Sha-bam!: Epic Wrestling Grapples and Throws

As we dive deeper into the universe of Professional Wrestling, it is time we take a look at a few fancy grappling moves. I would like to introduce y’all to my favorite move the Suplex and a couple of its many variations. In order to perform a suplex, the grappler seizes his victim around the waist from behind and throws the victim over himself for a forceful and painful landing. Two particular suplexes stand out as extraordinary and dangerous; they are the German Suplex and the Superplex. 

The German Suplex

Beautiful in its simplicity and brutal in its execution the German Suplex represents one of the most dangerous and difficult moves a wrestler can perform. As the victim is lifted over the grappler’s body, the latter arches into a bridge and throws the victim forcefully onto his head/upper back. When properly executed, the grappler’s cranium never actually makes contact with the ground and he can maintain his waist-hold to pin his opponent. Interestingly, the German suplex is a throw that does not require the assistance of opponent (a "spot") and therefore can be performed in an amateur wrestling match. The following video of a Japanese wrestling match shows a nearly flawless German Suplex as well as the shear amount of strength required to perform it correctly on unsuspecting wrestlers:

The Superplex

For a high-flying move guaranteed to please the audience, wrestlers have the Superplex. The Superplex is performed off the corner of the ring and is a "spot" move. Though the set-up may look fake, the impact can easily knock the wind out of the wrestlers. The two wrestlers position themselves standing up on the ropes, the grappler grabs his opponent around the back of his neck in a reverse head-lock and throws him over himself into the ring. Unlike the german supplex, the victim lands on his back while his head is protected from the landing by the nature of the hold. The move is particularly effective when a heel has been getting heat from cheap-shotting his opponent and ultimately gets what's coming to him. A beautiful example of a Superplex is performed by Bret "The Hitman" Hart against his brother Owen "The Rocket" Hart during WrestleMania X. Owen picks-up heat by unrelentingly beating on his brother's injured knee and towards the end of the fight finds himself on the receiving end of a beautiful Superplex by Bret (at which point the crowd shouts with joy). The following video shows Brock Lesnar superplexing the 500lbs Big Show in one of the most destructive matches in the history of WWE ("the ring blew up!"):

The suplex, no matter the form, will forever shock and awe outside of a wrestling context. It's popularity can be witnessed in a viral "fail" video online of a schoolgirl overpowering a purse-snatcher with a suplex. Is it fake? I will let you take a guess.

Now that you have been introduced to both the German Suplex and the Superplex I would like to ask: Of all the throws a wrestler can perform or endure at high risk to personal safety, what is your favorite wrestling move?

Mixing Violence with Pleasure

During one of the in class discussions about the ambiguity of the violence portrayed in professional wrestling, some of the comments touched on a concept known as symplegna, taken from the ancient depictions in Greece where the lines between pain and violence is blurred from that of pleasure. The basis of these comments comes of course from the homoeroticism depicted during numerous wrestling matches. For instance, on numerous occasions, a wrestler on his knees would linger around the pelvic area of his opponent, and image that immediately compels one to do a double take because of the interesting and confusing juxtaposition of this action.
The layman’s stereotype of gays is centered on the image of a waifish, adolescent body dressed to the nines, with obvious attention paid to his appearance. Interestingly, these wrestlers, whose statuesque physiques are the very definition of masculinity perhaps somewhat confusing seem to engage in simulated sexual acts in the heat of battle even when (supposedly) in tremendous pain and distress.
The mixture of pain and pleasure seems all too counterintuitive; after all, cultural values seem to indicate that pain is the result of failure while pleasure is a reward for a job well done. Nonetheless, I find it fascinating that there are numerous counter examples. Biology itself seems to provide one of many explanations. When under distress, the body releases endorphins, signaling molecules that create a “high.” Past and contemporary culture also seems to indicate that this oxymoron is something innate and universal.

Off the top of my head I can think of several instances where this seems to be true. In Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus, the King depicted in the center of the work, having just learnt that he is about to suffer a military defeat, decides to go down in an orgy of pleasure and violence. This is evident in the raping of the sex slaves as well as the depiction of the King attempting to burn himself within the chaos.



Perhaps more comedicaly, I can recall both the shock and horror I experienced when I watched the following scene from Nip/Tuck, where one of the protagonists, Dr. Troy is so bent on getting rid of Gina, who had been a thorn in his side, that he literally bangs her off the roof. Indeed, this is an example of mixing pleasure with violence. Is the coexistence of pleasure with violence mere coincidence, some wacky hogwash that I’m taking far beyond logical bounds?

