Matt D

In the smaller, more traditional sense, selling is the idea of "registering the effects of physical damage." Why would you cordon that off as opposed to "registering the physical or emotional effect of anything that happens in the match." It's using your body to register consequence. It feels like a really artificial fabrication to only look at how a wrestler responds to the effects of physical damage, even if that's the traditional metric. I don't care if if invalidates the debate(though I mean, I do appreciate that concern. And I think it can be mitigated if we extend offense/selling to "action/reaction."). I'm arguing that we, as a critical community, don't define or examine the idea of selling correctly and frankly never have.

There was an attempt to start a Moolahtruth hashtag back during her mention on Holy Foley but it didn't much traction and Sasha mentioned her in her "retirement" speech a few weeks later anyway.

I'm not willing to go on this ride with you, at least not to the end. All wrestling can be looked at with a framework: 1. What are the tools used? 2. How are they used? 3. What is the effect/impact of their use? If you look at things that way, you can judge across styles. Thumbtacks can be a tool. A long headlock sequence can be as well. (Maybe elements would be a better term)? I agree with you in that you almost have to be subjective on the first question. Admit that you prefer one toolset over another. Try to understand and seperate out and organize the tools in the match you're watching regardless of whether it's a style you like. I think you can be far more objective in a comparative sense when it comes to the second and third questions.

I don't think it's meaningless at all. I think narrowly cutting off a chunk of "reacting" and calling it "selling," thereby undervaluing the rest, as has been done for almost the entirety of the history of wrestling analysis is far more meaningless. I think that the fallacy here might be limiting offense in the same way. We should probably be shifting to an "action/reaction" duality instead of "offense/selling," as heel stalling that draws heat with the crowd or that frustrates a heel are just as valid as an action as a suplex.

re: Elliott. I'd say selling is about creating meaningful consequence to everything that happens in the ring. It's reaction to every new bit of information. And that's to more than just "offense."

Even the UK in the 70s where there were so many matches that absolutely would never make TV all around the country on any given night. It's an element of British wrestling I feel like we don't have the least bit sense of. We're the blind man touching the elephant with WoS.

If a wrestler's offense is strong enough (Vader), no one's selling can ruin it. If a wrestler's offense is weak enough (Raja Lion), no one's selling can save it. Were I to grant that as true (and I'm not feeling inclined to), it would be highly exceptional.

Strong selling makes poor offense not poor. Weak selling makes great offense meaningless.

I like the word connection. I'd toss in symbolism and consequence in there somewhere.

I'd want to see all of those Tuesday night shows when Portland was hot.

Bruce, Did you get a chance to check out the Atlas/Stomper/Gino/Slater matches and the Guerreros/Sheepherders one? Really special crowd reactions. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

I'm capped on my wrestling budget right now (though I do have some amazon buys I need to fess up to over the last few weeks like those kids' clothing labels; totally me) but I bet this is a really great show. It's exactly the sort of content that would drive me to support more directly were I currently able (and not, you know, two months behind anyway).

Ah if only the logistics of being in Australia and Baltimore worked out a bit better. They're already in from their GWE stuff should it ever happen. It's not the timezones so much as Matt and I specifically. He's exclusively available during the day at work, which is smack dab in the middle of the night for me, so it's just the worst kind of timing. I was so keen for GWE that I sucked it up and recorded through the wee hours, but it's not something I could do on a regular basis. Yeah, sorry guys, my wrestling/work/life balance isn't nearly as settled as a lot of you. I also have this awesome four year old always climbing on my head almost every second I'm at home. I didn't used to be so old. And here I was about to suggest BROCK TALK where I review every recorded match of Brock Lesnar ever. Stacey's right though. There's just no time. (But seriously, Stacey and Elliott doing something would be awesome. They are the great thinkers. Maybe looking at a variety of niche/underexplored on podcasts corners of wrestling from a match analysis POV. Something like "around the world...")

Sheepherders vs Guerreros is amazing. I have no idea how a riot didn't break out. So much heat, so much support. The very best jingoistic BS to start for the first five minutes before they even lock up, and when they do, the crowd is going absolutely nuts for every tiny bit of the shine. I should probably write more about this later. It's not a 5 star match. The heat's a little short. Everything's sort of sloppy (but in a good way, just not a great one) for the finishing stretch. Luke didn't entirely maximize the selling of his leg at certain points (Butch was selling the USA chants in his body language like only he could. He's hugely underrated in that regard). None of that matters though. There's nothing better in wrestling than a molten crowd during a tag match. Everyone should drop what they're doing and watch it.

For $20 a month they should also send a babysitter to the house so I have time to watch this crap.

I'm pretty sure it was shortly before 1980, but our footage is so scattered.

Pak Song vs Hito was a nice novelty. The Hart promo was very good. The match itself wasn't particularly good as a showcase for Pak Song. Hito took a lot from underneath and I wonder if they were seeing if the crowd might get behind him. Boesch had fun with it I think. On to Stomper vs Atlas. This was a really fun Clash of the Titans. The stuff with the hat was great. Atlas worked SO big and this match was meant for that. Stomper's body language played right into it. The post match was very cool and lead to the even cooler Atlas promo and Gino vs Slater. I won't spoil the end but it was a month and a half or so before one of them showed up again so the stip was met. Look, we don't always know the Houston context like we do with Memphis or Florida but there are special nights. This, to me, felt like a special night, much like the Mil vs Tully video from a while ago did. It felt like Buddy Rose losing his hair in Portland or the Midnight Rider winning the world title but refusing to unmask in Florida. The crowd was amazing in this and they were probably buzzing for weeks after it. I had no idea there was a moment like this just sneaking up on us

Here's my more or less final GWE thought on "working smart" (That was from the "What did you learn from GWE thread" there's a lot in the anti-workrate thread too from myself and others.

I don't want it! I want them to push Dustin again!

Goldberg's facing Brock at Survivor Series (likely to set up a bigger Brock vs Shane match, keeping in mind that Shane was the biggest draw at the last Mania, apparently). I think the business model is a little unstable currently, no?

Elliott's post (strong as always) made me revisit the the Bryan GWE thread. It was really good at times (even if personally, I didn't back my stuff up enough).

Shawn's logic, which may or may not have been BS, was that the student vs teacher story, no matter how primal it might be, was something everyone had seen before. Part of me thinks he just never felt much of a connection to Bryan, despite "training" him. On the other hand, I could see him wanting to work with AJ so they could tell some sort of thinly veiled, not all that deep, Christian parable or something.

There's just so much out there. I watched hours and hours of matches but he didn't come up.

The other night I watched my first Matt Riddle match ever and my first Catweazle match ever in the span of 30 minutes. While I though the Riddle match (vs John Silver) was okay, with an especially fun finishing stretch, just based on stylistic preferences alone, I'm almost 100% certain I'm going to watch another Catweazle match before I watch another Matt Riddle match.