, I want to see the 3-arm drop in the submission on a fading superstar. I want to see the superstars try to beat the 10-count and have a huge slugfest following it up. I want to see a cheap shot sell for 30 seconds. I think the art of dirty heels is gone from the WWE now, for whatever reason (it's not like a cheap shot can't happen... we just had Cena do it to Punk). I mean, I sort of get why the 3-arm drop is gone... you don't want kids thinking that will save their siblings or friends if they're choking them out... but plenty of us never had to be taught that in the first place.

Damnit! SAVE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WRESTLING!

/rant

Bitch and moan or agree or whatever the Hell it is you like to do.

 

[ahorrig]

i agree with you there.

 

[nikkoaz]

I miss the three count. That being said, its kinda strange to think that if they could hold there arm up the first two time that they can hold it up the third, after more blood flow is cut off. I always felt like people should at least once in a while succumb to the sleeper and their arm drop 3 times.

 

[Kaedon]

Thank the MMA influence for that. Now a submission is a tap out or a one arm drop. A bigger waste of psychology is when people *cough* Miz *cough* grab a submission and just lay there like he's taking a nap.

 

[noumenon]

I don't see what lifting someone's arm has to do with match psychology in any way shape or form. It was done more to hype a crowd than anything else, the face obviously lifting his arm back at the last second prompting a stomp from the crowd and a build back by the face only to be cut short again by the heel. It had nothing to do with psychology, just a way to encourage crowd participation.
Also, I fail to see how the lack of boring rest holds and sleepers is in any way hurting the product.

 

[Luke Flywalker]

^It was psychology... crowd control is an excellent form of match psychology... momentum shifts... selling that you're seconds away from losing and pumping the crowd back up... building that emotional energy with the crowd so that your opponent feels they have to overcome not just you and your heroics, but find a way to shut the entire 15,000 person crowd up so that you can regain your control over adrenaline-rusher opponent across the ring.

 

[noumenon]

....Which always ended in a reversal followed by momentum killing shoulder block/clothesline by the heel.

 

[Luke Flywalker]

....Which always ended in a reversal followed by momentum killing shoulder block/clothesline by the heel.

And damn near every time, it captivated the Hell out of the crowd. I'm not saying I need to see it nightly, or weekly... but once a month/every couple of months to build a face to be tough enough to withstand a submission past the point of no return after said submission probably defeated 8 opponents in the weeks leading to that match... you'd build a face as being tough at an insane rate.

 

[1chiban]

The three-drop thing was always stupid, though, really - so the guy is unconscious until the third drop virtually EVERY single time?! I see what youmean though, back in the 80s and early 90s it was a good tool to get the crowd going again for a babyface comeback.

And the MMA thing is a good point - one of the problems WWE has in terms of getting massive audiences back is that MMA is real so guys are going to watch that and condemn wrestling as 'fake'. Obviously now having people tap out quickly to Del Rio's armbreaker isn't going to bring them into wrestling as it's gone beyond the pale now. I struggle to see how WWE will ever have another attitude era in terms of success and ratings. The fact is that they're making plenty of dosh from sponsors - apparently bucketloads from the Mattel figure deal - now that they are PG. I doubt they'll go back for a while.

[However, the complete lack of blood is silly. If they saved it for big PPV matches and in big cage matches etc. then it would be a really effective tool. Bret Hart's book, describing matches during a similarly family-friendly period in WWE's history, really does a good job of showing how a bit of blood in a big match can get the crowd going. That's something TNA need to learn as well lol. Blood for the sake of it does nothing.