Match A Day 05.07.09: Week 4 – You Don’t Know Anything

First of all, don’t forget that you can follow along with my MAD watching schedule at the Match A Day Twitter Site

Now then, this week I want to think about something a bit different. Do you think we all need to remember the entire history of professional wrestling in order to enjoy watching just one match? If not, then how much do you need to know? Should you understand the personal history of the two (or more) parties involved in the match? What about the names of moves? What about the ways those moves have been used in the past?

Well, what if you knew nothing? What if you didn’t know which wrestler came from which promotion, and had won such-and-such titles, had been in feuds with so-and-so? What if you’d never seen a pro-wrestling match or amateur contest at all, could it be possible to appreciate one specific match? Is this reality even possible? Can one look at a match separate from the company producing it, it’s relation to the other matches that night, and that matches place in an overall feud or company wide narrative?

Maybe it’s not possible to approach a match as a complete critical innocent, but should fans try to strive for this naive experience? I think it is a commendable pursuit. For one thing, it would take away any bias one would have built up through the years, and that’s a positive way to find a clear appreciation of a text. Maybe it’s just me and my new wild life outside of the pro-wrestling ‘grid’ but I think watching de-contextualized matches is highly evolved and academic way to be the best kind of wrestling watcher.

It’s an interesting experiment, and one that I planned to take up last week. So I will describe these matches by looking only what happened in the ring. I’m not even going to regard the names of the wrestlers in order to try and give you the experience of witnessing the issues and personality of a match from an unbiased and purely technical standpoint. Play along and try to guess if you’d like.

Match #22 – Sunday, April 26th
Short White Guy vs. Tall Asian Guy

This match took place in Japan, as the commentators, announcers, ringside crew, referee and audience are all Japanese. The Tall Asian Guy is a big chinned, pompadour-ed, swaggering svelt classically gladiator type, while the Short White Guy is gym teachery and certainly as pale as this nickname should make you imagine, with his dull cherry short hair coloring him conservative, and a stocky frame filling out the most traditional style of brief trunks.

The two men certainly used their limbs like interlocking chess pieces on game board bodies, inserting and counter-inserting for every possible grasp and hold. Certainly the match is entertaining to watch as both men struggle to get even the slimmest of advantage. A head scissors by the Asian Guy was particularly fun to watch, as you could see with each scraping wiggle, the ears of the White Guy start to turn inside out.

Finally it was the White Guy who got frustrated first, and he psyched a punch at the Asian Guy’s head, which the referee stepped in between, supposedly trying to call for some measure of sportsmanship. So they locked arms again and the White Guy was pushed back in the ring ropes, but this time he broke away from his opponent following a hard slap to the face. This turned into a fast paced exchange of throws that ended with the Tall Asian stomping on the befallen Short White Guy to the delight of the quickly energized crowd. Since the foreigner was the first to lose his cool, this indicated that the short guy, who seemed to be a formidable grappler, still couldn’t keep up with the wrestling skill of the Japanese. Up until this point the crowd had been responding to a respectful duel of wrestling skills, but this escalation effectively pushed the crowd safely into the camp of the Tall Asian.

A pool splashing dive by the White Guy landed not on the flat body of his opponent but on his strongly hoisted knees, which actually seemed to have winded whitey and left him lying on the mat for a flying knee strike and a big leg drop. After a few close flat shoulder counts by the referee, the two men rose up and found themselves in a lock and key battle for an ‘abdominal stretch,’ as they both showed their cunning and countering skills by finding appropriate suplexes to get out of each other’s clutches.

Just then, a man who appeared to be Arab and was carrying a chain, attempted to get in the ring, and while neither man seemed that distracted the entire ringside collection of onlooking wrestlers attempted to hold him back, and this caused quite a commotion. During this melee, the Asian Guy hit a vicious looking over the shoulder throw and got the White Guy’s shoulders to stay on the mat while the referee counted to three.

And thus the Tall Asian Guy won a very heavy looking, gold and green championship title belt.

