The Steve Austin Show

[Matt D]

That's different than there being none at all.

[Victator]

It is a basic part of tag team wrestling. You are not going to find a tag match between two pushed teams where the faces don't clown the heels for several minutes.

[Matt D]

Yeah, it's shine. How long it lasts, relative to the heat, is a key element to how good tag matches are. In British Bulldogs matches the ratio is usually flipped. One of the reasons that the heel Demolition matches stood out so much in context was that they didn't allow the faces to so blindly take SO much of the match.

[Victator]

WWF match times are not as long as other promotions. It tends to be half and half.

[Matt D]

I'm not sure that would play out and even if it did, That doesn't make it right. There's a reason those Demolition matches stand out as more structurally satisfying.

[Michael Sweetser]

Wait, are we eschewing standard tag team formula now?  I need to update my notes.

[Matt D]

God dammit, Sweetser. You're not helping. The point is this: Shine is great. 10 minutes of it in a 15 minute match is not.

[Victator]

It is rarely that much.

[Matt D]

I don't know. I think I'm calling John in to hammer everyone with statistics. I think eight minutes in a fifteen minute match would be almost as bad given you need a minute or two for the comeback.

[Victator]

Wrestling doesn't work like that. Every match is different. 

[Matt D]

There are patterns over time though. Also wrestling works like that more in 80s WWF than anywhere considering the way they kept the same cards night after night for months.

[Michael Sweetser]

When you get down to the point of "there should be X minutes of shine and Y minutes of comeback" then we're back into the world of totally choreographed spotfests, and wrestling really needs to get away from that shit.   Do what feels right.

 

If you DO need to cut something from a tag match, though, the shine should be the first thing to go.  (This is why tag team formula works, by the way - once you've got it down, THEN you can fuck with it a bit.)

[Matt D]

I'm not saying that in a fifteen minute match the heat has to be exactly 7.43 minutes. My main point is that ninety-five times out of a hundred there shouldn't be twice as much shine than heat. It doesn't matter how long specifically any of this is, but the heat's the part of the match that pulls the crowd in and builds anticipation and it's fairly unsatisfying to watch a match which has a stub for the heat and way too long of a shine. 

 

That said, there are exceptions, sure, but they're exceptions. I've seen matches where smaller guys aren't dominating the bigger ones in the shine, but instead controlling them with limbwork or using speed to make sure they're not getting touched and that works on some level because it builds a sense of dread for the impending heat. "If he just gets his hands on him, what will happen!" I don't think that's the case in a lot of the lionized and highly remembered 80s WWF tag matches. It's more a case in matches involving teams like Demolition or the Powers of Pain that probably aren't as well remembered but that I imagine hold up better (I know people can't say enough good about the 01/15/90 Rockers vs Powers of Pain match, for instance.)

 

In general, the formula works best when there's more heat than shine and, as Vic rightly indicated due to time limitations and as I will add now, due to the fact that Dynamite had a complex, that's not usually the case in the well remembered 80s WWF tags. That's all I'm saying.

[Michael Sweetser]

I'm not saying that in a fifteen minute match the heat has to be exactly 7.43 minutes. My main point is that there shouldn't be twice as much shine than heat. It doesn't matter how long specifically any of this is, but the heat's the part of the match that pulls the crowd in and builds anticipation and it's fairly unsatisfying to watch a match which has a stub for the heat and way too long of a shine. 

 

That said, there are exceptions, sure, but they're exceptions. I've seen matches where smaller guys aren't dominating the bigger ones in the shine, but instead controlling them with limbwork or using speed to make sure they're not getting touched and that works on some level because it builds a sense of dread for the impending heat. "If he just gets his hands on him, what will happen!" I don't think that's the case in a lot of the lionized and highly remembered 80s WWF tag matches.

 

It's not really you, but more a generalization from others.  I should've made that more clear in my earlier post.  

 

Maybe I'm just getting old and getting tired of everybody having to do things differently in order to stand out.  Sometimes different ISN'T better, and sometimes the formula exists for a reason.

 

I do completely agree that shine being longer than heat completely negates the idea of what the heat is supposed to do in a match.  If the heat doesn't matter, then it basically becomes either a face-heavy squash, or a heel pulling one cheap move and winning out of nowhere, neither of which is conductive to business for long.

 

And there's all sorts of ways for faces to shine on the heels, even if they're much smaller.  They can outrun them, or outthink them, or outwrestle them, or just do hit and run.  The idea of the shine is just for the faces to get one up on the heels briefly before the heels shut them down and the real meat of the match begins (which is why cutting the shine works in a time crunch).

[Matt D]

Thanks for the clarification. I love the formula. I believe more in the southern tag formula than I do in any religion in this world, and more than I believe in most people. I do think, from the outside looking in, that part of using the formula is understanding why the formula works and why you should be doing A or B or A instead of B, and I get the impression that sometimes people go through the motions without trying to understand the why behind them these days, but that's just an impression.

