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Wrestling Psychology
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One often hears fans talking about pro wrestlers displaying great psychology. When one says this, they aren't talking about a wrestler being a Warrior Therapist. No, they're talking about wrestling psychology, which is a performer's ability to use body language and facial expressions to make a wrestling match look like a competition or fight between real people, allowing the audience to suspend their disbelief. A match with great psychology is spectacular, convincing, and tells a logical, emotional story; a match with poor psychology often comes off like an incoherent collection of moves or is just plain boring. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The first half of wrestling psychology is a wrestler's strategy throughout the match, which can depend on a wrestler's physique, gimmick, and personality. A smaller wrestler may use technical skills to attack a body part in order to set up for a painful submission hold, while a 6-foot brawler will eschew such finesse and just straight up punch you. Other popular strategies include taunting an opponent, keeping a high-flying opponent on the ground, chopping at The Giant's legs to limit his mobility, or maneuvering an opponent into making a stupid mistake out of frustration or desperation. On the whole, Face characters will tend to use exciting, high flying moves (because audiences will cheer for that), while Heels will use more brutal or sneaky moves, like bear hugs or eye pokes (that get the audiences booing). In Tag Team psychology, the Ricky Morton serves as the member of the team that gets isolated and picked apart by the opposing team, before breaking free and tagging in his fresh partner for some payback. Wrestlers will also likely employ different strategies, change tempos, or trade moves and advantages back and forth to keep things fresh. A wrestler who goes for the same move over and over again will become stale and boring, no matter how amazing or death-defying the move may be. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })These strategies tend to be a little stereotypical, for good and bad reasons. A 400-pound gorilla will usually be slow but strong enough to hurl their opponent like a ragdoll, while a 100-pound female wrestler will likely be agile and fast, focusing on strikes and aerial moves. Wrestling psychology is all about visual shorthand, and audiences will have immediate expectations when they see certain physiques or personalities. Many wrestlers play with these stereotypes, and there have been plenty of examples of big men doing flippy moves, or smaller wrestlers showing surprising strength by doing power moves. However, there is also the concern of safety and health for the wrestlers. That 400-pounder is more likely to injure himself and his partner leaping off the top rope for an elbow drop, and a small wrestler is going to have a lot of difficulty trying to lift a 6-foot opponent onto his shoulders. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })The second half of psychology is known as "selling", or acting like one is getting hurt. Since pro-wrestling is about simulated violence and not actual violence, most moves are designed to look dangerous, but be as safe and deal as little actual damage as possible, hence the need for wrestlers to sell their opponents' moves to maintain the illusion of peril. Selling can be as simple as reeling back from an opponent's punches, grabbing an injured body part because your opponent has been focusing their attacks on that area, or simply lying down for a long time after taking a devastating move. Often, a wrestler with truly good psychology will sell things over time. He may limp to the ring on his way to a match as a result of an "injury" inflicted on him during a prior match/beating, or be unable to perform his moves because his opponent specifically targeted the body part required to perform that move (e.g. a wrestler with a suplex finisher won't be able to lift his opponent if his ribs are injured). Wrestlers who are attacking also sell, albeit differently, like stomping on the mat when punching, or slapping their thigh when kicking. This creates a loud sound that suggests high impact, when actually these punches and kicks are not connecting with their opponent at full force (see MMA or boxing for the kinds of damage that even a single legitimate strike can do). A good example of this would be Ric Flair, whose knife edge chops to the chest would sound very loud when striking on the echo chamber of the torso and lungs, but require many more strikes with much more effort before bruising or bleeding set in. No Selling, not reacting to an opponent's attack, is also part of this psychology. The Giant or Monster Heel may take a Finishing Move and sit right back up just to prove how dangerous he is, or a hero may be beaten to the ground only to shake it off and make an exciting comeback to vanquish the bad guy out of a sheer desire to win. The polar opposite of that, over-selling, or reacting to an attack far beyond what can be realistically expected, is often used for comedic effect or to taunt an opponent, e.g. taking a simple slap to the face and then reeling back so hard that they fall out of the ring. There's a big difference, however, between no-selling as part of the match, and a wrestler legitimately refusing to respond to their partner's moves with no storytelling involved: the latter is considered extremely unprofessional, as both sides need to cooperate to put on a performance. At best, it can sometimes lead to a frustrated or insulted opponent starting to "stiff" the no-seller to try to force them to sell, which can potentially cause the match to degrade into a shoot fight. At worst, it can lead to firings or ostracizing from the industry because the wrestler cannot be