hey,
big fan of the blog, you're awesome, and the like. I grew up a big wrestling fan and hadn't been around it much since the WWF became WWE, and you're blog and the community around it have re-invigorated my passion for the business. This is in response to your freshly written article in Pro Wrestling Press.
Ok, so the idea behind the irish whip is hard to explain, but to get to the heart of the psycology, you gotta think of the "whip into the stairs on the outside" spot, and Bret's chest-into-turnbuckle spot.
Let's start by assuming that it is as hard to vertically suplex someone as it is to throw their body forward by pulling one arm while pushing on their back. If someone tried to irish whip you, and you resisted, your shoulder or elbow (on knee or ankle) could easily strain, or worse, dislocate (I have plates and screws in my shoulder to prove it). So, it would be best to follow the momentum and thus travel in the direction of the force (i.e. forward toward the ring ropes, turnbuckle, or dreaded steel stairs). The quickness of the exchange would force you to pretty much sprint out of the whip , or you'll just be thrown to the floor (our steel stairs spot). Ok, so you're heading toward the ropes; if you try to stop cold, you could easily blow out a knee or pull one of the many tendons, ligaments, or muscles in your legs, or break an ankle. So, you run into the ropes or buckles. Now, you wanna hit those with your back, so you don't get clotheslined by the
ropes or hit the turnbuckles chest first. So, now you're hitting those ropes back-first, they absorb your kinetic energy and re-direct the force forward again. So, you're running to protect those legs again, but you don't have time to properly slow down, so you get a face full of Hogan's size 16 (or whatever, Gorilla) boot. Just my attempt to explain it; I didn't invent the spot. But come on, would Bret do it if it didn't make sense?
thanks for your time and the kick-ass ranting.
hugs and kisses,
Josh (aka muggies247)
That’s actually not as batshit crazy as some of the other explanations I’ve heard over the years, so thanks! Now I can sleep at night again.
Have you ever seen someone get rag-dolled in a legit, school yard style fight? I have. The epic Mikey Shaw vs. Lionel Travers fight when I was a freshman. Lionel (9th grader who already had a full sized lion tattoo on his calf) went to throw a punch when Mikey (16 year old high school freshman who spent most of middle school in Juvie) caught the punch and basically slung him around by the arm. It was among the most violent things I’ve ever seen in person. Lionel’s arm was basically dislocated and then Mikey went to town on the ground until the teachers broke it up. Mikey was jailed again, Lionel was expelled, and everyone who watched (myself included) got a ‘Wednesday School’ which was like a four hour detention held every Wednesday.
Good times. Anyway yeah, don’t let someone throw you around by the arm. It’s not pretty.
That Lionel kid musta had some big legs.
RE: why pulling a ref out stops the pin: while it’s true that the pin might continue, chances are that if someone’s pulling you out of the ring, your focus is going to be elsewhere, and you’ll probably be looking around to see what’s going on. So the person who got pinned could argue, “How the hell do you know I got pinned? Your sight was all jumbled b/c you were getting tossed around!”
As far as stopping the count, it’s really just an “official” thing. The ref is there to “act out” the passing of 3 seconds, as someone who’s authorized to do so. That’s why slow and fast counts have heat to them: the rule is that 3 seconds get you the pin, and the refs counting signify the official passing of those 3 seconds. A fast count results in, “WTF, that wasn’t 3 seconds! He didn’t wasn’t pinned for long enough.” and a slow count results in, “Oh COME ON, that *had* to be more than 3 seconds. I’m pretty sure he got pinned there.”
Well I think wrestling has gotten lazier in general. The more DVDs of classic matches I watch, the more obvious that is. Nobody ‘works the hold’ anymore. If someone slaps on a chinlock, there’s no attempt to sell the move and there’s no attempt by the person holding it to make it look bad. It’s pathetic.
With referees, they look lazy only because the wrestlers are lazy. In the old days, to break up a pinfall the heel would run in and kick the babyface OFF the heel or vice versa. Now they just touch the person and the ref quits counting, whether or not the wrestler is still being ‘pinned’.
I know these guys are supposed to be ‘the world’s greatest athletes’ and stuff, but the truth is although some of the moves are flashier and some are now high risk, wrestlers in general are much lazier then they were even two decades ago. At some point ‘making everything look good’ was replaced with ‘do flashy moves but lay there like a lump when you slap on a rest hold.’
I agree that the little details that make a match seem like a true competition have gone by the wayside, but I don’t know that it’s a direct result of laziness.
I think it’s more a combination of wrestlers not being taught/trained that those things are important and how to do them properly coupled with the fact that wrestlers are generally told to go out and have a 4-5 minute match where there isn’t time to do those things and still get all your spots in…
Not trying to pick nits, because overall, I agree with your point…
Are assumption about the whole Irish whip thing is wrong to begin with.
We’re “assuming” the goal of the whipper is to throw the whippie into the ropes. It’s not.
The goal of the Irish whipper is to yank his opponents arm out of the socket. Seriously. Stun the guy with a punch, grab his arm and pull to dislocate the guys arm or elbow. What the “whippie” is doing by going along with the momentum is preventing his opponent from dislocating his arm/shoulder/elbow/whatever.
This was all explained to me by Whipper Billy Watson a long time ago.
This got me thinking how many wrestling moves have countries/cities etc in its name?
Irish Whip
German Suplex
Russian Legsweep
Indian Deathlock
Canadian Backbreaker
Mexican Surfboard
Samoan Drop
Boston Crab
Laso from El Paso
I’m sure there are a zillion out there… or I could be wrong?
I like this game!!!
Texas Cloverleaf
Okay, so that’s the only one I could come up with, but I love that move…all hail Dean Malenko!!!
English Uppercut
Polish Hammer
Japanese Arm-Drag
If you include regions:
Arabian Facebuster
Oriental Spike
Tongan Death Grip
Greetings From Asbury Park
Alabama Jam
Moonsault
Rings of Saturn
Russian Sickle
Polish Hammer
619 (maybe?)
LOL I guess you can use planets and moons now.
The French Tickler!
Harlem Hangover?
Shooting STARpress
You guys could go the Chris Jericho route.
“Japanese ARM-bar… Mexican ARM-bar… Argintina ARM bar… Finnish ARM-bar…”
My explanation for an Irish Whip is that the whippee goes along with it voluntarily because both guys have an opportunity to hit a move on the rebound. That’s where the mental chess game comes in.
But couldn’t the whippie simply grab onto the ropes to stop his momentum without injuring himself?
And they do, from time to time. Think of the missed dropkick after an Irish whip.
OH and how come jumping off the top rope onto someone hurts less than jumping off the top rope and hitting the mat.
Oh yeah, because it’s fake.
Good lord, the irish whip doesn’t make any sense but neither does half the things in pro-wrestling. Probably because it’s entertainment and not a real sport.
Why did you comment on this thread? To tell us wrestling was fake? Or just to shit on the conversation? I guess you haven’t even read any of the post or ensuing discussion, in which it’s CLEARLY explained how the irish whip makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why you have to throw negativity and stupidity into what was an intelligent and friendly discourse.
Anyway, thanks for letting me know it’s not a real sport. I’ll call my bookie and cancel all my bets.
Hard to read the magazine in goofy flash format. Maybe will be better to grab the PDF? Wish it was just in web pages. Must remember to stop talking like Rorschach journal entry.