Selling

[Guest wildpegasus]

All right, so many times I've heard a match get critized for improper selling. This irritates me somewhat as match reviewers are not the ones wrestling in the ring. So my question is this. Are some match reviewers and hardcore fans too hard on selling?

For instance, I've had a lot of different injuries at the ripe old age of 26. I've lifted weights for at least 10 years and have done a good amount of physical labour so I have a good idea of what it's like to work hurt. Just a little while, my leg was hurting around the ACL area. Whenever I curled my leg it hurt. However, I could sraighten it out fine. The figure four leglock can hurt this part of the leg (the sraight one)

Now, let's suppose I'm in a wrestling match.Someone puts the good old figure four leglock on me. My leg is now hurting. Now I kick my opponent.I show no pain when I do it but do when I bring my leg back down it aches. The fans can easily see I didn't sell my leg doing the move on the kick but did sell my leg afterwards. This would be reffered to as "lazy" and nonsensical by many a match reviewer and would deem a lower star rating even though the kick makes complete sense selling wise. My point here is that it's very difficult to accurately say whether a wrestler's properly selling or not. I bet there's been many a time a wrestler has a serious legit injury that's unknown to the fans; gets that body part worked on during the match and people will still say "He/She is not selling properly. This match sucks." To me, this just isn't fair.

Ranting on some more here let's say someone's arm is hurting in a match and they're selling it pretty well. They then do a manuever that uses a lot of bicep strength. 4 minutes previously the wrestler tried to execute a military press but failed. To many people this would definitely be bad selling but in actuality it isn't because the military press involves very little bicep action.

Another point I'd like to make here is that some weightlifters do work with injuries. (Not always reccomended) Yes I know weightlifters aren't wrestlers but there's a lot of similarities in the movements preformed in both activities. A bodybuilder may have an injured arm but might be able to still do certain movements with it. If he attempted to do certain things in the ring and wasn't able to do other movements in the aforementioned ring he would be accused of bad selling even though what he/she is doing in the ring is certainly plausable.

Sorry to get on a rate here but in conclusion what do you think? Are wrestling fans too hard on selling? So much of selling is judgemental and I really don't think one can too accuratley say someone's selling is bad or good for that matter.

[Guest wolverine]

General Wrestling topic, I'd say.

[Guest j.o.b. squad]

yeah sometimes puro fans are too nitpicky in regards to selling IMO

[Guest wolverine]

Get this outta here, Ricky.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

There are certain ways to sell something that are generally accepted, bringing in whether a body part is REALLY hurt or whether a move REALLY works a certain body part for it to be sold is a moot point. Since when has something had to be real to work in wrestling? Selling is all about enhancing the believability of a match and getting the audience to suspend their disbelief. Much like in live theater, in order to do this you have to paint with broad strokes. A layman isn't going to know that a military press doesn't hurt the bicep, but likewise he isn't going to think much of a guy kicking somebody if he acts hurt afterwards. Most reviewers and hardcore fans pick on selling without really knowing what it exactly means or what correct selling for a certain injury entails. However, there are a lot of lazy workers out there and those who have that reputation have earned it honestly. Just like how the best actors know how to emote properly so do the best wrestlers.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Yeah, this is indeed a pretty wide topic, and certainly not limited to just Japanese wrestling, so there you have it.

 

As for the topic, I think legit injuries are pretty much irrelevent to the topic of selling. Selling is the worker portraying an injury or a blow of some kind. What's really going on with the wrestler's body has nothing to do with it.

 

The main questions pertaining to selling should be (a) is it convincing, and (b) is it consistent? There are other variables in there, but really, the above two are the basis for which selling should be judged.

 

As for your example of the arm, when a wrestler works that area, very rarely do they limit their work to just one muscle. I don't think I've ever seen a wrestler work holds that only do dammage to the bicep. More often than not, the entire arm is the target.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Selling is what gives the moves meaning, if a move is not sold, than most of the time it has no meaning. If I'm gonna have to sit threw a guy working a guy's leg or arm for 10 minutes, than I want to go somewhere or have some meaning. There's nothing worse than filler limp working IMO.

 

Some times no selling strikes as a way to show the wrestler's determination is acceptable. But if your gonna piss all over a guy's move set, than it's not.

[Guest deadbeater]

Puro fans should not be fixing a nit about selling with matches filled with dozens of Dangerous Back Suplexes and Super Dick Germans that are no sold. Just be happy the wrestlers ain't dead. And they want the WWE to follow that trend. Uh no thanks.

[Guest Jubuki]

Uhhh...

 

What's the point of doing piles of dangerous moves if they become throw-aways? If the moves aren't respected - by SELLING them, by getting near-falls off them rather than no-selling - they become meaningless, and then the style becomes top-this Spot Fu. Don't you think the heightened number of (not just head bumps in general but) unnecessary head bumps that don't progress a match played a major factor in guys like Misawa breaking down the way they have? Don't you think all the unnecessary bumps are why Benoit and Angle and Edge have to have or have had year-ending neck surgery? Fuck, did you even think about your response before pounding it out??

[Guest gansobomber]

Criticising selling also depends on which kind of wrestling we are reffering to:

 

WWE style matches need short term selling only as the crowd is not stingy and nor do the wrestlers normally go to such lengths as working over a body part.

