>>15830332I do understand the point of selling.
But again, its value has to be reevaluated in light of the fact that we know what actual fights of the sort wrestling pretends to put on should look like.
Pointless selling is every bit as unrealistic as no selling. And I say that as someone who considers proper selling a real art. In a real fight, you don't want to show your opponent you're in pain. You don't want to favor your sore arm so your opponent knows exactly where to attack. If you watch MMA you'll see few of the things you *want* to see wrestlers do, and MMA is an actual fight. You don't see it because, in a realistic fight, it's actually very dumb to do if you can avoid it.
I don't want to downplay your complaint. There are rookies who absolutely do no-sell, and they should be corrected on it by whomever is running the matches. But a lot of what fans call out as no-selling isn't no-selling. Take Tomohiro Ishii -- he'll take a bunch of blows, not move, keep on going. Until the pain catches up to him and he collapses like he's dead. Turns out that's not "no selling" at all -- it's realistic. A lot of what is called out as no selling at that more experienced level is subtle like that.
Again, showing pain in a fight between two experience fighters is a thing those fighters will try to avoid. In a wrestling match, they should show pain but it only makes sense if the pain is at a level where they obviously wouldn't be able to bear it. Yes, people kick out of finishers. It's because it's now understood that those types of finishers aren't necessarily enough to put someone down for the count in a real fight.
It's not that there's no psychology, it's that the psychology has changed in the light of MMA.