trusted. Similarly, a wrestler who leaps off a 10-foot ladder onto the floor and gets up immediately without exhibiting any pain or fear removes all tension from such a death-defying move, and will likely get mocked instead of cheered by the audience. Thankfully, examples of these cases are extremely rare in the bigger companies. There is a third, more nebulous component to wrestling psychology, and that is the crowd's reaction. The audience may decide, on their own, to cheer for a Heel in the match, boo the Babyface, or simply not respond to incredible athletic feats. Wrestlers with good psychology know how to play up to the crowd or give them periods of rest, sometimes even changing their styles to match what the audience wants (see Hulk Hogan and The Rock switching roles as Heel and Face respectively at WrestleMania X8). One aspect of assessing wrestling psychology that sometimes gets overlooked is the fact that each region of the world - namely Japan, Mexico, and North America, birthplaces of the major wrestling styles - can have very different traditions and customs in regards to what constitutes good psychology, and thus what may constitute an excellent match. A wrestling fan who has only ever known, say, the Sports Entertainment style of WWE or the like and then goes to watch puroresu of Japan or lucha libre may get a small bout of culture shock when doing so, as aspects that they may have become accustomed to may be downplayed or absent entirely. Wrestling psychology is generally attributed to individual wrestlers instead of the bookers/'writers'. This is because, unlike staged fights in other media, wrestling matches are rarely choreographed from beginning to endnote There simply isn't time to choreograph every match, since even when a promotion has a reliable roster, house shows will translate to a wrestler typically having two or more matches per week.; usually, only the ending and a few big spots are pre-planned, while everything in between is improvised according to a very basic outline of how the match is supposed to flow. Usually— Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania 6, for example, was heavily choreographed; both Warrior and Hogan rehearsed much of the match for weeks leading up to the event, and it paid off as the resulting match is hailed as one of the greatest in both men's careers. One can become a superstar wrestler without displaying great psychology (The Great Khali, Jeff Hardy) or with heavily simplified psychology (Hulk Hogan, The Rock, and John Cena). The opposite is also true, you don't have to have a lot of spectacular moves to show tremendous psychology (Ric Flair, Jake Roberts, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Mick Foley). However, the greats, such as Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, Daniel Bryan, Ricky Steamboat, Shinya Hashimoto, Tiger Mask, and The Great Muta have a wide range of different moves with very deep, varied, and adaptive psychology to go with them. That's how they filled up arenas. Most of the truly memorable matches display a high degree of psychology. The legendary match between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant at Wrestlemania 3 is probably the finest example of this. The actual match itself is only about 12 minutes long (about half the length of a typical main event match), and mostly consists of very basic moves, like punches and body slams. This was mainly out of necessity, as Andre was working with near-crippling back pain at this time, and could not execute a lot of moves or take a lot of punishment. However, the months-long narrative of the match was built around whether Hogan would be strong enough to pick up the 500-pound Andre to body slam him and deliver his leg drop. Using wrestling psychology, the two men (with assistance from Andre's manager, Bobby Heenan) worked a match that had the audiences going practically berserk the entire time, and Hogan body-slamming Andre has been one of the most important and celebrated moments in wrestling history. |
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Wrestler Scott "Raven" Levy (a veteran of WCW, WWE, ECW, and TNA) discussed many of the finer aspects and details of wrestling psychology, applying to both faces and heels, in his "Secrets of the Ring" interview series. | |
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Beyond Wrestling was rather infamous for "circumventing" the problem by having other wrestlers surround the ring in a "lumber jack" fashion to provide some crowd noise. SBG-era ROH copied this model for a few episodes of their Future Of Honor shows even before the pandemic shutdown. Companies such as All Elite Wrestling went a step further by having a handful of wrestlers actually take seats as 'audience members', cheering and booing at appropriate moments. The cheers and noise also cover up the wrestlers calling their moves in the middle of the match while leaving more free camera movement than the "cue card" method. It even allowed for some story progression, as MJF and Shawn Spears (who would later form The Pinnacle) first began to associate with each other while gambling on the outcomes of matches while standing together on the "heel side" of the arena. | |
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Then there is the case of The Sandman. While generally dismissed as a sloppy Garbage Wrestler, he did have his own version. By busting himself open with beer cans on his way to the ring, he nullified any threats that his opponents might have made about making him bleed. | |
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The shoot style was developed in the Universal Wrestling Federation when Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada, Tiger Mask, and Kazuo Yamazaki entered the promotion on the vow that they were no longer going to "help" inferior opponents, starting with rejection of this traditional start in favor of "shooting" straight for take downs or any perceived vulnerable area. Even after the UWF's closing, a telltale sign of a "shooter" remains an arm hanging limp when another wrestler attempts to "lockup" with one. | |
