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LOOKING AT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

Gavin's Wrestling's Wild-Way #2: Psychology of Wrestling

Hello again wrestling fans worldwide, as I welcome you here on PWInsider for a second time. In my first edition I defended the sport of professional wrestling and analyzed what it took to be successful in the sports side and entertainment side of Sports Entertainment. I claimed that it took physical prowess and mental creativity to excel in the business, as well as that the wrestlers were athletes that entertained in ways that other athletes, from other sports, couldn’t match to and were athletic in ways actors could never dream. Therefore, with that logic, professional wrestlers are entertainers superior to actors, and athletes superior to other sports. In the end, the wrestling businesses in general are the World Heavyweight Champions of respectable media.

With that said, this week I’ll be discussing the psychology of wrestling.  In today’s world of professional wrestling, the bar has been set to high. Most fans have grown tired of traditional wrestling matches, and have become used to high risk moves, and gimmick matches to the point, that other companies must create Elevation X matches, and bring in 6 sided rings, just to stand out and be innovative. Some say that the gimmick matches and TNA’s new ring and matches are interesting. However, that doesn’t excuse that the common wrestling fan and casual fan would not be content with a singles match, a one on one fight.  Add to that, that each singles match in WWE follows a cookie cutter formula and you can’t really blame today’s fans. This begs the question, why aren’t standard matches epic anymore? Is it because there are no interesting superstars, no unique moves, and no good storylines? That’s the usual consensus, but in reality, it’s the actual art of professional wrestling that has gotten lost; the psychology. 

Today, many fans gloat and drool over the X-Division of TNA. Granted that it’s fresh, unique, and exciting, I can see why; especially, when the division caters to the smaller wrestlers who have been constantly over looked in the business. The problem with that is that the psychology isn’t based on connecting with the audience, the most important ingredient in professional wrestling. Fans choose who they like, dislike, and react to the match creating its atmosphere and allure. It’s the connection between the fans’ heroes and bad guys (Faces and Heels for you smark-ish marks) that allow for emotional investment; the kind of emotional investment that had fans going crazy for Hulk Hogan when he finally achieved his promise to body slam Andre the Giant. The Kind of emotional investment, when Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat finally beat “Macho Man” Randy Savage for the Intercontinental Championship and the kind of emotional investment that had fans screaming when Christian Cage finally won the NWA-TNA Heavyweight Championship that he so rightly deserved.  Those moments are the ones to become classics, and memorable ones in the fans’ minds because the matches weren’t about the flashiest moves, special gimmicks, or shocking angles, they were about true heartfelt reality worthy stories that captured the imagination and soul of the viewers.

The problem of the current psychology in professional wrestling is that it’s either too much of a collision course, with the X-Division, one high-flying, risk taking move after the next with no meaning or build up besides the fact that the manoeuvre is cool to look at or the match is too much of a my turn, your turn bases. For example, in WWE you can sum up whether which opponent is going to win based on whether he has landed his finisher yet. These days, it is practically impossible to win a match without hitting your finisher first. However, it had used to be that an intense match, with much beat downs, and a lot of back and forth action could be ended with a simple reversal of a cross-body, or switch of a pin fall. This is the unpredictability that today’s wrestling lacks. It is simple psychology to believe that even a beaten down opponent can grab an opportunity and seize it for a win if his opponent was caught off guard. Nowadays, that rarely happens. An example of this would be an AJPW match between the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs Ricky “the Dragon” Steamboat in 1982. In this match the pace started out slow, with only a few punches here and there.  They took turns between headlocks. Steamboat would have the advantage applying the headlock for a few minutes, while Flair tried to ply out. Then it would have Flair with the upper hand returning the favour with his own headlock before switching back to the punches for good measure. In that few minutes the psychology was more advanced than todays. Together they demonstrated the strength, resilience and energy it took just to escape each other’s headlocks. And this was before they began to battle from one side of the ring to the next, from one chop to the others, from one submission to the next punch, from the next punch, to the next reversal, to Flair cowering in the corner like the scum and coward that he was. All this, built emotion, told a story, and created a world inside the ring.  However, today the wrestlers don’t even apply the headlock as an important or effective move, today it is used merely as a “must”. It’s as if the wrestlers stood in the ring and said “Hey, its wrestling, I guess I should throw in a headlock before I do my ten flips.”

 The art of wrestling’s psychology is defined by me as follows: The Selling of a move, Timing of a move, Crowd Reaction, and Execution of a move. Selling would be how a wrestler reacts to the move.  For example, a wrestler would not react to a clothesline the same to the third one as he would the first. Timing would be when the move should be applied. For example, it would make sense for an elbow drop to be done as a last resort, or burst of energy as opposed to being thrown into the match just for flash. Crowd Reaction would be how a face would react to the heel and vice versa, as well as how the heel or face would react to the crowd’s reaction. For example, Hulk Hogan wouldn’t hulk-up when the crowd is tired, but when they are in anticipation (at least in my opinion). Execution of a move would be the quality of the move performed. For example, Bret “the Hitman” Hart’s Sharpshooter wasn’t the same as Sting’s. These are all elements of Wrestling Psychology. Hopefully, you have enjoyed this week’s dive into “Wrestling’s Wild-Way” with the continuation of my ongoing wrestling analysis. For more on psychology, stay tuned for next week’s edition as I explain more thoroughly on the four rules mentioned above, as I write on “Match Quality”.