Wherefore Pro Wrestling? Part 2: The Match
Or, Beautiful Pro Wrestling Violence
This is Part 2 of my series attempting to explain the appeal of professional wrestling from a prestige/intellectual standpoint. You can read Part 1 here.
To understand pro wrestling’s appeal, we must first break it down to its essential components and understand how they fit together. Again, I’m writing this as though you have never seen a wrestling show before, so please understand that this is kind of like trying to explain the appeal of a movie to someone who has never seen one.
Of course, the part of wrestling that looms largest is the match. The bit with the punching and the suplexing and the top rope Avalance Moonsault Side Slam….ming. And indeed, wrestling fans are all too eager to discuss favorite matches, dream matches, upcoming matches, what-have-you.
But one of the biggest misconceptions among pro wrestling neophytes I see is that they assume that the product is wall-to-wall matches. Like a UFC card: there’s a fight, then another fight, then a third fight, then a main event, then the show’s over.
Well… yes. This is objectively true. But a pro wrestling card has more in common in structure with an action movie than it does a UFC or boxing card. Remember, wrestling is fake, and everyone watching (except perhaps very young children) knows it. That means the card is not about offering a series of matches but rather a series of plot beats, some of which are self-contained and most of which are build for something more important later. It’s better to view wrestling matches as action scenes and plot beats that are an essential (but by no means exclusive) component of the broader tapestry that is the wrestling show.
In fact, it’s quite common to watch a wrestling show that is mostly not matches! The lion’s share of a show may go instead to “promos”, which takes the form of talking: a wrestler delivering a monologue (remember how I compared it to theater?) or engaging in a dialogue. It could be a skit in a parking lot or restaurant. It could be a video package hyping up a match or wrestler. Sometimes it could even be the dreaded musical number.
But when you get down to it, wrestling matches are the core of any decent wrestling product. I think the best comparison to a wrestling match is dance. Anyone can tell you that dance done with skill is beautiful, as the performers must tell an emotion-driven story using only the movement of their bodies. Wrestling is much the same, but it’s more visceral and intense than dance because it centers around (simulated) violence. A great match makes violence beautiful the same way a great action movie does.
I can tell you which matches are good, that’s easy. Trickier is to explain why a match can be beautiful. I see no way forward except to make you watch a wrestling match.
Wait, come back. It’s only three minutes. Spare me three measly minutes of your time to watch this clip, a recent match that aired on American network television. Watch the match, I think you’ll probably find it entertaining, and then I have some observations about it you’ll probably find interesting. Okay?
All you need to know is that this is Hook’s (the smaller guy with the Flock of Seagulls hair and MMA trunks) second match ever. He has a huge amount of hype behind him for being the son of a famous wrestler named Taz 1 (Hook even does many of the same moves as his father.) Hook’s first match was hugely impressive, getting a ton of attention and praise from the wrestling side of the internet.
His opponent Bear Bronson is larger and more experienced but a mid-to-low level competitor overall. These two have never interacted before in any capacity.
Watch this, then read on.
I really like this match. You can watch it in less time than it takes to boil an egg, but every moment of it is purposeful and crisp, all to add up to a story. The twin threads pulling on any wrestling match is the desire to tell a good story (which generally appeals to the viewer at home) and the desire to do impressive moves (which generally appears to the live audience). This match accomplishes both.
They start by circling and then doing a sequence where Bear Bronson (heretofore just Bronson) gets a wrist lock (a simple and low-stakes submission that won’t win a match, just a way to score an early point2. Hook quickly reverses into a wristlock of his own, and note the big 360 degree pivot! Hook makes the gesture striking and flashy without descending into some sort of vaudeville routine.
In wrestling, this is known as “ring psychology” - a throughline that forms the skeleton of the match. A simple example would be “Wrestler A’s finishing move is a kick, so Wrestler B targets A’s leg the entire match. When A attempts his finisher, he isn’t able to, and B capitalizes to win.” Psychology can be about a physical phenomenon, but it’s just as easily about the emotional states of the wrestlers, and how their feelings affect the way they wrestle. Less than a minute in and we have already set the psychology for this entire match: Bronson is outmatched, and he is going to get progressively angrier and sloppier the more this sinks in. Hook meanwhile is tremendously confident, and rightfully so, but this means he makes unforced errors that end up not mattering because he really is that much better.
