MMA/Boxing Style of Booking

[Hit Girl]

Everything needs to be simplified. One finisher should be enough to win matches.

[Reflecto]

Nov 21, 2016 12:01:51 GMT -5 CuJ0 Will Keep Dancing said:

I keep seeing the booking last night being compared to a MMA/boxing fight.

But that narrative only works on a champion sleeping on a young and hungry prospect. There are countless examples of those.

Instead this is a guy coming out of retirement after 12 years, against a guy that semi regularly competes. It would be like Chuck Liddell coming out retirement and taking out Jon Jones in under a minute. Sure there's a one percent chance of that happening but even Jones using minimal effort, the fight would still be a cakewalk for him.

Pro wrestling seems to be the opposite of any other competitive martial art in that the wrestlers of the past are seemingly better than this generation (in kayfabe). Unlike MMA were training methods have evolved, techniques evolved, it's not easy to keep up as your body starts to slow down.

The MMA comparison would work if it was someone like Corbin upsetting Lesnar. What happened was just your typical wrestling fantasy booking.

But that also ties to the other level of an MMA/Boxing style of booking: There'd have to be FAR, FAR, FAR more upsets, and that would rarely happen due to politics, due to not going all in with lowcarders, and that wrestling IS partially a star system and you need some bigger stars.

For it to work well, you'd need to go all out with it, with the "any man with two hands has a fighting chance" thing- because there'd need to be that 1 in 1 billion shot that yes, a James Ellsworth-type local jobber (and not even an "NXT guy making his debut", or even "Performance Center/Florida guy in his debut", but a local guy you're not even signing afterwards) could suddenly get one lucky punch in and beat Roman Reigns clean as a sheet.

That also happens to be the same problem with Lesnar/Goldberg, simply because:

Lesnar DID take Goldberg too softly, but at the same time there really was no luck in the matter, even through Lesnar as a UFC performer.

The biggest line on Lesnar from his UFC run was that he was a dominant performer, but his diverticulitis meant he had an incredibly glaring weak spot (a good shot to the gut and he's toast)- and his UFC run falling did prove that.

Convert that to pro wrestling logic, and it becomes: "If the performer has a reliable Spear and can hit that on Lesnar, Lesnar's DONE." (And before this, the one person who came closest to toppling Lesnar- Roman Reigns- also happens to be the person who uses a Spear.)

Goldberg, on the other hand, is not just in WWE the person with THE BEST spear in the company, but also the only one willing to actually start a match out using that Spear...and by that point, Lesnar was absolutely trapped.

[CuJ0 Will Keep Dancing]

Nov 21, 2016 16:13:33 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

But that also ties to the other level of an MMA/Boxing style of booking: There'd have to be FAR, FAR, FAR more upsets, and that would rarely happen due to politics, due to not going all in with lowcarders, and that wrestling IS partially a star system and you need some bigger stars.

For it to work well, you'd need to go all out with it, with the "any man with two hands has a fighting chance" thing- because there'd need to be that 1 in 1 billion shot that yes, a James Ellsworth-type local jobber (and not even an "NXT guy making his debut", or even "Performance Center/Florida guy in his debut", but a local guy you're not even signing afterwards) could suddenly get one lucky punch in and beat Roman Reigns clean as a sheet.

That also happens to be the same problem with Lesnar/Goldberg, simply because:

Lesnar DID take Goldberg too softly, but at the same time there really was no luck in the matter, even through Lesnar as a UFC performer.

The biggest line on Lesnar from his UFC run was that he was a dominant performer, but his diverticulitis meant he had an incredibly glaring weak spot (a good shot to the gut and he's toast)- and his UFC run falling did prove that.

Convert that to pro wrestling logic, and it becomes: "If the performer has a reliable Spear and can hit that on Lesnar, Lesnar's DONE." (And before this, the one person who came closest to toppling Lesnar- Roman Reigns- also happens to be the person who uses a Spear.)

Goldberg, on the other hand, is not just in WWE the person with THE BEST spear in the company, but also the only one willing to actually start a match out using that Spear...and by that point, Lesnar was absolutely trapped.

As far as booking goes, it's true that it would be a really tricky thing to do. You could make the argument that anyone within the top 10 of each their respective weight class could beat each other on any given night but ideally an athlete will get a title shot after going on a nice win streak or putting on some stellar performances (I've starting caring less about UFC when they started handing out title shots based on trash talk rather than accomplishment but that's a whole other issue). The thing with wresting now is that there's so much content it's hard to replicate that kind of scenario.

I know we try to rationalize things here but at some point you just got to chalk it up to pro wrestling not making any sense a lot of the time. We also know from Brock's fights that he doesn't take getting hit in the face well either but somehow managed to survive getting his face busted open from hitting a metal ring post, taking three superman punches, then taking two spears and still kicking out vs taking two spears and a jackhammer while still being fresh as a daisy. It just is what it is.

[Shark]

Nov 21, 2016 9:55:20 GMT -5 YAKMAN is ICHIBAN said:

I love it.

I'd also love for submissions to work more like MMA. No shame in tapping when it is a choice between tapping or having your arm broken.

This actually was the norm for a while. Del Rio would get people in the arm bar and they'd tap almost right away.

[MAGGLE]

If I want realism I'd watch UFC. I'll take 30min matches with 29min beatdown and 1min comeback over this