Match Quality or Mic Work?

[Farooq]

Which is more important to you? Which do you enjoy more, watching a great match, or watching a great promo?

Personally I lean to both, since I like watching a great match. I like to see two superstars go at it and entertain us with the sport itself. Which is why I enjoy Antonio, even though before Zeb, his promos weren't the greatest, at least his in ring abilities were great. Although at the same time I do enjoy to watch promos. Since they tend to be shorter and have memorable quotes, plus some also have some interesting humor or topics. Like CM Punk's speech about leaving with the WWE Championship.

I guess I do lean a bit more to match quality though, which one do you guys prefer though?

 

[Lockard 23]

It really depends on the individual promo and match. There's certainly individual promos that I would take over individual matches, and vice versa. If you forced me to choose between CM Punk and John Cena at MITB 2011 and that terrible promo Cena gave a week before the 2013 Royal Rumble, I'd easily take the former over the latter. But if you replace the latter with the awesome Austin/Rock sit down interview with JR leading to WM17, then it becomes a harder choice.

In the end, promos are certainly easier to watch. Since your typical wrestling promos doesn't usually last over 10-15 minutes at the longest, it's much easier to get into than watching most matches, because watching people wrestle can require more of an attention span, to allow the psychology to build and whatnot. But still, matches have more to them, they have more re-watchable value to me. A lot of promos, even some of the best ones, get old after awhile. A lot of matches don't.

 

[Swift]

It depends, really. Daniel Bryan isn't the greatest on the mic, but his ring skills more than make up for it. Same with Cesaro, Lesnar, and a few others. But at the same time guys like Swagger and ADR who are solid in the ring, are just SO FUCKING BORING to me. Then we have guys like Ambrose who aren't the most technical or anything like that, but still entertaining as fuck.

 

[Mustafar Reginald]

A person's in-ring ability is much more important to me than their mic ability. Promos intentions are usually to get you excited/invested for the match/story (where the match is a big point in) but regardless of how talented someone is on the mic, if they bore me in the ring I won't care about the match. I'll put it like this, if Khali was one of the best on the mic of all-time, he'd still be Khali in the ring. I wouldn't really get much enjoyment of out his promos because they're building to something I know I won't enjoy. Whereas, if their mic work sucks but they're amazing in the ring, I'll already be excited for their matches. Of course a balance of both is needed, as I have gotten behind matches I had no prior interest in due to the promo quality. These are just extreme scenarios I'm using to make my point.

As for whether I'd watch a great match or a great promo, it's probably clear by now it's matches. Not that I don't love a good promo but I watch wrestling to well, watch wrestling. Also wrestling matches themselves can tell much better stories than the actual build to the match. We recently got a great story with Dolph Ziggler vs. Del Rio, I enjoyed that matches story much more than pretty much any WWE storyline in quite some time.

 

[Crayo]

Depends entirely on the situation, but generally I lean towards promos than matches. Say we had Daniel Bryan vs Seth Rollins in a match, and it was 5 star quality, but had no build at all, then I'd rather see a 5 star promo. I am a mark for promos but in some instances the match is the best pay-off, so it's a very difficult question to answer.

 

[Marshall1]

It depends which promotion I watch, for example if I watch WWE Raw I would much rather have great promos than matches,(Good Matches are a bonus) but if I watch ROH I want match quality, because thats what that company was built on. For TNA its 50/50 between the two.

 

[Stopspot]

Match quality for me. Wrestling is built around matches so wrestlers should be able to put on at least decent matches. Matches also tend to be longer than promos in general and its more important for me to be entertained in the long run than by a 5 minute promo. If I wanted to just watch great verbal skills I'd watch a movie or go to the theater. Wrestling is a physical art form so match quality > verbal/mic ability in my opinion.

 

[Dat Kid1]

I'm sure this thread has been made at least 3 times already, but mic work is where I stand. It's what gives the matches meaning. I'm not a sports fan, so you can take that and translate it as I'm not watching WWE for the athleticism, I'm watching it to be entertained. I love watching great matches, but without the entertainment aspect of it I don't think I would be watching WWE.

 

[Lackin]

Lately i have been looking forward to the Promos rather than the matches. the only time i look forward to a match nowadays is when it has a good stipulation (i.e. Guest Ref. NO DQ)

 

[Pop Tatari]

I watch wresting strangely for the wrestling,watching a great back and forth match where your on the edge of your seat is what i get enjoyment from. Promos/segments has always been second for me ever since i first started to watch wrestling when i was a kid.

 

[DK JAMES]

For some reason, I've always enjoyed promos over matches. As long as it's a good one. If someone can promo well and really pull me in, I'm more interested in their matches as well.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Depends entirely on the situation, but generally I lean towards promos than matches. Say we had Daniel Bryan vs Seth Rollins in a match, and it was 5 star quality, but had no build at all, then I'd rather see a 5 star promo. I am a mark for promos but in some instances the match is the best pay-off, so it's a very difficult question to answer.

This. Nothing tops a well built 5 star match, but you have to have the great segments & promos leading up to it for the match to really be meaningful. It's like someone saying HEY YOU LIKE HAM OR BREAD MORE?! and I'm like dude I need both for a sandwich.

 

[Snowman1]

Really depends on the situation. If you mean "what's more important for a wrestler", option C: Both. Sway back and forth on this.

If you're a Miz hater, you can see him cut some really good promos when he's motivated but it's all for naught since you know the payoff match will be underwhelming.
Then there's matches like Punk/Bryan at OTL which had no build but was amazing. In that sense match quality is better.

On Raw this week: Would you cut that Jericho/Del Rio match to replace it with people who need promo time? Maybe open up some time for Jericho and Ryback to have an in-ring segment to actually give that match some context, and give the mic to Ziggler to talk trash about Del Rio and give himself more character? I would, so therefore gotta vote promos.

 

[Captain Charisma]

Mic Quality. That made me hate D-Bryan when he got MITB in 2011. He sounded terrible to me on mic but then I realized he was not that bad on mic that time.