On last week's episode of the Steve Austin Show, he spent the majority of it talking about the lack of wrestling psychology in the current product. At the 34 minute mark, he goes on to highlight how some of the women on the main roster: Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, Paige, and Charlotte, consistently tell better stories than the men. Cliffnotes are below:
Sasha Banks is Steve Austin's favorite because she's the total package and encompasses all facets of pro wrestling
Sasha is nasty when she gets heat, she takes her time, and she has presence and swagger
The women are utilizing more emotions, being vicious, selling their asses off, telling better stories, and actually wrestling
The commentators failed to draw attention to Sasha grabbing Becky's tights and completely defeated the purpose of her cheating. Austin was also annoyed at Becky Lynch cracking jokes backstage with The New Day after her loss. If she doesn't care, why should we?
Most of the men go through spots like they're playing a video game
Austin is still irritated by the constant use of big moves by the guys that would have been finishes in the old days(ie Ziggler's DDT)
The men need to stop telegraphing all of their moves and going through them in sequential order
The men let the crowd control them instead of controlling the crowd
The men need to be more focused on getting cheers for the babyface and boos for the heels than "This is awesome" chants
There's just enough to get you started and spark some discussion. I agree with Austin and I thoroughly enjoy his "lack of psychology in wrestling" rants. Spamming big moves is really irritating and devalues their power. If we see 3 Superkicks and DDTs in a match and no one ever gets a pin off of it, why should we care? Back when big moves like this were hit last decade, there would be a point where both wrestlers would sell the effects of the match and there would be a 10 count to protect the moves. Now, there's immediately a cover that never leads to a 3 count, which removes the dramatic aspect of the match.
They really should give austin a "trainer" job or something. He needs to help out the roster. If I was a wrestler I'd listen to everything says. I may hate him can't deny that he got over in a big way, if you have a chance to get taught by one of the most popular wrestlers of all time, you damn sure better take that chance.
This is so true. To me the Bayley and Sasha matches were not only the best women's matches in WWE but perhaps some of the best matches in pro wrestling history. Especially the Ironman one, Xavier said on UpUpDwnDwn it was the greatest match her ever saw and that Breeze also agreed with it.
There should some be some sort of hierarchy for superstars that employ multiple "big time moves". Like if Dolph is going against a jobber/very low midcarder, I don't see why he shouldn't be able to end the match with a superkick. A little tougher opponent maybe he has to pull out the jumping DDT. And then with the toughest opponents is when he's forced to pull out the zig-zag. If they're all sold as devastating moves that should end the match there's no reason he needs to use all 3 every match against weak opponents.
The funny thing is that the Zig Zag is by far the least devastating move of the 3.
SCSA is spot on about this too. There should be matches that randomly end with a sick DDT or a superkick or powerbomb ect., a non-finishing but devastating basic move being put over would be best for business.
The Women always seem that little bit hungrier in my opinion. It wasn't until last year that I started to appreciate good women's wrestling and I have AJ, Sasha, Becky, Paige Bayley, Charlotte etc to thank for that.
Gone are the days when a women's match was my scheduled toilet break, these days it's usually the main reason I tune in.
Legit Boss must of got a thrill that Austin's favourite is Banks lol. But in all seriousness no shit. Other then Bray Wyatt. The women shit over the men at present. Sasha, Paige. Becky e.t.c. Best Story Tellers for me at present. Wyatt I mentioned, as he is the definition of psychology. I agree with his sentiment of big guys using moves that would be finishers in the day.
Other then Bray Wyatt. The women shit over the men at present. Sasha, Paige. Becky e.t.c. Best Story Tellers for me at present. Wyatt I mentioned, as he is the definition of psychology.
No, he isn't. At the 1 hour 20 minute mark, Austin goes on to talk about how Wyatt's vague in ring promos do nothing for his feuds. All of the people saying "Oh if you don't get Wyatt you're just stupid" are the ones who fail to recognize why his promos fall on deaf ears now. Austin said, as I have been saying for over a year, that Wyatt sometimes just needs to come out and say "I'm gonna kick your ass this Sunday." No one cares to hear you talk in riddles when you do nothing to back it up.
The last time I watched, I saw Paige & Charlotte & thought to myself; Christ, although the story-telling is off key, this is like the only actual story in WWE where it feels authentic & not just filler just to reach RR & WM.
