Stand Up for Submission Wrestling!

More of this, please!
Photo Credit: WWE.com

The WWE's self-serving Stand Up for WWE campaign hasn't taken over the program as most of us feared it would, but it's still there and kind of annoying to me. I've made it a point to zone them out when they come on the TV or FF through them on my DVR. Fair enough. However, while watching the excellent Daniel Bryan/Dolph Ziggler match last night, I saw a far more worthy cause spring up before my eyes. It was right around when Bryan locked Ziggler in that Mexican surfboard stretch/Romero special, and then modified it with a chinlock. You know I'm a mark for good submission wrestling, and yet really, who are guys who have submission moves that are over? Bryan, Ziggler, Alberto del Rio, Chris Masters, John Cena and the Undertaker? That's six guys. You could stretch it out to include CM Punk and the Harts, but the Harts really aren't over, and Punk hasn't used the Anaconda Vice regularly in so long that it's just a nostalgia pop when he locks it on. So in essence, only 10 percent of the roster has a submission move that's over. For a company that regularly tries to book I Quit matches (including one last month with three guys where only one of the competitors had an over submission) and tried to do a PPV based around submissions last year, that's wholly unacceptable.

So, because submission wrestling is important to me, I'm going to stand up and start my own campaign. Unlike Stand up for WWE, this one won't end with Linda McMahon's Senate campaign next week. I want you to stand up with me, to Stand Up For Submission Wrestling! There are several reasons why you should do this with me.

1 - Submissions are unfairly maligned in mainstream wrestling by being made too effective. That might be a baffling sentence, but hear me out. Tapping out is often put over as a humiliating way to lose a match. It is used as a point of humiliation by faces over heels, and heels are often forced to sell "You tapped out!" chants like they were being accused of being cowardly, effeminate or something else embarrassing. What good does this serve? In MMA, aka "real wrestling", tapping out of a hold you can't escape is seen as great strategy. If that were the case in pro wrestling, it would put the guy executing the hold over even more, that he's a master of doing submissions so much that the guy in the hold realizes he can't escape as a point of strategy.

2 - Submissions by and large are safe moves to perform. You hear of guys getting injured on back suplexes and bumps to the outside all the time, but when was the last time you saw someone get hurt on an abdominal stretch or an Anaconda Vice? Yeah, if a submission hold is misapplied, or applied in a shooty manner, it can injure a guy, but they're safer than most flat back and sharp neck bumps almost 100 percent of the time.

3 - Submission moves help to vary up match finishes. Cena has two ways to end a match, but who else does? When you're a top-line main eventer, you need to have more than one way to end a match because you're going to have multiple matches with other main eventers. This is one place where puroresu has it over American pro wrestling; guys have more than one finisher. Now, I don't expect Randy Orton to develop shit like RKO '10 or Punt II, but would it be that difficult to give him a legit finishing submission hold, like maybe a Dragon sleeper (since the RKO, the Punt and his stump DDT, which TWB superfan Butch Rosser has said should be named the "IEDDT" all target the head and neck)? What if Miz and John Morrison had over submission holds in time for Hell in a Cell? Maybe their match with Bryan wouldn't have been such a foregone conclusion.

4 - Submission holds are a great way to flesh out matches, give announcers time to talk about what's going on in the match and about overarching angles and set a pace for a match that helps keep both guys from getting blown up or by telling a better story. Some people like to denigrate mid-level submissions by calling them restholds. That's bullshit. They're only restholds when done by guys who can't work or who use them as a crutch or use them way too much to the point where the match drags rather than flows. Not mentioning any names *cough*Orton*cough*

5 - Finally, submission moves are just plain cool. I mean, how else can I put it? It's great to see guys get twisted into different contortions, having limbs and extremities get worked in new and creative ways.

Now that I've laid out why submission wrestling is awesome and deserves a better rap than it has, I need to lay out what we all need to do to promote this campaign! What I will do is post one or two threads a week highlighting submission wrestling, maybe detailing creative moves or guys who work submission wrestling into their games. What do I need you to do? If you're a blogger, work more submission appreciation into your entries each week! If you're a reader who's on Facebook, Twitter or other social media, promote Stand Up For Submission Wrestling with all your wrestling-related friends. In fact, if you're on Twitter, use this hashtag:

#StandUp4SubmissionWrestling

Yeah, this might seem silly, but if enough of us raise our voices to try and get submission wrestling noticed, maybe we'll get some change on all levels. I mean, as much as we all love EVOLVE, ROH and other indie feds for their in-ring, there can be a tendency towards fast-paced matches with SPOTZ~! and head-dropping to the max. No matter what level of wrestling is out there, it can never have enough submission wrestling.

Stand with me! Stand up for submission wrestling!

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!