Angle #5: The 14-Second Match



I argue for long sweaty intense matches all the time.  In wrestling, it matters less to me who wins and who loses than how grinding and passionate the action is.  My idea of heaven would entail a give-and-take brawl between some porned-up jock and me, for eternity--no resolution, ever, reversals every ten minutes or so, no end in sight.  So the 14-second match is something of an anomaly for me, because it involves a sudden, shocking, and decisive fall within the first minute of a fight.  Needless to say, this angle needs to be the exception rather than the rule--no promotion should use it more than once in five years or, better, ten years or, ideally, its entire history.  And for the angle to work for me, the outcome must be a total upset.  Total.  An upset involving nothing less than a strapping rookie fresh out of wrestling school clocking the world heavyweight champ in 14 seconds.  A nice setup for this angle would be a well established expectation that the veteran is there just to "break the rookie in"--give him a taste of what the pro scene is all about--perhaps as a way of mercifully giving the youngster a reality check, to warn him away from a life of frustration, reaching for a dream that is, well, just too far out of the kid's grasp. Sure, it's the David-and-Goliath angle, which in most cases I'm pretty ambivalent about, but for it to grip me by the balls it's gotta be persuasive ... and speedy.  By pinfall, submission, or knockout, the end has to be abrupt--like whatthefuckjusthappened?--just watching it you ought to feel like somebody just socked you in the jaw--that abrupt.

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