Can you figure out which match this is? Some have said it doesn’t even exist. If you are still trying to guess, here’s a hint:

Match #23 – Monday, April 27th
Tall Asian Guy vs. Short White Guy

Some intriguing catch as catch can style wrestling started the match, resulting in stalemates with finger locks, body holds, and shoulder and elbow tie-ups. In a fantastic visual moment of near illusion, an attempted patient ankle lock by the Asian was slowly avoided by the White Guy, who then tried to get up from the canvas as the Asian Guy held onto his lower body, somehow morphing that attempted ankle lock into a perfectly applied ‘abdominal stretch’ hold. Although this is quickly hip-tossed out of by the White Guy, this early sequence showed the familiarity of the opponents, almost as if they were starting off directly where they had left off in a previous encounter.

The White Guy decided to focus on that ankle and leg from that point on, while the Asian Guy chose to grind out a headlock when he was in charge. While it sounds boring, the Japanese crowd in attendance were absolutely glued to every move and counter move in the match, as their periodic unglued eruptions truly drew me into the physical drama in the ring.

In the end, a mysterious Arab Guy runs out from the crowd and hits a few shots on the Asian Guy when he is outside of the ring. The Asian then scurried back onto the apron of the ring mat, just outside of the ropes, only to be clutched by the White Guy, lifted into the air and dropped crotch first onto the top rope, while the Arab Guy was still distracting the referee, most of the crowd and all the assembled wrestlers at ring side. Then the white guy covered the Asian in the middle of the ring, got the victory awarded to him by the referee and won the golden championship belt.

While the White Guy seemed overly proud of his cheap victory, the Japanese officials attempted to confiscate his title, regardless of the apparent protest by the referee that his ruling should stand. There seemed to be some drama about the true outcome of the match, but the noble Asian Guy didn’t seem to want to accept the belt under shady circumstances and motioned to the let the White Guy keep his championship.

Nonsense of the Week: Interference. Not sure why the interference is necessary for this one match. While it could be a bridge from this match to another feud, and a connection between matches in this series, it does hurt the actual integrity of this match as an independent text. While the matches were fantastic, the interference makes it hard for me to believe that a pro-wrestling match can stand outside of a specific context.

Match #24 – Tuesday, April 28th
Greasy Long Hair Whitey vs. Classy Short Hair Whitey

The two start off with some twisty arm holds and puzzle piece leg locks, leading to mostly physical stalemates, yet the Whitey with the short hair seemed to smirk with some seasoned confidence. Then, he started to dodge and avoid moves with ease getting into the head of his younger opponent, and showing through these precise physical movements that he is more of a veteran and technician with wrestling holds, and thus even though he is shorter, lighter, and carrying less muscle, the short haired wrestler had an air of assured confidence.

Greasy Long Hair persisted though, and finally got Classy Short Hair down and hit him with a precision foot stomp to his upper jaw. This led to a total transformation in the short haired Whitey, from a cocky confident veteran to that of an intensified and aggressive Doberman. No longer content just to out wrestle his opponent, he attempted some much more risky offensive moves, thus leading to many more mistakes and misses on his part than in the opening minutes. Each reversal or strike by Long Hair only seemed to add to the anger and aggression in Short Hair, leading to some crisp face slaps and punches, and a series of dives to the outside and from the top rope, as he became more willing to sacrifice his own health a little bit in order to get one big impacting move.

The early offense of the match paid off late as both men were nursing sore body parts near the end. Long Hair was limping on a bad ankle, yet he was able to reverse a top rope maneuver and land directly onto the jaw of Short Hair. As both men were recuperating, the ringside announcer proclaimed that there was only one minute left in the time limit.

The smaller man figure four-ed his legs around the taller man’s head and neck, and squeezed tightly. This move should seemingly have ended the match in favor of this master technician, but the slight strength advantage finally came into play for Long Hair after all, as Short Hair’s lack of focus on canceling out the arm strength of his opponent, came back to haunt him. The upper body strength of the greasy haired youngster allowed him to hoist up the short haired man, who was suctioned onto his face with his groin, and toss him into the corner turnbuckle. This broke the hold and sent both men to the mat just as the time keeper called for the bell on this exhausting time limit draw.

Match #25 – Wednesday, April 29th
White Mask vs. Leathery Face

The older looking, Leathery Face-d guy seemed to really enjoy the positive response he got from the crowd whenever he pummeled the White Mask-ed man, during the opening moments of the match. Yet it was the masked man who garnered the most response as he soared through the top and middle ropes, like a white angel swooping down on a demon, as the two collided and crushed shockingly into the unprotected fans at ringside.

