Wrestling

Wrestling matches are presented as faces vs heels(good guys vs bad guys) in order to get the crowd interested in the match. They also have to have showmanship and confidence. The crowd is meant to want the face to win and they dislike the heel. Wrestlers do a variety of moves to keep the crowd into it. 

The suplex is one of the most commonly used and well known wrestling moves in existence. There are many variations of the suplex such as the back suplex and German suplex. The wrestler puts the opponent's left arm around his own head hooks the opponent around the head before lifting him into the air and falling back, slamming the opponent into the mat. The person taking a suplex must make sure to get over correctly and not injured themselves.

Matches are generally planned and have a structure to them, with a beginning middle and end. At the beginning, the faces and heels must establish themselves to the crowd to make sure the crowd is aware of who to cheer and who to dislike. In wrestling, sequences of moves are called spots. One of the most common spots is the international, generally done at the start of a match. It can be done in many ways but the most common way in my training is how I do it in this video.

The wrestlers lock up and the heel takes the face in a headlock. Generally the heel will show to the crowd how strong he is for a little bit, then the face pushes him into the ropes and the headlock is released. The face hits the ropes before being hit with a shoulder tackle. The heel then hits the ropes while the face does a "sleep" which the heel jumps over and a "leap" which the heel must get under. The last time the heel hits the ropes, he is usually hit with a move. I get hit with a hip toss in the video which is a common move for internationals. This whole spot gets the crowd interested and gives the face legitimacy as the fan favourite while making the heel seem dominant .

Video of a training match

My name's Dominick, some people might know me as ‘Dom Tuck’ or ‘DDT’ from 5th year. In August I started wrestling training in Fight Factory Pro Wrestling or FFPW for short. I heard about it from a friend and decided to go to the beginners class which is free for the first class. Since then I’ve been hooked. FFPW was set up by St Brendan's past pupil Fergal Devitt- also known as Finn Balor or Prince Devitt who has made a name for himself as one of the best wrestlers in the world, finding success internationally in Ireland, the UK, Japan and more before finally getting signed to WWE and becoming WWE NXT World champion.

A Lot of people dislike professional wrestling because "it's fake". It is true that the outcomes are already set but it's similar to a film or TV show in that its sole purpose is to entertain the audience.  On WWE , they make it look really easy but when I started it myself I realised that it was a lot more difficult and painful than I thought it would be. A Lot of effort goes into entertaining the crowd or people watching at home, it takes time to plan each detail of a match and is very difficult to remember everything. A lot like in movies or tv shows- the good guy, known as the “face” gets the crowd into the match to support him whilst the bad guy known as the “heel” tries to get the crowd to hate him and cheer for the good guy. 

I started training myself in August and I train 3 or 4 days a week. I love it so far because I train with a great group of people who are very helpful. I have had multiple training matches which I'll link on this but my biggest match was when I was in a tag team match on my first show on the 17th of January 2016. It was in front of a crowd of 30-40 people. It was a a great but weird experience because of the adrenaline I got from hearing the crowd which fired me up. It is definitely something I want to keep doing and there is no doubt i will keep putting the effort in to get on these shows, hopefully I will have many more in the future because this is just the beginning.