Selflessness in the Selfish World of Professional Wrestling: Part One

Truly, I understand why professional wrestlers are, by and large, self-centered.

In many ways, it feels as if selfishness is tantamount to success in such a dog-eat-dog profession like professional wrestling. You are performing at the whims of a booker, almost certainly woefully underpaid, and constantly fighting to maintain a spot amongst the men and women in the locker room whom you consider your peers. Momentum is not guaranteed to be sustained, and one setback, one small injury, can derail your entire career. 

Under these circumstances, it’s hard to not get why wrestlers are the way they are, endlessly greedy in their pursuit to the top of the industry and willing to undermine their fellow professionals for their own self-interests.

While this may be viewed as a necessary evil in some respects, it’s this aspect of wrestling that really makes me appreciate it when I’m able to watch a match and can recognize the more altruistic intentions in a given wrestler’s performance. In a world where everyone is forced to adopt a survival of the fittest mentality, where we as fans speak openly about guys getting “the rub”, bemoaning the burials of our favorite talents, and refer to every loss as a “job”, it’s these performances that make me think highly of the performers giving them. 

With this series, I hope to shed some light on some matches, and more specifically performances, that speak to me as a wrestling fan for their uncompromising commitment in getting another wrestler over, regardless of circumstance.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Bret Hart, WWF on NESN (3/8/86)

This is a match known for being one of the most memorable matches of Bret Hart’s 80s run in the WWF, when he wasn’t quite the singles star and wrestling icon that he would become over the next decade. 

There are many ways to “put a wrestler over”. The most naive wrestling fans in the world believe that putting someone over simply means letting them pin or submit their opponent, a lie perpetuated by cunningly deceptive workers for decades now, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The way that you sell for your opponent’s offense, the way you talk them up in an interview, even a facial expression can help a talent elicit a bigger reaction beyond just their own innate gifts.

One of my favorite examples of putting someone over isn’t even a part of a wrestling match, but rather prior to the match, as the great Arn Anderson yells “NOT RICKY STEAMBOAT!” in response to The Dragon’s debut as Dustin Rhodes’s surprise tag team partner at Clash of the Champions 17 in 1991. Better talent than I have illustrated why this was such an effective tool, but it really is an incredible way to convey the fear of the legend in the moment.

The WCW fans in the Savannah, Georgia crowd went wild for Steamer on that night, and, nearly six years prior to that match, he’s just as over with a rabid WWF audience in Boston, Massachusetts on this night. It’s not really a question of who’s winning on this occasion; Steamboat is one of the biggest babyfaces currently on the roster, let alone the planet at this point, while Bret is decidedly less accomplished at this stage. It’s more of a question of how good the match will be, and what it will mean for Bret’s chances as a singles star in the future.

The match was very, very good, as I’m sure anyone familiar with these two can imagine. 

Steamboat gets an extended shine segment as the more experienced babyface and he’s an absolute savant, wearing down Bret’s left arm and utilizing his signature arm drags to press his advantage. Bret eventually takes control with a twisting neckbreaker and goes on offense as the heel. Steamboat brings with him his also-signature theatric selling, which really works for me here in contrast to Bret’s focused, no-nonsense attack. He sells every punch and every move that Bret hits him with like he’s been shot, which really lends credibility to his young opponent’s offense.

Steamboat makes a short comeback but jumps stomach-first into Bret’s knees, again selling it like death. Bret goes on a run of offense both on the outside and back into the ring, delivering a particularly crisp backbreaker to The Dragon that was a highlight of the match. Steamboat makes another comeback and lets the kid get some good nearfalls in before a reverse irish-whip sends the immortal babyface crashing into the referee in the corner. Bret, taking advantage of the situation hits a running lariat and goes for the cover.

And he gets a visual pin. On Ricky fucking Steamboat. In 1986.

Those more familiar with the pink-and-black clad iteration of the Hitman may not fully realize the weight of this moment; at this stage, Bret was used almost exclusively as a tag wrestler in The Hart Foundation alongside his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart in the WWF. The fact that Steamer lets this relatively unproven star get a visual pinfall on him at this point in their respective careers says a lot about both the kind of wrestler that he was as well as how highly he thought of his opponent when laying out the match.

In the end, it doesn’t matter that Steamboat wins with a reverse pinfall. What withstands the test of time is how great the match was, what you felt in the moment seeing a budding star come into his own, and the generosity on display from one of the best to ever do it. 

Terry Funk vs. Eddie Guerrero, NWA World Championship Wrestling (5/20/89)

This is a TV squash match between living legend Terry Funk and legend-to-be Eddie Guerrero, the only match between these two (as far as I can tell) that has ever happened. You can tell how much of a young upstart Eddie is at this stage in his career, as Jim Ross introduces him as “the younger brother of Chavo [Sr.] & Hector Guerrero.” At this point, Funk is in the beginning of an incredible heel run, and you can hear the crowd chanting Ric Flair’s name in reference to the brutal assault the world champion received at the hands of Funk a few weeks prior at WrestleWar ’89. 

The hierarchical difference is between the two men is almost as apparent as the physical; while Funk was never one of the most jacked-up workers of his era, certainly not in a time when HulkaMania is still running wild, he absolutely towers over the shorter, far skinnier Guerrero in this bout. He utilizes this advantage well early, dominating his younger opponent in their lockup exchanges and forcing his weight onto him when they reach the ropes. A timely enzuigiri from Eddie surprises the veteran, making him leave the ring to get a momentary reprieve.

Funk irish-whips Eddieinto the corner, allowing the young wrestler enough space to showcase his high-flying prowess, but to no avail as Funk catches him soon after and spins him around repeatedly. He builds some heat on Guerrero before missing an attack that leaves him caught in-between the ropes and allows Guerrero to make a short, energetic comeback before again being cut off.

Another missed attack from Funk, this time a clothesline into the ring post on the outside, gives the upstart just the advantage he needs, going up to the top rope and hiting an impressive dive to the outside. The young man gets a little too ambitious, though, missing a springboard dive to the outside and allowing the veteran to take control and hit a devastating piledriver that sealed his victory.

Similar to the visual pinfall Steamboat/Hart match, this piledriver is an innocuous move that many could write off as inconsequential, but it’s important here because it reflects what he just did to Flair at the last pay-per-view. If he had to break out such a devastating maneuever just to beat Eddie Guerrero here, what does that say about how good Eddie is?

This match, in a vacuum, is not overly special. As stated previously, it is a squash match, and it served its purpose in that regard. It certainly isn’t the best work of either man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t crack a top 20 of Funk’s best matches in this year alone. However, I’ve always been wowed by Funk’s willingness to allow this relative unknown in the American scene to shine as much as he does in this match, while still never betraying the reality of their positions on the totem pole. It’s a genuinely impressive performance, and one that speaks to Funker’s mind for the business.