Once back in the ring though, a quick swinging application of a wrenching arm bar got Leathery Face the submission victory in the first part of the match. Leathery Face seemed incredibly confident afterwards, dancing and chortling with his friend at ringside, but this celebration was premature, as the second wind attack of the Masked Man was overwhelming and lead to another quick, but technically perfect, arm-in-leg, twisting body cradle.

The third part of the match was filled with much more back and forth action, highlighted by a awe-inspiring trampoline back flip from the ring ropes to the outside by the Masked Man, and then some deadly kicking by Leathery Face. As the Masked Man seemed to be gaining the upper hand with some big tope rope jumps and close three counts by the referee on Leathery Face’s shoulders, he then seemed to decide to go for a submission hold by hoisting Leathery Face onto his back. Then the friend of the leathery-faced old guy jumped onto the side of the ring and distracted the referee. Inside the ring, Leathery Face ripped the mask right off of the head of the Masked Man, completely discombobulating him. As Masked Man tries to hide his face from the crowd, the old guy fell on top of him just as the referee returned and counted the Masked Man’s shoulders down for three slaps, giving the victory (and some kind of belt that appears to have been made in a high school shop class) to Leathery Face.

It was truly shocking to see just how protective the Masked Man was of his simple, white mask. He definitely put hiding his identity over the victory in the match. This action certainly calls into question just what is important when making an emotional investment in a wrestler. If something as fragile and superficial as this can stop a wrestler from trying to win, then there can be little hope that a match can conclude in a fulfilling fashion.

Genius of the Week: While pro-wrestling is not real, the moves should look as real as possible I guess, and that’s why I liked it when the Masked Man tapped out almost instantly to the first fall armbar, making the move seem as dangerous as a mixed martial arts submission.

Match #26 – Thursday, April 30th
Scruffy Bearded Guy in Full Length Trunks vs. Preppy Pudgy Clean Cut Guy in Briefs

The first man to the ring is a short, stocky guy with a grizzly beard and a weathered look of determination. In contrast, his opponent is taller and younger looking, with a common collegiate face and hair style, like you would see in the halls of any university dorm, along with an accompanying confident smirk, almost like he is saying, ‘look dude, you’re older than me, so you can’t be better.’

Clean Cut battled for a dominant headlock and squeezed with an eager pride, until a number of blurry reversals that give the aggressive upper hand to Scruffy. This sent the arrogant younger wrestler to the floor, outside the ring, obviously the loser of the previous exchanges he still smiled with overconfidence, kind of like a boxer or fighter who just got caught but naively thinks it was just a lucky shot.

Increasingly frustrated by his inability to out wrestle his opponent, Clean Cut was the first to throw a hard punch, take Scruffy to the floor, and slam his head into the television announcers table and then lay on top of him outside of the ring for an unsuccessful shoulder count by the referee. This occurrence obviously indicated that the rules for this match allow winning from outside of the ring.

Clean Cut grabbed a trash can lid from underneath the ring and crushed it on the skull of the slowly arising bearded man. That devastating blow actually invigorated Scruffy, like a late night knock on a hotel door, and he popped up and let loose with some furious karate chops to the chest that curled up his opponent with stinging pain. Clean Cut’s only escape is this match were the obviously allowed weapons and cheating, and thus he used a finger poke to the eyes of his opponent.

With the advantage, the younger wrestler used a series of chin locks and head squeezes that began to exhaust the top heavy older wrestler, who did escape but then had to attempt quicker, power strikes, rather than the counter hold wrestling he’d capitalized with in the beginning. Scruffy goes for more multiple chest chops, running body blocks, suplex throws, and a neck crunching super-suplex from the top rope. Even though Clean Cut had drained a lot of the energy out of his opponent while he was still quiet fresh, that offensive flurry pulled him equal to his opponent, as both tired warriors lay on the mat for a moment of unconscious evening out.

Scruffy got to his feet, climbed the corner turnbuckles and launched into the air for a flying headbutt, but his clean cut looking yet dirty playing opponent slyly positioned the same trashcan lid on his shoulder to reverse the impact of the landing blow. A clever glint shined in Clean Cut’s eyes, like a cobra bending down to strike, as he readied for some kind of special move, but the savvy veteran halted the momentum and took down the youngster, squirming by his wrists like a disciplined child. Scruffy then locked his fingers around Clean Cut’s face and pulled back, a move so squishing and painful looking that the frantic wrestler caught in the trap had no other choice but to submit to the referee and end the match.

