Post by HMARK Center on May 8, 2019 9:11:54 GMT -5
I'm sure most of us have fallen down the rabbit hole that is TVTropes at one point or another, so I thought this would be a fun thought exercise: are there any notable tropes on the site that you'd like to see utilized in pro wrestling, or have seen and thought were really good?
I've got two in mind:
Well-Intentioned Extremist - I think this has been tried, but I feel like there's a lot of room for it to be used better. I feel like if TNA had been booked well back in the day, this is how Samoa Joe would've been booked during the Main Event Mafia angle when he started going with the Nation of Violence gimmick; he'd side with the other TNA originals against the MEM, but would keep going overboard to take down his enemies, to the point where he begins to question if his teammates are really committed to ridding the promotion of the Mafia, all leading to, let's say, someone like Styles ending the Mafia's reign and instantly having Joe set up as a challenger.
...Instead we had Joe joining the MEM and the whole storyline went to shit, because, well, lolTNA.
Feel like this trope could've been used well if The Elite had stuck around NJPW; Tanahashi and Omega were in a "battle of ideologies" leading to this year's Wrestle Kingdom, but it might've been fun to have Tanahashi oppose Kenny's philosophies in a principled way while bringing in another person or faction to oppose that philosophy in a more extreme way.
Godzilla Threshold - The idea that sometimes a threat comes along that's so dangerous that the good guys have no choice but to turn to desperate tactics or to another villain to combat the new threat. I really wanted to see this trope invoked back in 2005 during the original Summer of Punk in ROH, with Punk taunting the company and threatening to take the title with him to WWE, only for ROH to finally swallow its pride after awhile and turn to The Rottweilers (Homicide, Low Ki, and company) for help, with the Rottweilers remaining squarely heel but going after Punk because ROH promises them rewards for it. Granted, ROH did eventually kind of book this with Homicide's later face turn as he became the key to turning the tide in the war with CZW, but that story was more about Homicide becoming a babyface again than anything else.
Turning to NJPW again, I'd have loved to see this pulled during Jay White's title reign; White keeps having success because he knows how to connive against and counteract the typical tactics of honorable wrestlers like Okada or Tanahashi, but the one time he got the taste absolutely walloped out of his mouth was in the last G1 when he got torn apart by Minoru Suzuki, with the story told being "Jay fancies himself the new bad boy on the block, but the OG sends him back to school", as Suzuki's only honorable insofar as he'll say "You should be honored that I'm allowing you to die in the ring!". If White gets another, lengthier reign and Suzuki is still around, I'd love a story where the promotion essentially turns to Suzuki-gun as the only force cruel enough to unseat the Switchblade, regardless of whether it works or not.
I've got two in mind:
Well-Intentioned Extremist - I think this has been tried, but I feel like there's a lot of room for it to be used better. I feel like if TNA had been booked well back in the day, this is how Samoa Joe would've been booked during the Main Event Mafia angle when he started going with the Nation of Violence gimmick; he'd side with the other TNA originals against the MEM, but would keep going overboard to take down his enemies, to the point where he begins to question if his teammates are really committed to ridding the promotion of the Mafia, all leading to, let's say, someone like Styles ending the Mafia's reign and instantly having Joe set up as a challenger.
...Instead we had Joe joining the MEM and the whole storyline went to shit, because, well, lolTNA.
Feel like this trope could've been used well if The Elite had stuck around NJPW; Tanahashi and Omega were in a "battle of ideologies" leading to this year's Wrestle Kingdom, but it might've been fun to have Tanahashi oppose Kenny's philosophies in a principled way while bringing in another person or faction to oppose that philosophy in a more extreme way.
Godzilla Threshold - The idea that sometimes a threat comes along that's so dangerous that the good guys have no choice but to turn to desperate tactics or to another villain to combat the new threat. I really wanted to see this trope invoked back in 2005 during the original Summer of Punk in ROH, with Punk taunting the company and threatening to take the title with him to WWE, only for ROH to finally swallow its pride after awhile and turn to The Rottweilers (Homicide, Low Ki, and company) for help, with the Rottweilers remaining squarely heel but going after Punk because ROH promises them rewards for it. Granted, ROH did eventually kind of book this with Homicide's later face turn as he became the key to turning the tide in the war with CZW, but that story was more about Homicide becoming a babyface again than anything else.
Turning to NJPW again, I'd have loved to see this pulled during Jay White's title reign; White keeps having success because he knows how to connive against and counteract the typical tactics of honorable wrestlers like Okada or Tanahashi, but the one time he got the taste absolutely walloped out of his mouth was in the last G1 when he got torn apart by Minoru Suzuki, with the story told being "Jay fancies himself the new bad boy on the block, but the OG sends him back to school", as Suzuki's only honorable insofar as he'll say "You should be honored that I'm allowing you to die in the ring!". If White gets another, lengthier reign and Suzuki is still around, I'd love a story where the promotion essentially turns to Suzuki-gun as the only force cruel enough to unseat the Switchblade, regardless of whether it works or not.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61946227/Dqpaz_iVsAA04LW.0.jpg)