10 Obscure Wrestling Secrets That Took Years To Discover
3. Bringing The Noise
The effective use of sound in a pro wrestling match sometimes goes unnoticed—but it is key in elevating the good to the great. Listen to the sounds Charlotte Flair makes when she’s selling. Those agonised wails really immerse the crowd into her plight. Well, they boo her until she does some heel sh*t, but imagine if the fans knew how to react. It would really be something.
Noise in wrestling is used to compensate for genuine impact. This became apparent to your writer when Bret Hart stamped the canvas with his foot when delivering a worked punch—but crucially, only when I knew to look for it. Hart’s worked punches were incredible, all zip and sudden impact. Look at Shane McMahon, and picture his exact opposite. We know now what happens when Hart’s punches connected fully—just look at Vince McMahon’s face in Wrestling With Shadows—but, in the squared circle, he pulled them at the last nanosecond, fooling us all with brilliant cloak and dagger foot movement.
Similarly, when Yoshihiro Tajiri arrived on the scene in ECW, his kicks alone anointed him as a sensation. “Are you kidding me with those kicks?!” Joey Styles would scream to put them over. Tajiri himself put them over by slapping his thigh with a clandestine genius. His baggy ring gear was as much an aural choice as an aesthetic one. This practise of thigh-slapping was given away for good when virtually every performer in the post-ROH age took to using kicks in their repertoires.
On the subject of obscuring genuine impact…