The External World

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Watch this video produced by David O'Reilly called The External World. It will solve any existential crisis or incorrect assumptions about a caring universe a person may harbor. From the "Frisbee of Misguided Paternal Advice" to the violent and phallus-generating fax machine, the rudimentariness of the animation drives home a hopeful message about how meaningless our world really is. An array of animal characters are misconstrued as people having a sense of what is real in their world.

My favorite part is around 4:30 as a man receives his prescription labelled "Go Fuck Yourself." The pills immediately send him to a chemical nirvana.

When meaning is divorced from objects, the violence that befalls those objects becomes as meaningless as the objects themselves.

The spectacle of battle

The clashes of nations in battle have always been spectacular events.  It must have been striking to behold Iron Age armies at combat; a sea of colorful uniforms common in their enlarging display of red, sword and spear glinting in the sunlight, the air filled with the chaotic rhythm of clashes of steel, grunts, and war drums.  Today, high tech fighter jets, enormous naval vessels, and massive explosions are no less theatrical, although the days of large armies engaging in melee combat seem to have passed.  Battle is a large part of the history of all powerful nations.  It is therefore not surprising that celebrations of battle for entertainment have been similarly common throughout history.

The Roman naumachia. Source

The Romans in their re-enactment of naval battles in the naumachia were perhaps the first peoples to simulate battles on a scale resembling reality.  The first known naumachia was held by Julius Caesar in 46 BC as a celebration of victory in battle, as became typical of the grandiose (and costly) events.  Caesar had an artificial lake dug to create an arena large enough to hold warships and allow them to maneuver.   He then stocked the lake with warships manned by 6000 prisoners of war and made them fight to the death.  Later naumachiae were larger and grander. Beginning with the reign of Nero, massive amphitheaters were constructed for their purpose.  Typically, the combatants would be assigned identities of contemporary maritime powers, for example the Egyptians and Tyrians during the time of Caesar.  Unlike the small-scale skirmishes of gladiators and wild beasts in the smaller Roman amphitheaters, the naumachia was performed on a grand scale, worthy of the historical battles it sought to replicate. 

A modern incarnation of the Roman amphitheater: Beaver Stadium at Pennsylvania State University.  The stadium has a capacity of 107,282, making it the fourth largest in the world.  Source

The spectacle of modern sports bears many resemblances to that of ancient arenas.  Fans flock in the tens of thousands to arenas to see teams representing their state or nation defend their glory, and hundreds of thousands more watch on television.  Sport uniforms are often as colorful as ancient military uniforms, and many sports can draw blood.  The rhythm of the sounds of helmets clashing and men grunting in American Football is primal and chaotic like the sounds of battle and the teams display a level of organization and training similar to a military squad.  Sports such as football are very much a celebration of battle, although in a disguised and toned-down form.

A crowd gathers to watch a Starcraft tournament in South Korea. Source

Today, fans of real-time strategy (RTS) games celebrate the art of battle with a level of interactivity and on a scale beyond anything seen before.  RTS games situate the player in a bird's eye view of the battlefield, where he orchestrates the collection of resources, construction of military and technological facilities, and the movements of troops.  The games can simulate vast battlefields with hundreds to thousands of troops, ships, and vehicles, beyond the scope of the naumachia or modern professional sports.  Some RTS games are ultra-realistic simulations of ancient armies while others feature futuristic armies with advanced technology and capital ships.  The genre is to date the most flexible media created for simulating battles for entertainment.

A Korean Starcraft match featuring "The Emperor", Lim Yo-Hawn, AKA SlayerS_`BoxeR`

A television commercial featuring Boxer, who at his prime received an annual salary of approximately USD $300,000

When Blizzard Entertainment's Starcraft was released in South Korea in 1998, it took the country by storm and the popularity of the game and its 2010 sequel, Starcraft 2, has only increased since.  South Korean fans fill arenas to see their favorite players compete in televised tournaments for glory and monetary rewards.  Korean Starcraft progamers can achieve as high of a status as celebrities and professional sports players can here. Appreciation of the game is not limited to males; female fans are abundant in the stands and can even be seen crying when their favorite player loses a decisive battle during the game.  Watching players duke it out with massive armies featuring capital ships and other futuristic and alien military technology with thousands of fans cheering in the stands must be very much like attending a modern naumachia.  Even non-players can enjoy watching RTS games because of how visual the action is.   

 A demonstration of the virtuous control of mouse and keyboard required to play Starcraft professionally. 

Starcraft and other 'e-sports' are achieving increasing mainstream acceptance in the west, and I believe that it is only a few years before we see televised tournaments in The States like those currently held in South Korea.  A number of progamers from the western nations including America, Canada, and Germany compete in Starcraft 2 tournaments in Korea and are among the best players in the world.  Matches in western-based tournaments such as the TSL receive tens of thousands of viewers over the Internet and have cash prizes in the tens of thousands of dollars.

