The Bret vs Owen match also shows how utterly PISS POOR modern WWE in ring psychology truly is. Owen starts out attacking Bret's neck. Sharp shooter places tension on where? THE NECK. So he leads up every attack that hurts the neck, either via punch or a hold. Then he does a TOMBSTONE. Bret ends up hitting his leg against something so he transitions from neck (which is already believably hurt) to that leg. So you keep on thinking "when he gets a sharpshooter on, it's gonna wreck Bret."
Meanwhile Bret fucks with Owen psychologically by doing quick pins out of nowhere to tire him.
So you have a back and forth. Bret's injuries vs Owen's endurance. Then Owen flips it and doesn't even win via the sharpshooter but reverses it on Bret and does a quick pin. The match delicately plays with the viewers expectations and just crashes the storytelling with an in-ring plot twist.
Then you have someone like Okada. Okada's finisher is the Rainmaker - a simple clothesline. Except EVERY. SINGLE. MOVE in his moveset ATTACKS THE NECK.
So he's got:
- A DDT
- a fucking jumping kick
- A tombstone
He goes at the neck so hard that when you see a Rainmaker you can truly feel it.
That's the sell.
And if the opponent kicks out of it despite that it makes the match even more hype because of all he's done to their upper head.
With modern WWE I am not seeing this classical in-ring storytelling or psychology. It's truly bizarre and average wrestle work that doesn't sell me on wins or losses, which completely makes me less invested in the match.
If I were to rate the matches from this years Mania I would give them a D. I can only hope the low quality is due to the coronavirus or maybe I forgot how average WWE's wrestling truly is.
