Pro Wrestling is more difficult than Mixed Martial Arts

My opponent stated that wrestling is "only difficult until the fight. The fight itself is just bashing into each other, the hard bit being preparing your body to be huge and tough enough to take the bashes." Trust me, this statement is completely false. It is hard preparing your body, and then the fight is hard. I've been in ten minute matches where a minute before they started and I felt like a million bucks, and in the end I end up feeling like I just got hit by a whole high-way of cars. Now I am no doubt denying the pain that MMA fighters feel in the end of a fight, but with pro wrestlers you have the added difficulty of playing through the pain. With the MMA if you get hurt enough that you can't concentrate all you have to do and go over to Mr. Referee and say "Hey buddy, I don't think this can go on." In pro wrestlers, referees aren't like that. Refs have to deal as pacemaker, an official, and a timekeeper. I've done this personally, but I went up to a ref and told him that I didn't think I could continue. He asked me if I thought I was having a heart attack or a concussion or a neck injury, and when I said no to all three he said "Son unless you think you're gonna' die you HAVE to finish that match." And guess what, I finished the match, got checked out by the ringside doctor, and found out that I had a torn muscle in my arm from lifting a guy who weighed 325 pounds (I'm only 6'1" and 234, and I like jumping more than lifting). You also said that pro wrestling is "purely about learning how to take pain and shout (and act to a very basic level), while in the MMA you need to learn how to think up combos that abide by numerous rules and also deliver lots of damage per hit, etc." While you're right about Mixed Martial Artists needing to know how to deliver maximum damage per hit, that is about as far as your statement goes. First of all, when we shout, it means that the move that just happened to us REALLY hurt. You seldom see a pro wrestler shouting because that's not a good sell, which is what we do. Selling is making the audience believe that the move hurt a whole lot more than it did. Now don't get me wrong, those moves hurt, a LOT, but you never shout. It's kind of the golden rule of wrestling. Once you shout, you're really hurt, and that's when the ref knows to finish a match. WWE superstar Dolph Ziggler is perhaps the only exception in that golden rule. You also said that "MMA fighters also need to think up combos that abide by numerous rules." While that is true, who ever said that wrestlers don't do that. I have a strict set of rules to follow when I wrestle a match, because if I break one somebody could get very hurt. A buddy of mine who had just graduated, in his first match, broke one rule for the promotion he was working for. He broke his opponent's arm and was fined, released, and then sued by the other guy for the money to pay for the medical bill. He still has that on his USA record and he can't get work anywhere in the USA because nobody wants to put their wrestlers in danger. I currently have no clue where he is, but that's beside the point. The point is that wrestling has a set of rules, and if you break them the consequences are just as great in wrestling as in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. And my last point is that you said that we have to "act at a very basic level." Buddy, you're talking to a guy whose been in my pro wrestling school for about two years, and I can tell you that cutting a promo or doing a backstage skit uses a LOT of acting skill. True you don't need to be Hollywood good, but you have to be good enough to get a reaction from the audience, which is harder than it looks. I am a good talker, and I'm one of the best promo and skit men in my class, but let me tell you from experience that it's a very challenging task to get a good promo or skit done. Some great technical guys in my group are at the bottom of the pack because they can't give promos relevant to their character. I am somewhat towards the top, and I'll be the first to admit that I am a poor technical wrestler, but I can give some promos that would make CM Punk, the best promo man in the business proud. Well, this is the end of the debate for me, so I would like to thank con for accepting the challenge and stepping up to the plate. Good luck.