…and in this corner, trained in the art of debate at the Brown Jug, Tony "markout" Kowalski!

Give it to Me Hardcore, Baby!
by Tony Kowalski 

Professional wrestling exists in a world where suspension of disbelief is a necessity. In that world, we are to believe that an atomic drop is actually a move that causes a person even the most minor discomfort (this is a regular atomic drop, not the inverted "nut-buster" version that I could almost buy into). We know it's fake, and we accept it. But we appreciate it more when we are called upon to suspend out disbelief less. Thus we pop louder for high spots like frog splashes and shooting star presses than we do for drop toe-holds and armbars.
 
The hardcore style represents the ultimate lack of suspended disbelief.  It's a lot easier for me to believe in the supposed pain caused by a chair shot than the supposed pain caused by an elbow drop. It's just common sense that most people can do more damage to other people with foreign objects than they can with their own bodies.
 
Now, I'm willing to concede that at the end of the reign of the now-defunct Hardcore Title it got a little ridiculous. Seeing a guy come down the aisle with a shopping cart filled with garbage cans and Singapore Canes is lame, and I can only suspend my disbelief so much to explain why the WWE seems to keep street signs beneath the ring. But when done correctly, the hardcore style is an amazing tool to put over wrestlers and their feuds, and its value should not be overlooked.
 
Like any other type of match, a certain degree of psychology is required to do a hardcore match correctly. To ignore this psychology shatters the suspension of disbelief. Thus, we put our head in our hands when we see a wrestler ignore his opponent for an extended period of time, in order to get out of the ring and throw chairs, trash cans, fire extinguishers into the ring. Even more ridiculous is the idea that we have to believe that wrestler to be such an idiot that he doesn't realize that he's going to get clubbed with a cafeteria tray when he gets back in the ring. 
 
Yet when these elements are phased into the match properly, the result is much more satisfying. Wrestler A is stalking Wrestler B outside of the ring when B is able to grab a chair and whack A with it, thus changing the momentum of the match. B then beats A up the ramp into the staging area, where A reverses an attempt to sling him into a wall, and is then able to suplex B through a table. The master of this psychology, and the wrestler whom I hold to be the greatest Hardcore Champ of all time, was Road Dogg. He wrestled hardcore matches weekly for a few months, and worked items in to his match that were nearby, whether it was delivering a pile driver through a pallet behind the arena to landing an elbow/chair on someone off the apron, he made it believable without making it ridiculous. Without hardcore, the guy wouldn't know an arm bar from a strip bar, but he got over huge on the hardcore style, because of the psychology involved in his matches.
 
Another place where hardcore wrestling made careers was the tag division circa 2000. The Hardys, Edge and Christian, and the Dudleys spent more than a year trying to kill each other with assorted combinations of tables, ladders and chairs. The Hardys got over on the basis of their high-flying antics, and the Dudleys got over due to their proclivity for putting people through tables (powerbomb Mae Young again PUH-LEEZE!). When we saw Jeff Hardy willing to jump off a ladder to Swanton Bomb Bubba Ray Dudley through a table so that he and Matt might win the tag titles, it added some serious luster to what had been a sorely lacking division for the past few years. These three teams' hardcore stylings proclaimed to the world, "We want to be the best, and we are willing to kill ourselves and each other in order to do it." Those TLC matches made those teams, and made the tag division a respectable commodity once again.
 
Now to say that HHH and Ric Flair didn't need hardcore style to add to their match isn't fair. No shit they didn't: that's HHH versus Ric Flair, for Christ's sake! Not only are they masters in the ring, but they also didn't have any reason to resort to hardcore wrestling. Think instead about "Mankind" Mick Foley against the Rock for the belt at the 1999 Royal Rumble. Those two had been having a brutal blood feud over the past few months, leading to this "I Quit" match. Here it had been built up that they hated each other so much that they genuinely wanted to injure each other. Let's face it... having the Rock deliver an extra People's Elbow wouldn't get across the animosity that these two had for each other.  Enter the hardcore style. Chair shot after sickening chair shot played out the hatred between the two, making it very possible for the audience to believe in it, making it seem much more "real."
 
HHH and Kevin Nash's little backstage soiree was supposed to take us along this same line of thinking. They hated each other so much that they wanted to hurt each other. One little problem here: not more than a month had passed since they had hugged in the ring. To develop the kind of hatred that would lead to such desire to cause personal injury takes longer than a month. So if the segment fell a little flat, equal fault could lie with the story, if not the style. It simply didn't have the build up to explain the actions that were taking place.
 
What it boils down to is believability. Anything that makes professional wrestling more believable is a good thing. Hardcore wrestling can make the matches more believable. It can articulately demonstrate the hatred that exists between any parties involved in some conflict, or the desire to come out on top in that conflict. Like anything else in wrestling or life in general, it needs to be used correctly and with moderation. But it definitely has a place in the wrestling world, and an important one at that.

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