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Best Ring Psychology


OSJ

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Orton's ring work is fucking boring. He's basically Sid, in that there's only a couple of things he does that are actually over at all, so his matches are ideally short squashes. In a long match, he has no way of filling out the time that keeps the crowd engaged. So they get bored, sit and wait for one of his two moves. And then, he's going to that place where he hears voices in his head* and they tell him "Do the same finishing sequence you always do, they'll never see it coming".

* Very disrespectful to people who actually hear voices in their head. You don't mentally go to a place where you hear them, you wish you could mentally go to a place where they'd shut up. If it was a matter of going to a place to hear them, you'd never go there.

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43 minutes ago, AxB said:

Orton's ring work is fucking boring. He's basically Sid, in that there's only a couple of things he does that are actually over at all, so his matches are ideally short squashes. In a long match, he has no way of filling out the time that keeps the crowd engaged. So they get bored, sit and wait for one of his two moves. And then, he's going to that place where he hears voices in his head* and they tell him "Do the same finishing sequence you always do, they'll never see it coming".

* Very disrespectful to people who actually hear voices in their head. You don't mentally go to a place where you hear them, you wish you could mentally go to a place where they'd shut up. If it was a matter of going to a place to hear them, you'd never go there.

I go to a place in my head that tells me not to watch Randy Orton matches.

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"Cerebral Assassin" reminds me of Bill in Kill Bill saying the Crazy 88 were named that "because they thought it sounded cool."

EDIT: And just to participate to the actual question of the thread, Fujiwara just came to mind. You can put him in any kind of situation and it'll come up interesting and right for the match. Last night I watched him work a tag against two exoticos and THAT even worked.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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20 hours ago, RolandTHTG said:

I'm not sure re: Shawn - both from a perspective that he produced some absolute stinkers ring psychology wise after his return (the entire series with Angle in 05 comes to mind) and his really sketchy selling. Also the over-dramatic over-selling formula he's produced in NXT subsequently.

HHH is an interesting one.  -The whole "everything you just saw for 20 minutes has lead up to this moment of me swinging a sledgehammer at this guy" aspect is a big red mark, as is so many of his matches in the midst of blood feuds failing to bring the hate whatsoever (that never ending 3 stages of hell match with Shawn, the Jericho HIAC, the Orton main at Mania, some of the Punk matches). 

For a guy that was supposed to be a cerebral assassin, there really wasn't anything particularly smart about him.

Even though Shawn's second run gets a lot of flak, he was pretty consistently one of the most over guys on the roster and always had the crowd engaged in his matches. He knew his audience, and most criticisms you'd make of him would be more appropriately directed at WWE style in general. His comeback match with HHH, the Cena matches in 07, the 08 Jericho feud, the Flair retirement match, and the Taker matches were all excellent story-wise. He had some low-key good stuff with Batista and Kennedy too. I don't think I'd have him in the all-time convo either for the negatives you mentioned, but I'd definitely nominate him over Orton for the discussion.

I've always said HHH has the biggest gap between his best and worst matches of any wrestler. He's also definitely better in gimmick matches than regular ones. Even with the exact same opponent, it's crazy how disparate his matches could be. Compare the Unsanctioned match with Shawn to the HIAC, or the LMS with Orton to WM 25.

19 hours ago, Ace said:

I always found Kawada the best at telling a story amongst the four pillars.

Tough to top Kobashi for me. He had the most range from ace to underdog, was Scott-Hall-esqe in making his large frame look gigantic or smaller depending on the situation, and had the most sympathetic connections to his lower-ranked partners (Kikuchi, KENTA, Shiosaki). To me, there's a lot more variety in Kobashi's great matches than Kawada, or even Misawa who definitely got more experimental from 99 on.

Edited by Go2Sleep
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Bret always worked for the story of the match. People say that he was guilty of doing the same go to spots like he criticized Flair for , it true but he worked for the story of the match. Bret was like Dynamite in the was he would sell to.

Savage had great psychology too. He was great at selling a limb. He was rare because he wasn't afraid to be vulnerable and taking beatings more than any other WWF main eventer in late 80s early 90s and he didn't do your Warrior or Hogan esq come backs

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6 hours ago, Ziggy said:

People say that he was guilty of doing the same go to spots like he criticized Flair for

Nope. He criticized Flair for having the same match/formula, idiots in the IWC then fired back about the five moves of doom... not really understanding that having signature moves is partly how you get over

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Brets repeated formula were offensive moves, and logically made sense and put over as so on commentary that he was setting his opponent up for the sharpshooter by working over the back.

Sometimes they were cut off hope spots or were his undoing also.

Flairs were always the same comedy spots. The flair flop, beg off, caught on the top rope, the chops being no sold, power guy hitting the press slam, the Irish whip into the buckle, the figure 4 being reversed etc.

Made no sense when every guy knew how to beat Flair and after a certain point, often did

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Flair's 80s routine was great to watch once in a while, but much like Wargames or Royal Rumbles, if you watch a bunch in a row, it loses its luster real fast.

That said, I wouldn't completely write him off as a ring psychologist due to the latter half of his career as a crazy old man. Maybe this is a little too hot-take-ish, but I think Flair had more great performances and matches after 1995 than before. Hogan coming to WCW might have been the worst thing for Flair as a coasting top act, but the best thing for him as a worker.