Bronson reverses the wristlock, but Hook immediately counters by taking him down. Also note that Bronson gets visibly distracted when the crowd boos his reversal, which is part of why Hook could maneuver his way into the takedown. Hook goes for a leg submission, Bronson reaches the ropes (which under the “rules” means Hook msut release the hold) and Hook calmly walks away.
Now Bronson is pissed. He’s getting bullied and toyed with by a younger, smaller, less experienced opponent, so he leaps to his feet and goes for a big power move (as a large lad, that sort of thing is Bronson’s bread and butter). Hook slips out without much effort, moves Bronson to the corner (only three steps away - note how quickly and seamlessly they moved from the back-center of the ring to the front-right). Hook gets a combo and Bronson tries to get away, then uses his strength to turn the tables. Bronson’s got size but his strikes are visibly sloppier and uglier, while Hooks were boxer-esque body-blows that seemed to do significantly more damage. For a second time, Bronson gets distracted by the jeering crowd 3, and audibly utters “I don’t care who he is!”
For a second time Hook exploits that lack of focus. This time he lands a big move, a leg sweep - but the moment of inactivity before the sweep draws the audience in, and they explode at the snappy reversal. Hook locks in a submission, and once more Bronson uses the ropes to escape - he can’t outwrestle Hook, he needs the outside help of a rope break. Once more Hook turns his back on his opponent - he’s arrogant and inexperienced - letting Bronson elbow him in the mush. For my money, this is Hook’s best sell of the match.
“Selling” is the term for how a wrestler convinces the audience that the move he was just hit with was, in fact, painful. Good selling is crucial, because it sells 4 to the audience the illusion that this is a real fight, with real stakes. It’s no different than any other trick a creative uses to immerse the audience. Hook is a very good salesman.
Bronson’s next move is to blatantly cheat by attacking Hook’s eyes. He started with a nice clean wrestling hold, graduated to aggressive strikes and power moves, and now he’s blatantly cheating. Remember the relative position of these two guys: Bronson has many matches under his belt, but more losses than wins. Hook has only wrestled once, but in that single match he’s garnered more attention than Bronson has in the latter’s entire career. Hook’s younger, better-looking, more popular, his dad is famous, he has everything and he doesn’t seem to even notice. And now he’s slapping around a guy with years of experience and 100 pounds on him. Wouldn’t you be frustrated in Bronson’s shoes? Jealous even? Enough so to get repeatedly distracted by the crowd, or to bend the rules when you usually wouldn’t?
100 seconds in and Bronson, a lower level guy of no particular repute, is in the midst of a character arc!
With Hook blinded, Bronson picks him up and spikes him with a big power move - the same power move he unsuccessfully attempted earlier.5 This is a “callback”, a notion just as prevalent in wrestling as it is in any narrative media. Callbacks can be to things that happened earlier in the match, to previous matches between the wrestlers, to famous matches from one of the wrestler’s past, to famous matches that had nothing to do with either wrestler, or even to moments from completely different sports. It encourages fans to pay attention not only the match but the broader tapestry of the medium as a whole. This however is a elemental case of set-up and pay-off.
Because this time, Bronson hits the move. And Hook doesn’t sell it.
Remember earlier how I mentioned selling was crucial to a match’s realism? Here’s the thing: wrestling isn’t real. Good creatives know all the rules, but great creatives know when to break them. Listen to the crowd when Hook pops back up, to their sheer excitement. The entire point of the match is to demonstrate that Bronson, for all his power and experience, is just not on the level of this cool new guy. Hook shows us that, for as large a gap as we thought existed between these two, a larger gap exists still.
Because this isn’t Hook’s last match, or anywhere close to it. He’s a rookie with a (hopefully) long career ahead of him. But this singular moment creates avenues for so many more moments in the future. What else can Hook shrug off? How good is he? What move, or which wrestler, will be the one that can actually keep him down? One cycle of set-up and pay-off ends and a thousand more begin.