He's definitely right about the crowd controlling matches instead of vice versa. I don't really know why he's singling out women for being better when all of their main roster matches suck and have dead crowds, but I guess he's just on the women agenda bandwagon as well.
The point about guys wrestling for "This is awesome" chants is so true. This roster is so clueless on crowd interaction. It's why the best face wrestling performances of the year came from heel Seth Rollins :lol
He's definitely right about the crowd controlling matches instead of vice versa. I don't really know why he's singling out women for being better when all of their main roster matches suck and have dead crowds, but I guess he's just on the women agenda bandwagon as well.
The point about guys wrestling for "This is awesome" chants is so true. This roster is so clueless on crowd interaction. It's why the best face wrestling performances of the year came from heel Seth Rollins :lol
I think he's referring to their NXT work, because they certainly don't get enough time on the main roster, that's for sure. Their main roster matches are short, heatless, piles of SHIT, even with the NXT females on the main roster. NOTHING has changed in that regard.
Put the main roster men in NXT and the NXT women on the main roster; and this would be the other way around. That's all it is, the NXT in ring style vs. the main roster in ring style.
Why is Austin talking about the past anyway? The NXT women's matches are a thing of the past, minus Bailey. They're all on the main roster now. A more equal comparison would be those same NXT women who have been on the main roster for months now vs. the main roster men.
@swagger_ROCKSThe thing is, the NXT women had logical and well developed storylines and their mannerisms, selling, and wrestling ability only enhanced those, which still makes their 2014 showings better than those of the main roster guys. The main roster guys are starting at a deficit with shitty storylines, but also don't help themselves when they just go through the motions and do moves for the sake of doing them. Austin is primarily talking about matches and not the storylines. The women continue to tell better stories through their matches even with mediocre storylines. That's what he's getting at here.
whilst I agree the NXT women had some great psychology in there matches and the way the told stories, I would have to say MOST in NXT do. Currently the tag division is white hot, Gable and Jordan are killing it with their in ring pcychology and the way The Mechanics are booked is tremendous. The division has the potential to be as big as the women's division has been.
Not only that but I still think the best booked feud in terms of story telling was Owens vs Zayn. The way they made Owens look like a cold blooded sadistic prizefighter and have him win by a stoppage was an incredible scene. It actually worked so well, and it's added the hype for Zayn's return, I mean we are still talking about a rematch for the IC title now.
Why the fuck are freelance bloggers & people who wrote for TV shows like "Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels" involved in WWE's creative? Guys like Austin and Raven should be apart of WWE's creative. smh.
I have to say whenever Dolph does his DDT I want rip my hair out, the guy has nuked one of the best finishers ever, and turned it a useless move. He doesn't even use It as a transition, it's just a thing.
As for the women, Austin, Nail, Head! Bayley/Sasha was an old school wrestling. Selling, psychology A goddamn wrestling match. The rest of the roster needs to step shit up
He's dead right, to be honest. Sasha vs Bayley was the last match that i was genuinely 'wowed' by, which meant that the iron woman match was the first match for quite a while that i was actually looking forward to watching due to how good the first one was. It's the little things, too. In the Unstoppable Banks v Lynch match, both of them targeted the other's arms, Sasha was selling her injury right until she went backstage, and Becky was selling it so well that she was actually wrestling with one arm at the end, which ultimately contributed to the end of the match with her being dragged off the turnbuckle. Why is this so hard to pull off for other wrestlers? There's a distinct lack of them that seem to 'get' selling.
The current group of women are a really special crop, and it's largely down to them that i personally have really started caring about women's wrestling again, because there's actual TALENT there now. I'm generally as, if not more entertained by them as i am watching the majority of the men.
I usually agree with Austin but what is the point he is trying to make?
Does he not realize that most of the matches in modern WWE have so little story, purpose or emotional investment to them that the wrestlers have had to adapt their styles to keep the audience engaged?
It's all well and good to say wrestlers should be working these slower matches but most of these 'feuds' lack a story or purpose.
Austin could go out and brawl for 20 minutes with HHH because we were all invested in that story and in their fight. They'd have weeks of back and forth, the commentators would sell how much they hated each other and when they teed off on each other the crowd were hooked.
Now we get Cesaro coming out to wrestle Kevin Owens. No history, commentators ain't selling shit and the crowds have been tamed beyond belief since the days of Austin.
Are they supposed to go out there and work an old school match and bore them to tears?
