Professional Wrestling Fighting Physics

[The Gooch]

I thought it would be fun to talk about fight mechanics that are used in rasslin' that have been adopted over decades of trying to get the audience into the entertainment. I'll give a couple of examples and I'm hoping to get a laugh out of some of ya'll's contributions.

If you're thrown by your opponent, you must continue your trajectory until you hit something. The material is usually very hard and inflexible.

If you're picked up by your opponent by the arm and head/hair, you must get up.

You cannot keep your championship belt indefinitely by using the champion's advantage and just jumping out of the ring and getting counted out.

Holding wrestling attire on your opponent makes it infinitely harder for them to get out of your move.


You get the gist. Let's hear it! BTW, I'm a huge wrestling fan and am not disparaging the art.

 

[Michaelangelo]

don’t block punches, takedowns are a piece of cake, your legs are helpless against submissions, you must help your opponent superplex you

you also must get to your feet as your opponent stalks you or is tuning up the band

 

[sleepwalk]

If you attempt to powerbomb Billy Kidman, you're gonna have a bad time.

If you headbutt a Samoan, you're gonna have a worse time.

 

[BEAST]

If you attempt to powerbomb Billy Kidman, you're gonna have a bad time.

Unless you're Stinko Malenko, you can do anything.

 

[sleepwalk]

Unless you're Stinko Malenko, you can do anything.

That wasn't prime Kidman, though. Like the legend of the Samson, once his manhood fell prey to Torrie Wilson, it was all over.

 

[BEAST]

That wasn't prime Kidman, though. Like the legend of the Samson, once his manhood fell prey to Torrie Wilson, it was all over.

Who could blame him... Goddamn Torrie. Mistress of my teenage years.

 

[catchwrestle]

You can't escape a sleeper hold while you're fresh, but if the ref lifts your arm for the third time its a guaranteed adrenaline rush + escape

 

[catchwrestle]

Pre 1999 foreign object to your head = you loose. Post 1999 foreign object to your head = you win

 

[BEAST]

You can't escape a sleeper hold while you're fresh, but if the ref lifts your arm for the third time its a guaranteed adrenaline rush + escape

Speaking of that... Does it bug anyone else that they still do an arm raise for shitty rest holds, but finishers like the Coquina Clutch and Baszler's RNC get an immediate victory if the opponent is out cold? Needs some damn consistency.

 

[HereticBD]

Jumping from the top rope, only really hurts you when you miss your opponent. Albeit, in more modern times, some wrestlers have tried to sell the impact a bit better.

Various suplexes are more powerful if they're signature moves. A fireman's carry slam is practically ineffective, unless it's called the Attitude Adjustment. Then it's death.

Going through a table that essentially breaks your fall, is more painful than being slammed directly to the mat/floor.

Climbing a ladder is an incredibly hard thing to do. Sometimes requiring a good 30 seconds between each step.

 

[catchwrestle]

No one can use the same finisher even if said finisher is the most lethal move ever invented and would turn you into a world champion within a week.

 

[AleYeah]

Grabbing the ropes for leverage exponentially increases the pain inflicted by a given maneuver, and you're a dirty no good cheater if you do it!

I miss the rasslin of my youth- I grew up in western NC on a steady diet of Mid Atlantic and later World Championship Wrestling- when fans would legitimately get pissed off about these kinds of heel tactics.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Climbing a ladder is an incredibly hard thing to do. Sometimes requiring a good 30 seconds between each step.

it’s that special ladder gravity

 

[Blackjack]

No one can use the same finisher even if said finisher is the most lethal move ever invented and would turn you into a world champion within a week.

Didn't Dusty Rhodes use the figure four leg lock when he was feuding with Flair, who used the figure four as his finisher? Other wrestler used it too; Greg Valentine used it. A lot of guys did. I don't remember all the different guys who I saw use the figure four. That's just one example but I don't remember finishing holds being so restricted to one person in the 70s and 80s as they started to be restricted in the 90s and onward where the use of a particular finishing hold really was restricted to a particular wrestler.

 

[Blackjack]

don’t block punches, takedowns are a piece of cake, your legs are helpless against submissions, you must help your opponent superplex you

you also must get to your feet as your opponent stalks you or is tuning up the band

Not blocking punches or getting out of the way of punches is my favorite one. My friends and I would joke that sometime when Hulk Hogan was taking punch after punch to the face while he was beginning his "comeback", that since he was getting hit in the face over and over and apparently unable to block or move out of the way of the punches, the referee should stop the match and award it to Hogan's opponent because "Hogan was no longer able to intelligently defend himself."

 

[Michaelangelo]

Not blocking punches or getting out of the way of punches is my favorite one. My friends and I would joke that sometime when Hulk Hogan was taking punch after punch to the face while he was beginning his "comeback", that since he was getting hit in the face over and over and apparently unable to block or move out of the way of the punches, the referee should stop the match and award it to Hogan's opponent because "Hogan was no longer able to intelligently defend himself."

the Rocky Balboa defense.

 

[Blackjack]

the Rocky Balboa defense.

Right. Of course they could only have a "heel referee" do that because if referees stopped wrestling matches whenever somebody looked like he wasn't intelligently defending himself, it would happen in almost every single match. Any time someone has his opponent in a situation where he's just lying on the canvas, apparently unable to even be able to summon the energy to roll out of the way after his opponent has taken the time to climb to the top turnbuckle and then dive off of it onto his (still) immobile opponent, you'd have to question why the referee didn't already stop the match, or why the winner didn't simply pin his opponent as soon as he had his opponent lying immobile on the mat. If the guy couldn't even roll out of the way of an elbow drop off the top rope, how would he find the strength to kick out of a pinning combination?

 

[catchwrestle]

Brick to the head: guy kicks out at 2
supperplex off of a 20 ft ladder: guy kicks out at 2
powerbomb through 3 burning tables: guy kicks out at 2
pushed over the top rope: guy lays out for 9 seconds
pushed over the top rope in a fatal 4 way: guy lays out for 12 minutes

 

[Blackjack]

Brick to the head: guy kicks out at 2
supperplex off of a 20 ft ladder: guy kicks out at 2
powerbomb through 3 burning tables: guy kicks out at 2
pushed over the top rope: guy lays out for 9 seconds
pushed over the top rope in a fatal 4 way: guy lays out for 12 minutes

I thought the last line was going to be:
gets caught with the dreaded "schoolboy": gets pinned for a 3 count

 

[The Gooch]

If a wrestler's body part is being worked on in a match, nurse said injury for weeks.
If a wrestler legitimately injures himself, finish the match as if nothing happened come hell or high water.