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We’ve talked about Flair many times here in regards to how his best stuff is lost in the shuffle. Both him and Steamboat said their best matches were way before 1989. His peak was actually the early and mid80s, with his last couple of years being slightly sabotaged by only wrestling Dusty, Ronnie and Nikita. So when what does everybody who learns about this stuff do? Go watch Flair/Race and Flair/Kerry Von Erich. Those matches just aren’t that great. He had a ton that were better including ones against those guys. 
 

As for the OP, I think there was a forever pages topic about this on the green board. The Corpus Christi Clash is a good show to watch from the POV referenced in the OP.

There have been so many good ring psychology guys, some of whom are judged wrong by smarks just because they upped the ante from a Jake Roberts stare down or Arn Anderson missing a move the 2nd time he tried it. 
 

ECW had tons of good psychology and so did WCW over the years with the younger guys in the midcard. It wasn’t always textbook but it was there.

 

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I don't feel qualified to make a definitive statement about best of all time, but a guy that I think has great psychology today is Timothy Thatcher. He tells the story of what his own emotions are with facial expressions and body language, and his grappling and strikes look strong and purposeful. He doesn't just throw forearms for the sake of having some movement. He picks holds and works specific limbs, and makes an effort to keep working a hold, instead of just giving up when the hold's broken and doing something else. He generally wrestles like he has a game plan for beating someone, which makes it look like a contest, instead of a pair of guys doing a gymnastics routine. I appreciate that.

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It made sense for a touring world champion to have a base formula from which to diverge, depending on his opponent. If they are, more often than not, going to be hometown babyfaces, then using a fishbone (tm steve austin) where they are a heel and leading the match would leave to some repetition. 

But then, you might be only seeing that guy 2 or 3 times a year. 

You would definitely need to have a different methodology for working in the same towns every week. 

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On 12/21/2019 at 11:54 PM, odessasteps said:

It made sense for a touring world champion to have a base formula from which to diverge, depending on his opponent. If they are, more often than not, going to be hometown babyfaces, then using a fishbone (tm steve austin) where they are a heel and leading the match would leave to some repetition. 

But then, you might be only seeing that guy 2 or 3 times a year. 

You would definitely need to have a different methodology for working in the same towns every week. 

This. I've always said Flair's formula is perfect and as good as it gets for the territory system, but in 2019 where we can pull up any of his matches on a whim it comes across as completely derivative while still being entertaining. But then you get something like the HBK retirement match and it's perfect because you really want to see Flair's Greatest Hits.

I wish we had complete footage of Mid Atlantic including the big events so we could see his pre-main event career in more detail

On 12/13/2019 at 11:08 PM, MoeCristyV.1.6 said:

If you have seen one of his “Classics“, you have seen em all.

 

Fuck Ric Flair

 

Am I doing it right?

No, because as I said above, even if you take the approach of 'seen one seen them all' they're still bloody entertaining matches. I'm a Flair critic but I still love the guy.

Edited by BurningBeard
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On 12/2/2019 at 3:27 PM, John E. Dynamite said:

The No Nearfalls Match is the Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki, 8/10/12 Wrestling Observer Match of the Year.

I love that match. 

First names that came to my head upon reading the topic title: Bret Hart and Daniel Bryan. The aforementioned Hiroshi Tanahashi as well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I look at ring psychology as the means to elicit an emotional response from the audience, whether to engage or to tell a story. It encompasses timing, gestures, selling, pacing, charisma, and speaking. It can be overt, subtle, broad, violent, comedic, innovative and traditional. Psychology is instinctual (ya get it or you don't) as well as learned (by being taught, by observation or experience and by experimentation). I listened to Baron Von Raschke break down the psychology of a classic cage match to such basic elements that the formula was unassailable in it's effectiveness, and so simple as to be baffling as to why it was not obvious to all (me!) beforehand. Psychology is about providing the expected and unexpected in the correct amounts at the correct time. It is the confidence for the worker to listen to themself to get the biggest long-term impact with the least effort.

Shawn Michaels is a great story-teller in my opinion, but his ring psychology is sub-par (these valuations (and all my others) are relative to his status and experience: his work is better than 90% of what you will see from non-major leaguers/main eventers). An early career in tag teams is a great way to learn the business, especially the building blocks of making a great match. His tag stuff is outstanding.

Bret Hart used move and psychology to tell a story in the ring that was logical and solid. A little to clinical in fact, for me.

John Cena isn't very innovative psychology-wise, but he picked it up fast, and his matches (by a modern standard) are textbook.

Read Gary Hart's bio - he really emphasizes ring psychology and gives good examples.

Limiting myself to workers I have seen live, these folks come to mind:

Tully Blanchard: so so great in setting up to conflict, and drawing out all the heat possible.

Jerry Lawler: yeah, lots of comedy and stalling, but a genius at reading the crowd and giving them what they want/need/didn't know they wanted and/or needed.

El Hijo Del Santo: brilliant timing, makes the easy stuff look hard and the hard stuff look easy. (honorary luchador mention: Brazo de Plata, can engage a crowd and switch from loony toons to drama on a dime)

Ric Flair: can work with any opponent. In later years, he was formulaic but man what a formula, and if he felt like turning it on he gave a clinic in RP.  A real Sigmund Freud, if you will.

Really, you are not going to get surprises in a list like this until you get down to the "lesser" numbers. How about these folks for me: Matt Bourne, Sgt. Slaughter, Rob Van Dam, Sandman, Muta, Muraco, Freebirds, Snuka. For younger workers,  it's harder to commit: Ciampa, BMurphy, Cody, Samoa Joe...

more of a Jung man myself,

RAF

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