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| Evan Bourne is a master seller. Just ask CM Punk, who looked like a million bucks after Bourne sold this like death. Photo Credit: WWE.com |
So, if you have a guy who has his leg worked over for a considerable portion of a wrestling match, and minutes later, all that leg work is forgotten, why would you consider the leg work done earlier to be important? Offense is only as effective as the guy selling it makes it. That's why above anything else, selling is the most important part of any wrestling match. It doesn't matter if a guy has stiff-looking punches or a great moveset or anything else that people may consider part of good wrestling. If the guy taking those moves isn't acting like they hurt, then it makes the guy doing them look like a chump, not a Champ.
That's why it maddens me so much when people prop up guys who don't sell and rather who engage in the self-celebratory style of just trading moves and engaging in excessive displays of Fighting Spirit. Whenever I see a match featuring Shingo Tagaki or Davey Richards, and all they do is kick the other guy, take kicks and move around like nothing's wrong, it only reinforces that vile, four-lettered "f" word that haters of the artform bandy about like a sharp blade around the soft flesh of our fandom.
Fake.
I can watch Ares and UltraMantis Black fight over a relic that has purported powers of hypnosis and not be offended because hey, wrestling's theater and theater can be absurd at times. I can be unaffected by some of the most absurd angles that the WWE or even TNA run and still defend the artform as "staged" rather than that vile f-word. I will put my balls on the line as a wrestling fan and defend nearly anything. But when you have gratuitous displays of guys just doing MOVEZ to each other with no regard to feigning to the crowd that those moves actually hurt and have lingering effects past the initial sting? I can't deal with it. I tap out to the haters, because there's nothing I can say that defends that kind of asinine lack of attention to storytelling.
And as fake as guys popping up after brutal head drops makes the product look, guys selling the shit out of moves makes it look all that much better. Take Evan Bourne for example. The guy is beloved by the WWE fanbase because he flies through the air with the greatest of ease. However, his value with the company, something that makes him the go-to guy for getting people over as beasts, is in his selling. The guy takes the High Cross from Sheamus like he just dropped on a landmine. On a bum shoulder, he took bumps that most other guys would scoff at healthy to put CM Punk over like a stone cold killer. Because of all that, he's one of the best workers on the roster and he makes the product look visceral, look real. You want a reason why I would watch and enjoy Bourne getting squashed by The Miz over a 20 minute AWESOMESAUCE EPIC MATCH WITH MOVEZ between Shingo and Richards, you want a reason why I get goosebumps watching Bourne get tossed around by Sheamus, you want a reason why Bourne in even his simplest affairs makes me forget that the product is staged just for one second? It's in the way he sells.
If you look at all the guys, all the people who drove business, they took beatings and made guys they were wrestling look like world-beaters. Hulk Hogan had the Hulk-Up, but what most people will never admit is he would always spend a solid five to ten minutes BEFORE Hulking Up taking a brutal asskicking from the heel he was working with at the time. Steve Austin and Rock bumped their asses off. Shawn Michaels' career almost came to a screeching halt in 1998 because of his dedication to bumping and selling. Ric Flair was so believable taking a beatdown that his begging off has become a signature spot in wrestling history. All of those guys are considered all-timers. None of them engaged in the nonsense of move trading with no sense of taking damage. Coincidence? I think not.
If you act like you're hurt, you're doing more for yourself than you could think of by busting out every move in the book, ESPECIALLY if you're booked to win in a comeback. No-selling has its place, and that place is SPARING if appropriate at all. But acting hurt? That goes for any situation. Selling really is the most important part of any match, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're a liar or a super mark for moves for the sake of moves. It's as simple as that. The moment wrestling loses selling is the moment wrestling loses its relevance, at least in a way that makes it compete for the combat sports PPV dollar and TV show viewer. It'll be there for the workrate dorks and for people who like superhero stories but without any of the other cool powers. But it won't be for wrestling fans, because it'll just make things, really, really boring.
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!
