Ok, I was reading an essay on wrestling in the book Steel Chair to the Head at Barnes and Noble the other day. There was an essay by an ex-wrestler about "working." He gives a really basic idea of ring psychology, using the headlock, shoot to the ropes, shoulderblock spot which actually made sense.

In his essay, though, he makes an interesting point. He rants on younger wrestlers (SURPRISE) for not learning basic psychology. He makes a compelling argument that the wrestlers saying that "The business has evolved" are basically using that as a copout. That they're not determined enough to learn good psychology.

The question to ask is, is that a copout? Has wrestling evolved? Paul Heyman once thought that the heel/face dichotomy had been eliminated, but Raven's character showed him that it hadn't. Is this situation similar? Are we just waiting on one wrestler, or a few wrestlers, to prove that psychology hasn't evolved?

There are still guys around with solid psychology. Basically when that goes away you'll have all spot-fests.

It's one positive aspect of WWE's training. I think they nail pyschology into the kids head, even at the sake of making them boring.

Wrestling can't evolve beyond basic psychology. Wrestling is too simple and that's honestly the only way you are going to get anyone to care about it. Otherwise it's the same thing as choreographed dancing or syncronized swimming.

All of wrestling to determined by the spots made, not by the psychology.

See, the essay didn't say that there wasn't anyone who used psychology left, it just said that a lot of the indy workers and the younger workers use things like "The business has evolved" as an excuse for not being better. I mean, most of us watch indy wrestling, do you think this is an honest complaint from the past generation to the current and upcoming generation?

I honestly think that the problem with the majority of the indy guys is that they are too set in their ways. I mean, anyone can watch tapes of anything...........if you aren't knowledgable or not paying attention....you won't pick up what you need to.

So basically guys don't get any better because they have no understanding of the actual business.

You lost me on that. Care to clarify your meaning?

The young guys would rather learn MOVES than how to work a match. That's basically the problem. It's all the "let's see how many super burning hammers you can kick out of" as opposed to "so this is the story we're trying to convey here for the viewers..." mentality.

Pretty much. Don't get me wrong - I liked Special K. Special K was like having my own personal spot monkeys, but their matches usually didn't tell a story.

I forgot who said it, but if you're going to pull 450 splashes, powerbombs, and all sorts of big moves 2 minutes into the match, you have nothing to build up to for the crowd, and you pretty much just fucked the match from being anything more than your common throw-away spotfest that 80% of the (bad) Indy wrestlers do on a nightly basis.

It's moves like that that Spyder died from.

Recently I was watching On the Road w/AJ Styles and he made a really good point that should be thrown out there to every kid on the indy's.

He said that someone told him when he was breaking in the business "You have to learn the basics first. If you have no knowledge of the basics you won't make any money. If you know the basics you can at least put together a little match and get paid. Otherwise, you're doing stuff just to do it and nobody is gonna think you know what you're doing".

I think that sums it up VERY well.

I think the biggest problem is not the spotfests, it's people going out there and looking like they're performing a wrestling match instead of wrestling one. That's probably the biggest reasons I don't really the indies. You have to just let go and wrestle instead of doing stuff just to look good. It's worse than dudes going out there and doing spotfests, because at least they're just doing it to entertain people instead of trying to make themselves look like good wrestlers.

That sounds a lot like what HHH, HBK, Arn Anderson, and Michael Hayes told CM Punk a few months ago.

Yeah, but those guys were acting like Punk was the fucking antichrist or something. I'm no Punk fanboy or anything but he's definately a good worker. I've seen enough of his stuff from the last few years to feel comfortable enough to say that. He may not be what the WWE thinks that it needs, but that doesn't mean shit honestly.

And to a degree, they are right.

That was well said, Colcollazo.