[Michael Sweetser]

Thanks for the clarification. I love the formula. I believe more in the southern tag formula than I do in any religion in this world, and more than I believe in most people. I do think, from the outside looking in, that part of using the formula is understanding why the formula works and why you should be doing A or B or A instead of B, and I get the impression that sometimes people go through the motions without trying to understand the why behind them these days, but that's just an impression.

 

Exactly.  Until you understand WHY A to B to C works, you have no business trying to go from A straight to C.

[Brian Fowler]

Backing up a bit, I think Bret and Shawn are what ended up killing U.S. tag wrestler for a decade+.

 

When the two of them became the WWF's top stars, suddenly tag teams weren't looked at as being an important part of the show, or even just a way to fill out a card/roster.  No, now they existed simply to figure out which half of the team was the "star" and then split them up as soon as the company felt they knew the answer.

 

"I'm Shawn, he's Marty" is...  *sigh*

[Matt D]

Backing up a bit, I think Bret and Shawn are what ended up killing U.S. tag wrestler for a decade+.

 

When the two of them became the WWF's top stars, suddenly tag teams weren't looked at as being an important part of the show, or even just a way to fill out a card/roster.  No, now they existed simply to figure out which half of the team was the "star" and then split them up as soon as the company felt they knew the answer.

 

"I'm Shawn, he's Marty" is...  *sigh*

 

I wonder if we look back to WWF and what happened to tag teams and if we see a trend there or not.

 

US Express: Both guys leave. For a while they team Rotunda with Spivey. Later on Windham returns as a singles and then Rotunda returns as IRS

Sheik/Volkoff: Sheik is fired. Volkoff ends up with Zukov even after Sheik comes back. He is turned babyface in 90 and is actually an upper mid-card face for that summer. 

Killer Bees: Brunzell stays on as an enhancement talent.

Rougeaus: Ray becomes a broadcaster and Jacques becomes the Mountie.

Dream Team: Beefcake breaks out as a singles star and Bravo ends up replacing him. Later on Bravo becomes a midcard singles act and Valentine ends up feuding with Garvin and teaming with Honky Tonk Man. He eventually breaks out of that teams as a babyface to put over up and coming heels on his way out because Honky leaves as their program was going to start.

Young Stallions: Both guys leave.

Islanders: Tama leaves and Haku becomes an upper mid-card singles heel as the King, and later part of the Colossal connection and then a lower mid-card heel singles act.

British Bulldogs: They leave. Davey Boy comes back as an upper mid-card face.

Strike Force: Martel turns upper mid-card heel with a gimmick. Tito languishes as a near-enhancement face (though always over) until late 90 when he gets featured in Survivor Series and then becomes El Matador in 91

Powers of Pain: Warlord to Slick. Barbarian to heenan. Both guys work as mid-card heels, neither reaching the level that they probably would have a couple of years earlier.

Demolition: Crush comes in. Axe leaves. They repackage Crush and Smash as completely different characters (for the most part).

 

That Bret and Shawn had so much success was important, but I also think it was the WWF style to break up tag teams for the most part. They even tried doing it with Bret once or twice before it set in completely in 91. 

[odessasteps]

Isn't this a discussion for that other website?

[Matt D]

Hey, I already tried to summon John by saying Shazam.

[odessasteps]

Maybe if you said Candyman?

[Matt D]

Then I'd probably get Kris Z.

[Charlie M.]

Wrestling tips from Stone Cold:

 

@HEELZiggler Flatten out that clothesline, bro. #smackdown

 

@steveaustinBSR done and done

[Michael Sweetser]

I love seeing Austin just outright call people out on that.  I enjoy even more that they're listening.  Instant feedback in the year 2014.

[Goodear]

Talking about shine and all that, it really depends on the context of the match itself and the people involved as far as what is appropriate.  Let us use the example of the Fabulous Freebird team of Micheal Hayes and Jimmy Garvin for this purpose.  They weren't really good at heat segments as their notable offense consisted of Hayes throwing a left jab and DDTs.  So they would often spend a whole lot of the match not so much getting dominated but getting outsmarted or outmaneuvered and having that lead to a stall (notably against Zenk & Pillman, The Rock'n'Rolls or Southern Boys).  So, for example, Michael would end up not getting the better of a situation for an entire minute but only take one bump out of it from a hip toss before ending up on the outside in conference with Jimmy Jam.  Is that 'shine' for the other team or building heat for the payoff when the faces really get on a roll?  I think that's a bit debatable.  

 

Compare that with Demolition or for the sake of WCW comparisons Doom and you have a different dynamic where either the faces are in trouble a lot more or cannot afford to get into any trouble whatsoever.  Again a team like the Rock'n'Rolls would stymie Doom for a while using teamwork but couldn't match up man-to-man.  The dynamic is much different from a Freebirds match though as the faces are trying to get out of there with their lives rather than just finally get their hands on those miserable bastards.