Match #27 – Friday, May 1st
Blue Trunks & Orange Trunks vs. Green Trunks & White Tiger Striped Trunks

The match started off with the lanky, wild haired, White Tiger Striped Trunks going against the thin, dimple chinned, Blue Trunks. They went at it for a while, but then Blue Trunks tagged in his partner, the much larger and menacing Orange Trunks, a man seemingly out of place with his Conan O’Brien coiffed hair and weasely Errol Flynn moustache. With silent, wide-eyed intensity, he called for the equally large Green Trunks to tag in rather than match up with lighter Striped Trunks.

The strategy shown in this match was smart. One large heavyweight and a lighter weight wrestler worked together seamlessly. The big men attempted to make big strikes and particularly looked to use the outside area early to cause some big damage to each other, so they could set up to let the smaller wrestlers come in and be able to hold their own against the injured big man. In this case Green Trunks ended up with the advantage on the outside after a nifty square dance reversal with his partner off of an attempted Irish Whip into the ring barricade.

This then put Orange Trunks on the defense against double teams and quick attacks from Tiger Stripes, giving me great anticipation as to when the smaller Blue Trunks and excited was going to tag into the match. Once he was in there though, Tiger Stripes looked confident, especially because he knew the bigger partner was tired, and thus took some bigger chances, lured Blue Trunks into some sneak attacks and held the smaller man in one corner of the ring.

While this strategy might have finished off lesser teams, these four men are obviously at the top of their sport, so Blue and Orange were able to withstand this seclusion strategy. Thus in the final ten minutes it became as an intense as a playoff level back and forth, with two tied teams each looking for the one final big dagger shot that will put their weary opponent away (yes, I stayed up all night watching the Chicago and Boston epic). After a shocking sequence of big moves combinations and head and neck jarring slams and throws, the finale was a scary move by Orange Trunks on Green Trunks. Orange had Green’s whole body across his shoulders, with his chin cupped in one arm, and then he dropped to the ground with all of his weight on the head and neck, just driving the two combined bodies into that one pressure point, putting Orange Trunks undoubtedly out for the referees three count.

Match #28 – Saturday, May 2nd
One White Guy vs. Similar Looking White Guy

Blindly, I typed ‘wrestling match’ into youtube, and this was one of the first things that popped up.

This is the ultimate match to watch without any contextual knowledge, particularly because anyone who could have provided any anecdotal context for this event would be long dead. You may be able to see the names of the wrestlers here, but I challenge you to try and keep up with who is who in this silent, near colorless match. Hell, I challenge anyone to even try to watch this whole thing.

Or if you’ve really got balls you can watch the longer, dirtier version:
[Tip: it picks up at around 13:30]

Is there anything that can be learned from a match like this? Well, you can see that pro-wrestling at its core was about the sport and the fighting, and not the soap-opera aspect that we have come to rely on these days to drive the action. Mostly a match this old can be best appreciated as an athletic event, and that there is no need to get caught up in some poorly written, poorly acted, shock value, masochistic and sexist storytelling. In order to make a good wrestling match and appeal to a many people, all the match should have to do is successfully portray to sides trying with all of their might to win.

The pro-wrestling world that I have left behind was caught up in fabricating some outside drama to try and force some kind of magic moment in the ring, but time and time again, that formula fails to excite. What the wrestling of the olden days did was draw upon the concepts of real sport in order to create the conflicts and developments in the ring. At its best, some of these matches stood alone because they did not require much knowledge or back-story to understand the symbols, strategies and movements in the ring. Certainly real sports do not need script writers to produce quality events, as anyone could see this past week with most compelling entertainment in the world happening in the sports world: the Bulls/Celtics series, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin deuling in the NHL, and the Hatton vs. Pacquiao boxing match, these are the stories of athletes who train all the time and desperately want to win more than anything else in the world. That’s what I think modern pro-wrestling can learn from this ancient youtbue match, and from singling out matches to watch outside of the history and fabricated drama that we have to endure for ‘entertainment’ sake.

If you want to find out who was in these matches, check out my 411 Blog