Not only that, but we get our third instance of Bronson getting distracted by the crowd - and his attention to them is paid off as well, because he hears their excitement and realizes something must be wrong. Watch his face: his wide-eyed manic look turns to confusion, and he slowly realizes it must be Hook-related. So he turns around slowly, dreadfully, and realizes that not only was he never going to win this match, he was never going to come close to winning this match.
I’d also like to draw attention to the third character in this match: the referee. The ref is more than just there to count the pinfall and sell the illusion of a real fight, he also keeps time (since each match is given a certain amount of show to occupy), legitimately watches for the wrestlers’ health, smooths over any issues that occur (such as an object where it shouldn’t be), and sometimes gets involved in the storyline of the match (most common is the “ref bump”, where the referee gets taken out so there’s no one to count the pinfall). The best referees do forty things at once without ever drawing attention to themselves, and in my opinion referee Bryce Remsburg is one of the best to ever do it.
One thing I love about Bryce is that he’ll often react to the wrestlers in colorful ways. After calling the match with perfect professionalism and calm, even he’s shocked speechless by Hook’s invincibility.
It’s academic from this point. Hook starts beating the crap out of Bronson6 and throwing him like a rag doll. He plays to the crowd for the first time - because he’s already won the match in every sense but literal, so why not celebrate a bit? Bronson gets no more offense, either.
I want to pay special attention to Bronson’s selling here. He does a fabulous job of making Hook’s strikes and throws look like bone-rattling attacks from a master martial artist. The clothesline doesn’t just knock him down, it sends him reeling around the ring. He doesn’t just clutch his back after the suplex, he writhes on the mat and stumbles back to his feet only by using the ropes. He keeps fighting still, but Hook catches his elbow for the side head-and-arm suplex.
His character is portrayed as inferior, but I think he played his role here with extraordinary skill. Hook is a special performer but his career will owe a lot to guys like Bronson who are willing to make him look so good.
Hook then lands some strikes and taps Bronson out, ending the match and the story.
This match gave us a full character arc from Bronson while telling us more about Hook, an exciting and inventive climax from Hook’s no-sell, some legitimately beautiful wrestling moves and sells, and foundation was laid for the groundwork of many future stories. There are prestige dramas that don’t accomplish in an hour what Hook, Bronson and Remsburg did in three minutes.
Now think: what kind of story could a wrestling match tell with more time? Like ten minutes? Or twenty? Or seventy? The most amazing match I’ve ever seen, Kazuchika Okada versus Kenny Omega in June of 2018, went on for nearly the length of a feature film and it enthralled me throughout. Just like Hook versus Bronson it had character arcs (much richer and more complex ones), it had call backs (of all the sorts I listed above), it had the foundation for fantastic new stories (it marked a turning point for both men as performers, they both left the ring fundamentally different from how they entered it), and it had some utterly spectacular displays of strength, agility, acting, and physical storytelling.
While the complexity of a match’s narrative is limited by the minimal verbal component (and the non-existent internality, no wrestling promotion has let us literally hear the thoughts of the performers7) it can achieve tremendous pathos. Just like Remsburg, it’s easy to sympathize with Bronson because we’re watching a human being literally get beaten and thrown like a football. Just like the people in the arena, it’s easy to go ga-ga over Hook because he fucking rules. Wrestling matches are where the human and the superhuman meet for dazzling feats of athleticism one moment and potent human drama the next.
For Part III of this series, we’ll discuss the second main component of professional wrestling, and my personal favorite: the promo.
His name is in fact a double entendre that Taz was billed from Red Hook, New York, and that a “hooker” is an old wrestling term for someone trained in throws and submissions (long before terms like judoka entered the popular conscience).
Amusingly, an actual wrist lock would end any real fight the moment it gets locked in.
Rules of 3, anyone? Bring it up once as a set-up, twice as a reminder, and then pay it off the third time.
Eh? Eh?
The move is a modified Michinoku Driver, but that isn’t important.
Another Remsburg observation: he reacts to Hook’s moves here with sympathetic “that’s gotta hurt” winces, something he didn’t do earlier. He knows Bronson is screwed and feels a bit bad for the guy. Little touches like this are why he’s my favorite ref.
…yet.