10 Wrestling "Botches" That Were Totally Intentional
This is why they're called 'The Elite'...
Pro wrestling is an emulation of sport with the ability to control the outcome.
This is, or at least in theory it should be, the unmissable selling point of the very form. You, the fan, are left astonished by the beauty of the athletic endeavour and drawn into the unbearable high drama of the struggle. Like a sport. But the key, ingenious distinction is that your guy gets to win. Support them loudly enough and buy sufficient tickets, and they win.
Your actual real team never wins, unless you either A) were luckily born in a certain area, B) decided to hunt glory, like a worm or C) had your club taken over by some insanely problematic bloody money baron.
Even C isn't a guarantee, if you follow Newcastle United, a cursed joke club that can't even make you question your moral compass and have the goddamn good manners to not be utter sh*te at the same time.
Of course, WWE gets this drastically wrong by barely bothering with the sporting element nor presenting babyfaces you'd actually like to root for.
Other promotions however have evolved the form by acknowledging that sportspeople are inherently prone to error - and using this natural mistake as a fictionalised story beat.
Or, some wrestlers do it for the lols...
10. PAC Sells Depth Perception
The sports analogy doesn't really work in this case. No real sportsperson spits horrible mist in another person's face, unless of course they're Jamie Carragher gobbing phlegm on a 14 year-old girl.
A month or so back, Malakai Black did spit black mist in PAC's face, leaving him temporarily unable to see out of his right eye. It was a deft booking touch; a unique way of beating a protected, storyline-injured star while building FTR as threats for the World Tag Team Titles and Black himself ahead of a dream singles match.
PAC carried the injury into an AEW Rampage match against FTR alongside Penta El Zero M. Early reports from Atlanta suggested that the match just didn't come together. In reality, it was fantastic and layered with creative realism; perhaps PAC's expert, nuanced storytelling fooled the cheap seats.
Loss of sight results in poor depth perception. PAC used the realism of the injury to inform his performance; when attempting a springboard aerial attack, he deliberately misjudged the distance between his feet and the ropes and jumped off the top using his shin, allowing Dax Harwood to batter him in a heat sequence.