carrying a match

[Guest Youth N Asia]

Watch some of the Bret Hart/Kevin Nash matches from the mid 90s in the WWF, just pay attention and you'll the best at it

[Guest Loss4Words]

This is one of those things that if you don't know, it's really hard to explain. If a typically great wrestler is in the ring with a typically horrible wrestler and they have a great match, chances are that the great wrestler carried the match, but that may not really be true.

 

You just have to watch and see who's working hard and who's not. Jericho v Kane was mentioned as an example, so I'll elaborate on that.

 

Kane kept forgetting to sell his knee and when he would try one of his no-sell comebacks, Jericho would hit him in the knee again and Kane would be like "Oh yeah, I forgot I was selling my knee."

 

I hate the term carrying sometimes because it DOES indeed take two to tango and it implies that the guy who was "carried" sucks and would have brought down the match on his own. This isn't always true. The lesser wrestler deserves credit for allowing himself to be carried because he's listening and he knows his role in the match. There are many cases where the lesser worker thinks he's better than he really is (HHH and Taker are prime examples) and they insist on dominating the match and it hurts the flow because they could be more cooperative and take a back seat and the other guy could get much more out of them.

 

All of the Flair v Luger matches are prime examples. Luger deserves so much credit because he was a pro and didn't try to go into business for himself. Flair told him when to make his comebacks, what spots to use, when to go for the pin and when to play the crowd and Luger did what he was told to do by the more experienced wrestler in the ring. The result was the greatest string of matches in Luger's career.

 

So while carrying does have a negative connotation, it really shouldn't, especially if the match turned out well, because while one guy may have led, both deserve credit for the end result.