Irish Whip question
By Scott Keith on November 16, 2014
Hi, Scott
To me the most blatantly fake thing in wrestling is the Irish Whip (well, that and the idea that you can punch a guy in the face with a closed fist ten times and not turn the face into hamburger and your hand into a bloody mess, but that's for another day). The idea that you could throw a guy into the ropes and have him continue to run into them, rebound off, and run back, all at a consistent speed, is one of the sillier aspects of our beloved sport. My question is simple: could wrestling survive without it? Could a match still be convincingly built and "called" without this basic maneuver, and still look like American Professional Wrestling? I'd still make allowances for a wrestler running the ropes to give themselves momentum, but no more whips to the rope or turnbuckle. What say you and the blog?
For me, it's a necessarily evil that provides a means to an end. It's the same way that the backdrop is totally bullshit as a meaningful move as well, because why wouldn't you just stop running? Why would someone be so fucking stupid as to run into Hulk Hogan's out-stretched boot? Because wrestling, I guess.
Could a match be built without it? Sure, but it would be boring. Wrestling is wrestling because it's wrestling, and if you start tinkering with the elements of it that don't make sense, you'd just have MMA. Which is probably why so many people defected from wrestling to UFC years ago, come to think of it.
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