The way the wrestlers are getting the fans to care at the moment is through their athleticism. They don't have the writing the AE era guys had. In most cases they don't have any help at all in that department.
This was a petty criticism imo and Austin hasn't bothered to take into account why the matches are being structured in the manner that they are.
The guys working there now are not idiots who have forgotten how to play a heel or a face. They have had to adapt to crowd reactions. Isn't that the aim of wrestling? To engage the crowds?
Old school face and heel dynamics and slowly worked matches have a place but when you are being sent out to work a 12 minute match on RAW with a guy you have no story with then it makes all the sense int he world to try and give the fans a more athletic performance rather than trying to get them invested in stomps and chinlocks.
He made a great point about the announcers, and not just as it pertains to the women. They usually spend most of a match just bickering among themselves, occasionally calling a spot, but usually missing the important stuff, such as helping to sell the psychology aspect of the matches (where there actually is some psychology, that is). Like the match itself is an afterthought. They are a major annoyance, especially JBL -- though I'm sure most of that is some asshole backstage in his earpiece. But the announcers for the most part are one more example of things WWE does seemingly intentionally to make the product more unbearable. Again, like HHH and Stephanie, they keep calling attention away from the workers who should be getting it.
Beyond that, I'd have to agree with most of what Austin says, except for some of the women he mentioned being better at selling -- I think Charlotte still has a long way to go in that regard.
Beyond that, I'd have to agree with most of what Austin says, except for some of the women he mentioned being better at selling -- I think Charlotte still has a long way to go in that regard.
Come to think of it, i do remember myself being quite annoyed at the way Charlotte randomly recovered from an Alabama Slam on the ring apron at HiAC...
Picture a car ride with guys like Austin, Rick Rude, Curt Hennig, Pillman.... etc, discussing and dissecting the business. Nash said he learned a ton on the road from these older guys when he was a rookie, and even Brock on his recent podcast with Austin put over Henning and Bossman, who he road with and learned from.
Now picture a car full of some of the newer guys and what they must talk about. Austin would probably wish he had hair to pull out if he had to sit in with this newer group of talent. They are really talented in what they can do in the ring, but I really doubt they understand the business nearly as well as the older generation.
Bobby Heenan was absolutely right when he said they let too many marks into the business.
I love Steve and agree with him but...let's be honest. Why are the women better storytellers? Because they honed their craft on NXT where they care about WRESTLING. WWE cares about entertainment, which is why they place everyone in terrible storylines and they don't get over. To be honest, NXT is aimed at wrestling fans, which is why we're fans of it. Raw isn't, and that's why we hate it. But truthfully, the women haven't been given anything of substance while on the main roster. Not only that, but despite their longer matches and more emphasis, nothing they've done, in or out of the ring, has blown me away now that they've been called up. Its a bit better, but the stories that made NXT great aren't there and neither is the quality of wrestling, really. I mean, Charlotte vs Paige should have been great, and it was just alright.
On the other hand, guys like Neville were really hot on NXT and are mid card geeks on the main roster.
Point is, when you're upgraded to the main roster, you're fucked. I definitely agree with him that its all just "movez" these days, also. Been saying that since January.
I don't think it is the talents fault only, it's not a kevin owens thing, or a neville thing... every male wrestler is doing the same thing, and working the same style even on PPV matches, people don't like to talk about roman reigns in that regard, but that match with Ambrose in survivor series is a BIG, BIG example of the "spotty heavy and no story type of match", i think the main roster follows a pattern of how to work a match nowadays and every tallent is following this formula, and nobody is willing to change that, or having the complete freedom to do it
even guys that didn't rely on this specific style are being labelled now as a "spotmonkey" by some, like Cesaro... when back in 2013/14 he was working on a totally different style, constantly doing limb works even on pointless matches on main event or superstars, but after being more recognized by WWE management, and being pushed as a face, started to work more of a spotty, fast pace style like everybody else on the roster... hell i still remember daniel Bryan saying that the company didn't want him to sell his arm during the ME of WM, because he would look too weak or something like that... i agree that some wrestlers has problems with storytelling but lately everyone is wrestling the same style...
I don't see this kind of thing changing, especially with fans nowadays chanting "this is awesome" for the most simple exchange of moves and kickout fests, at least not until someone experienced talk about this with the roster on the backstage and demand a change, and it wouldn't be for a weak cause, i mean the company has lost a lot of wrestlers throughout the year because of constant injuries and i believe it was partially because of the said style
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