 

But Puro needs more consistency in selling since body parts are usually attacked, and other than the wrestling aspect there is not "entertainment" aspect.

[Guest wildpegasus]

From my original post "They then do a manuever that requires a lot of bicep strength.4 minutes previously the wrestler tried to execute a military press but failed" I made some errors here. This shold read "They then do a manuever that requires a lot of bicep strength and fail. 4 minutes later the wrestler tries to execute a military press and succedes."

I agree with a lot of the points here. My point I'm trying to make though is that it's really impossable to accurately judge someone's selling and therefore we shouldn't be too hard on a match because of "bad" selling. True, there's many a case where it can't be denied one's selling is horrendously poor but there are also many cases where selling is unfairly critisized.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

Wildpegasus, your example is good for yourself, but not for your typical wrestling fan. The people that the wrestling is aimed towards are not aware of what particular muscle is used in every move, simply that an arm or a leg is used, therefore, if your arm is injured you shouldn't be able to use any of that arm to any extent without showing some sort of pain or at least discomfort.

 

Deadbeater, you have obviously not seen enough japanese wrestling to comment on it, go and watch a wide variety of it, especially some early 90's AJPW (which i'm sure would be recommended to you if you asked) and get back to us.

 

Gansobomber, while only the more intelligent of wrestling fans will be able to pick out very good selling, say why it's good, and why it enhances the match, all types of wrestling fans are effected by selling in their enjoyment of the match. Even in a WWE match, if a wrestler sells well, the moves mean more to the fans. This results in the near falls being more heated, and the moves getting over as future killers. Watch how Benoit got over the hand work from Haas in their smackdown match, it resulted in it meaning something, and it was worked into a finish that the fans got and respected. Edge sells decently as well from time to time, and you can see the difference in the crowd responses.

 

Overall, I'd say that selling is probably the most important part of a good wrestling match. It's not only the selling of individual moves, not only making them mean something in the whole match, it's selling a wrestlers feelings as well, their emotions, and without that, how can you tell a story at all?

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Puro fans should not be fixing a nit about selling with matches filled with dozens of Dangerous Back Suplexes and Super Dick Germans that are no sold.  Just be happy the wrestlers ain't dead.  And they want the WWE to follow that trend.  Uh no thanks.

Go watch some puro before you judge it, you'll find that most All Japan fans aren't too fond of the head dropping stuff either. Still, Misawa and Kobashi does a better job of putting the moves over than Austin or Angle.

 

What was that one match with Beniot, where Austin took something like 10 STRAIGHT GERMAN SUPLEXES! WTF! And Austin won the match! Even in the height of their craziness(from what I've seen, I don't watch NOAH or the last few years of All Japan), Misawa and Kobashi never did anything like that. If they did, the person that took that many consecutive suplexes would sell it like death, and not end up winning the match.

[Guest The Hamburglar]

Hello, AJPW fans - in his heyday, do you consider Misawa to be a good seller? From what I've seen, all his greatness stems from his awesome offense, bumping and timing, as his selling seems to be a little perfunctory at times. Do you believe this to be the case, or am I simply under-rating his selling because its overshadowed by the calibre of selling produced by Kawada? He's the king of selling, IMO.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

From what I've seen Misawa definately doesn't excel at selling, but I'll be the first to admit that I haven't seen much of the cream of the crop stuff from AJPW. I'd agree that Kawada is one of the greatest sellers of all time, very innovative, very subtle and very effective.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Misawa was one of the best when he wanted to be. He wasn't as dramatic as say Kawada or Kobashi, but he was at times just as smart as Kawada and smarter than Kobashi.

 

He knew how to build long, agonizing credible comebacks, while selling the tole of the other's guys offense and fatigue. I think his best performance in this regard is the 95 Carnies match with Taue. Misawa does one hell of a job of putting every one of Taue's moves over, while slowly mounting a comeback that stretches over the entire last half of the match taking many reversals and desperation elbows to take the control back.

[Guest Jubuki]

Misawa was usually the most pedestrian seller of the Big 4, but when he wanted, he could step up his game to be as good as Kobashi & Taue at their best. Through the middle part of the 90's, he was very likely to do just that in main event matches. As the decade wore on and the style became even more punishing, he often fell back to bad habits. Hell, even in his best matches, you can still see him pulling his tights in place and adjusting his elbow pad.

[Guest Goodear]

I'm just not a huge big fan of the AJPW style of selling from what I've seen of it. There always seems to me to be moments where one guy will take a backdrop suplex or a German and pop right back up to hit a strike... and then sell the throw. Say fighting spirit all you want, but I wasn't really happy with that part of the style.

 

I was also given the impression that there really wasn't a good way to tell when a wrestler in that division was really ripe for the picking or not. It was like there was no way to tell that a final blow apart from any other blow in the match other than it getting the three count. So, while I was given the impression that the match could end at any time, there really wasn't a plateau were I could feel the matches coming into the home stretch either.

[Guest Retro Rob]

I think of selling like getting "leverage" during holds and pins. Everything in wrestling is exaggerated, including selling. If ANY part of the arm is attacked, then the whole limb needs to be useless, otherwise the other wrestler's moves would be meaningless.

[Guest Jubuki]

You need to get some stuff previous to 1996, Goodear.

[Guest Beingz0wningj00]

I so marked out for the ten German suplexes...