The Song Fight Bulletin Board

re: ring breaking - I've seen that before. It's hilarious. Bam Bam Bigelow backdropped Taz through the ring in ECW; Undertaker choke-slammed... uh, somebody through the ring in WWE. I also have a clip of Brock Lesnar superplexing Big Show and the entire ring support exploding on impact.

re: is he dead? - Shouldn't be. In that type of move, the receiving wrestler bends his neck/head forward, so the impact is taken on the shoulders. Before he became The Hurricane in WWE, "Sugar" Shane Helms used that move in WCW (without the suplex leading into it), and I can't recall anyone being injured from it.

Niveous wrote:my favorite part of my avatar is how much the ring bounces upon collision. It's as if Homicide (the person doing the move) is going to make the ring cave.

Do you mean the guy getting flipped? Seems like he's doing all the work. The other dude's just like a pivot for him to backflip over.

Homicide is the one in the black. Other guy is helping the suplex, yes, but Homicide still has to lift him.

john m wrote:Homicide is the one in the black. Other guy is helping the suplex, yes, but Homicide still has to lift him.

The other guy has to *land*. And he has to measure his flipping speed to land at the right time, judge his angle so his shoulders take the impact and not his neck, etc. I bet it's a lot harder to do that without breaking your neck than it looks. I wonder how they practice that.

the fact the ring bounces so much is probably what keeps his neck from being snapped. he's certainly not absorbing the full brunt of the slam.

Jim: BJ Whitmer lives on.

Doc: Helms never hurt anyone with it in WCW, but the WWE still outlawed the move when they signed him.

jb: I wonder how they practice that as well. I've seen people take that move much worse than BJ did.

Well yeah, but that's because they're pussies. (And that's why the Hurricane became boring.) All high spots are outlawed. I'm surprised they let London do the 450.

jack shite wrote:the fact the ring bounces so much is probably what keeps his neck from being snapped. he's certainly not absorbing the full brunt of the slam.

Another thing that helps is the body positioning. Homicide is a pretty precision guy (he trains a lot of up and coming wrestlers) and he got BJ held just right so that 1) they come down straight and 2) BJ comes down flat against his shoulders. Land flat and the impact point isn't as bad, thanks to surface area. It's when you land at an angle with that....

The conditioning they've done is a big reason why they can take moves like that. Doesn't look so much that way with the guy in Niv's avatar, but some wrestlers' bodies are so toughened that they can take moves like that incorrectly and still function. (I'm thinking along the lines on Benoit, namely.)

ugh. that hurts my neck to watch. i have to cover your avatar with my hand to read your posts.

Ya think that's bad. I've got a Homicide music video. It includes about 15 of those.

also, the guy being flipped has to really control his leg movement to not over compensate and land on his neck. it looks as though the leg carryover is more of a follow through to the move and he tries to keep his legs from breaking a vertical plane before he hits, then they sort of flop over. there seems to be alot of choreography and timing that obviously needs to be worked out.

also, the guy flipping has to keep a completely straight back. if he just leaned back in the slightest on the drop, he'd snap the guys neck.

Your analysis takes all the magic out of violent injury.

well, it's like watching magic tricks. you wonder how they hell did they do that. smoke and mirrors inevitably leads to bringing out the conspiracy theorist in us all. it's pretty hard to see something these days and just be amazed and leave it at that.

unless you are watching the taiwanese national acrobats flipping multiple saucers and cups onto their head from their feet while balancing on a stack of chairs spinning plates*. then you just stand there with your mouth open and clap.

*actually witnessed at a grateful dead show in oakland california.

I've been watching wrestling since I was 5 and once I started understanding what went into the moves, my appreciation grew for it. These things are difficult to pull off and walk away from.