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One of the most noticeable things about Kazuchika Okada's return to New Japan Pro-Wrestling was his new offensive psychology, using many different approaches and angles to wear down the opponent's neck/shoulder area before finishing with a short lariat. This made one of the most memorable moments of the 2015 G1 Climax a simple headbutt during the "rainmaker" from Yuji Nagata, which completely wrecked Okada's strategy and had him struggling to maintain his standing in the rankings. | |
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The Midnight Express's Bobby Eaton, considered the backbone of that team, was well known for his savant-like ability to know exactly which moves to pull off and when to pop the crowd. So much so that, when other wrestlers were booked against Eaton, they considered it basically a night off since Bobby would lead the match and make it look good. | |
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There is a different kind of psychology, involving being able to get under one's opponent's skin and even terrify him before the match has even started. The Undertaker, Kane, The Wyatt Family, the Boogeyman, and Holidead are all naturals at this. | |
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As evidence that it is possible to tell a compelling story with a single, basic move, Kenta Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki once went nearly 5 minutes doing nothing but chop each other in the chest, and had the crowd cheering the entire time. | |
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Jake "The Snake" Roberts is widely considered to be one of the finest practitioners of wrestling psychology, to the point where younger wrestlers are often sent to him for an education in the art. Despite having a pot belly, skinny legs, and a quite limited variety of moves that he could do convincingly, Jake was always massively over with the fans due to a combination of his classic promos and uncanny knack to always do the right thing in the ring when it was the right time to do it. Even modern day stars like Randy Orton have been schooled by Jake in the art of psychology. Carrying around a bag with a live snake in it certainly helped as well. |
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One aspect of psychology that Jim Cornette gave away on Ring of Honor's Secrets of the Ring Series was why it was sometimes important for wrestlers to slow down at points, even if they're fully capable of sprinting for ten minutes at a time: to give the audience a chance to catch up, and if they actually like what they're seeing, clap. Incidentally, ROH crowds are equally among the most vitriolic and appreciative to gather in ECW's wake. | |
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Strong Style, as described by Yuji Nagata, starts with two guys feeling each other out, mainly through mat wrestling. When it becomes clear that one is going to win the wrestling sequence, the other wrestler starts using strikes to avoid losing the match, the opponent responds in kind, and then they begin to use their most dangerous moves. The idea was to convey envy. All Japan Pro Wrestling had pretty much all the best foreign talent and thus all the attention, so the message being sent was that the wrestlers in New Japan's dojo were working harder, were better conditioned and more technically sound wrestlers who deserved everything AJPW had, and would keep trying to showing off until they were in danger of losing their matches. All Japan would nearly collapse in on itself in the 2000s, but New Japan's wrestlers would keep finding things to get envious about, so they could take their frustrations out in the ring and then on each other. | |
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Or the wrestlers themselves could just yell a lot, as is a longstanding tradition in joshi, and you can see Asuka demonstrate in WWE. | |
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Orange Cassidy (now wrestling for AEW) has one of the most unique psychologies in wrestling history, leveraging especially on crowd participation. Cassidy's shtick is that he's lazy, walking into the ring like it's a chore, or 'kicking' his opponents by tapping them lightly on the shins. Despite this, the crowds always go bananas for his appearances, cheering for lazy gestures like him putting his hands in his pockets because 1) his antics get his opponents furious, and 2) when he gets hit, he starts trying, and reveals that he can keep pace just fine with the competition when he wants to. | |
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Tetsuya Naito developed a very interesting psychology to his matches following his second run in CMLL. The basic story is that he really wants to win and will go to any means necessary to so... but he also doesn't want anyone to actually think that. His goal is to come off as an uninterested genius who gets all that he wants without trying, so when he is in control or at a stalemate, he loafs around and avoids contact, trying to do as little as possible, and when things go south, he tries to have one of his Los Ingobernables run interference. But when all else fails, he "wakes up" and becomes desperate, almost childishly so. Kind of like a reconstructive parody of strong style, as Naito is basically trying his best to lash out at the crowds who ignored him without losing track of the fact that he has matches to win. This all unfolded in his feud with Hiroshi Tanahashi, from Naito slacking his way to victory in the G-1 up to them fighting for the IWGP Intercontinental Title belt. | |
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