Different Psychologies: What Works For You and What Doesn't

I've started to struggle with lucha matwork for how it often comes across to me as two guys putting on an exhibition of all the wacky holds they can do. This is kind of frustrating as I used to love watching lucha matwork, but it's kind of gone the way of NOAH juniors in that it was some of my favorite stuff a decade but it hasn't been rewarding to revisit. It bothers me how they almost never bother selling bodyparts and often tapout instantly upon applying certain holds, yet still insist on working these long mat exchanges where guys spend long periods sitting in ineffective holds. The shoot-style fan in me can't help but wonder they why aren't just going for the match-ending holds out of the gate and building the drama around getting said holds fully applied. The explanation I've heard is that matwork is wrestled like that because it's about oneupsmanship, but that's the same explanation I've heard about long Kurt Angle suplex-fests, and they both have about the same level of appeal to me.

Mask matches are alright when there's a good atmosphere and it feels like there's a lot at stake, but I'm usually taken out of it by how the last fall is always worked 50/50 regardless of what came before it. I often get the feeling of matches degrading into a collection of spots with how they turn into guys hitting a move, getting a count, and then laying around before repeating the process. It perplexes me how people might speak out against stuff like Undertaker Wrestlemania epics for being too near-fall heavy yet heap praise on mask matches that are much worse about it.

Bossrock said:

First, in response to this "have found myself more drawn to the shoot-inspired yet still somewhat traditional wrestling of BattlArts."

I would strongly recommend checking out UWF 1.0 in detail. They haven't fully developed the style yet and are still trying to figure out what works. You'll see a ton of piledrivers, elbow drops, knee drops, body slams, and traditional Pro-Wrestling moves. Even the occasional dive off the top rope. Guys like Perro Aguayo, Gran Hamada, Misioneros de la Muerte, Dutch Mantell, Bob Sweetan, MS-1, Scott Casey, Mark Lewin, Leo Burke etc all work UWF 1.0. UWF 1.0 is much more similar to BattlArts than it is to late period RINGS or even UWF 2.0

On the bolded part...This isn't true. There are allegedly a few occasions in RINGS where the finish was pre-determined but they'd go out and have a "fight." But it really wasn't a fight....it was more sparring. An actual fight would have guys actually trying to knock each other out which you can't do if you have a pre-determined finish.

Beyond that, every shoot style match I've seen you can tell the guys are clearly cooperating with each other. They leave themselves open for counters and transitions to keep the pace of the match moving in ways they clearly wouldn't if you're in a real shoot fight. I remember waaaaay back in the day jdw would talk about guys "feeding a limb" to someone. This was a way to describe when Wrestler A is controlling a sequence but he clearly leaves an arm, a leg, hand, ankle, neck, (whatever) clearly open or available or even manueveurs it into a better position for a counter in order for Wrestler B to snatch it and build to a counter. It isn't overt and is sometimes imperceptible, but if you are watching closely or have watched enough of it and are familiar with what real MMA looks like, you can absolutely see it happening. The highest end guys like Tamura, Kohsaka and Han you can barely tell they're doing it, but it is how they made the style work. Every "shoot style match" you've seen the guys are cooperating 100% as much as Flair and Jumbo Tsuruta cooperated with people in the 80s and AJ Styles & Okada do today.

When MMA became all the rage in Japan and some of the shoot style guys started working actual MMA matches, this reality of shoot style cooperation manifested itself. Kiyoshi Tamura was the best shoot style wrestler ever and actually has at least one match (off the top of my head) that people aren't sure to this day if they were works or shoots. But when he went into real shoots, his career was hurt by two things. The first being the lack of weight divisions in Japan leading him to fight much bigger guys all the time that just wore him down. The other thing was that he had a rep for leaving himself open for his opponent because it had become second nature for him due to his time in UWFi & RINGS leaving himself open.


I understand your point of view, but I respectfully disagree with it. I mean, I don't really see how something like Vader vs Takada isn't performance art but Vader vs Sting is?

One of the big things I'm struggling with is where to rank the best RINGS matches. Personally, my favorite matches are wild out of control brawls. If you told me two previously unseen Terry Funk classics were just found, one a brawl in Puerto Rico with Invader 1 and the other an title match against Nick Bockwinkel, I'm watching the Invader 1 match first. Stuff like Hansen vs Andre, Dump vs Chigusa, Empty Arena, Magnum vs Tully etc will rank super duper high on my list.

But when I watch the great shoot stylists like Tamura, Volk Han & Kohsaka, I think it is the highest level of wrestling performance art there is. It is the most consistently "realistic" pro wrestling to ever exist on film in terms of "looking" like real fighting (which at its core, is what pro wrestling is: pretend fighting) while still having the flair, drama, and excitement of cooperative pro wrestling. Every great shoot style match ever would have been worse if it was an actual shoot.



This is all fair and not really stuff I can argue against because it just comes back to opinion. All that stuff that doesn't work for you, works for me. Different strokes, to each his own, all that stuff.



Agreed with this. Lucha brawls are the best. I'll have a bunch on my list and will rank them really highly. Chicana vs MS-1 will be my #1 and there are another 5 or 6 I'd consider for the top 20. If this was a strictly favorites list, it'd be like half lucha brawls.

I disagree with the rest about lucha title matches and mat work. The best lucha mat work is my favorite style of mat work after the best shoot style mat work. There's a beauty and grace to the best lucha mat work that you don't find in Japanese or US style mat work that makes it more balletic. I see and understand the often used "too cooperative" critique, but it is something that doesn't bother me in good lucha mat work. Obviously when its shitty,  its shitty. But that's the case for any style. Personally, I've always loved stuff like Santo and Blue Panther rolling around on the ground together.

I get it. And there are absolutely exceptions. Casas vs Santo 91 & 97 standing out for some completely brutal mat work. Satanico is another guy who is great at building drama through intense mat work. I'd recommend the Gran Cochise match of course, but even more so the 83 Sangre Chicana match and the 1992 Pierroth Jr match. The Pierroth match in particular is an awesome match.

What I like about the more balletic beautiful lucha mat work is that it is so different from all the other mat work. But I get not digging it.

It's funny, because for the longest time I never understood the hype with Santo-Casas '97 but on a recent re-watch I loved it. The submission work is great but to me that's not even the best part. It's the stuff in between where their hatred boils over and they just smack the shit out of each other.