Here we go again.
At CZW's Once In A Lifetime, new WWE signee Lio Rush took what appeared to be a powerbomb off of a ladder through a table. Sick dude.
Then he stood up. Yep. Before the opponent, not selling, nothing. To say that it garnered a unique reaction from the wrestling world would be an understatement
Personally, ya boy disagrees with using the spot. Not in general -- but not selling it. That's not really my style. What I hate more than anything is the rabbit hole and tunnel vision experienced that follows.
"KILLIN' THE BUSINESS!"
"THEM INDY GUYS DON'T SELL HEBBEDY HOO"
"100 SUPERKICKS AIN'T RIGHT"
"HE'S 140 POUNDS"
"FINISHERS AREN'T FINISHERS ANYMORE"
"SELLING IS REALISTIC"
I really hate to have to go down the rabbit hole I always do as well. You don't have to watch it. It's a simple solution. Turn it off. Problem fixed.
As for the stereotypical horseshit that will be unleashed, so much of it comes down to the perception of "realism." That's what I always hear. I don't want to generalize, it's just my personal experience. I hate to be the one to break it do you, but for every Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber "real fights" that have someone sell, there are ten Cheick Kongo vs. Pat Barrys.
The "finishers aren't finishers" thing always got me from a realism perspective, too. A head kick from me isn't a finish, even if I do 100 times to some people. A head kick from Mirko CroCop is. Also, if you sat in a chinlock with no progression for two minutes, that fight is getting stood up and restarted.
The weight thing is always a weird one. Real fights over the past two decades have proven to us that a guy carrying 220+ pounds doesn't work the best for cardio or recovery. Despite the change of the wrestling landscape this is still a real excuse used and parroted by fans and many within the industry. Lio Rush looks every bit "the part" as anyone else does, if this is real. He's far from the only one that battles it. Samoa Joe -- a heavyweight -- goes through it too. My favorite was when people would ask who could believe Joe as a threat to Lesnar, just one year after Lesnar vs. an overweight Samoan sold over one million PPV buys in a UFC fight.
Did Anthony "Showtime" Pettis kill the MMA business when he ran up the cage and hit the Showtime Kick? How about James Krause or Brian Ebersole with cartwheel kicks? A guy landed a People's Elbow in an MMA fight once. It was real.
Pro Wrestling is subjective entertainment. I personally thought the move was breathtaking, and the follow up executed was dumb given the extremely limited context I was provided. Sometime's I wonder if people think Crank killed the action genre. I promise, it didn't.
Maybe Lio Rush is just tougher than all of us. If you don't believe it, watch something else. It's not a tough call to make.