For recent Starcraft 2 matches, I recommend GOMtv's coverage of the GSL.  GOMtv's casts feature English commentary from Tasteless and Artosis, who are probably the most entertaining commentators I have ever heard.  The Code S final from the last season of GSL featuring oGsMC and ST_July, both considered among the best players in the world by many, can be found here.  Skip to ~44 minutes for the actual match, but I included the video because it has good depictions of the whole spectacle surrounding professional gaming in Korea.

The Malice at the Palace

If you're a sports fan, or even an occasional ESPN Sportscenter viewer, than you've definitely seen this footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENU-NLK7bg.

"The Malice at the Palace," as it was so eloquently named, was a brawl between members of the Detroit Pistons, the Indiana Pacers, and Pistons fans in Auburn Hills, MI back in 2004. Some quick background info: Ron Artest of the Pacers and Ben Wallace of the Pistons had a little shoving match at the end of a play. Once they were separated, a fan threw a cup of Diet Coke at Artest, and Ron-Ron, the NBA's resident badboy, went absolutely ballistic. Artest, along with teammate Stephen Jackson, stormed into the stands throwing punches at fans. The result of this fight was suspensions to multiple players, including a season-long ban for Artest, as well as assault charges filed against both Artest and Jackson. The fans involved in the altercation were suspended from any stadiums or arena's owned by Palace Entertainment for life.

This brawl is one of the rare examples of players entering the stands of an arena. What we learn from this entire event is simple: the NBA players are people too, and if you insult them or trash them, they may fight back. Earlier this year, LeBron James was being verbally assaulted by a fan, so he decided to handle the situation in a much more classier way (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ6KRIo4AQA). As you can see in the video, Lebron tells the fan quite simply that he doesn't "give a fuck" what the fan says, as long as he's not disrespectful. Bron Bron goes on to tell the fan that if he's disrespectful, than there is a problem. It was later reported that the fan was making comments about Lebron's mom's supposed relationship with ex-teammate Delonte West.

Artest should take a page out of Lebron's book: you can talk to the person who is instigating a situation, but it is never acceptable to spring into the stands and start an all out brawl. There is no place for player-on-fan violence in the NBA, and we all hope to one day forget "The Malice at the Palace."

Eagle Ray Attack

I saw this story recently and to be honest the first thing I did was…laugh a little bit. I felt terrible for the ‘victim’ in this case but recreating the scene where an eagle ray sores out of the water was actually a comical thought in my mind.

However, this seemingly funny story brings along with it a very serious message for humans. We have to remember that this planet we inhibit is not only ours. Obviously, to get this point across I could of used a number of stories incorporating zoo incidents, animal attacks, and wild encounters with nature, but I was drawn to this story for the comedy and the minimal amount of violent or harmful consequences.

We have to remember that all of our planet’s creatures are dependent on two factors- reproduction and survival. These are the bare basics of life on Earth and in this story we see the first of the conditions satisfied. For mating purposes the Eagle Ray skies out of the water. They do this to attract female mates and to show off their physical prowess. The reproductive aim of the Eagle Ray simply got into the way of this family trying to enjoy a nice day out on the Florida Keys. Even so, the encounter was a very scary incident for all parties involved, including the ray.

The comical aspect of this story however ended abruptly when I heard that a woman was killed by an Eagle Ray a couple years ago in a very synonymous story. This relationship we have with animals and creatures in the world has to be a respectful one. We have to realize they are entitled to the land just as we are and they are very dangerous animals out there and without respect for them violent encounters will exist.

Do You Really Want It?

Watching that video of Mick Foley vs. The Undertaker in class on Wednesday made me realize that the expectations of wrestling are more complicated than we assume. Wrestling gets a lot of shit for being "fake" and scripted, but do we really want to see what real wrestling would be like? I can only speak for myself when I say that seeing Mick Foley dropped on to thumbtacks whilst concussed from falling from a steel cage was quite enough. I used to be one of the bloodthirsty fans and while watching wrestling videos for class I found myself wanting more pain and gore. However, I see that I might not really want that. Knowing that these men are actors as well as wrestlers/athletes makes me feel horrible when I cheer their pain. The irreversible damage that comes from the wrestling theatrics is enough to make me want wrestling to stay exactly how it is now.

There will always be the fringe wrestling companies that'll supply the gore that some wrestling fans want. Sometimes they'll be more popular than others, but I think it's safe to assume the WWE's style of wrestling is the most preferred among the lay wrestling viewer; these people probably could not stomach the gore.

Although wrestling as a whole is increasingly being threatened by UFC's growing popularity, within the wrestling world the scripted style of theatrical violence is the order of the day.