best seller

Like he had a damned rubber spring for a neck. I'm a sucker for a hilarious oversell.

Speaking of hilarious oversells, the timing of Shane's beer explosion here is awesome.
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Back on topic, I always thought nobody could take an asskicking as convincingly as Ricky Morton, but Steamboat was a close second.
 
RVD sold a piledriver well once.



That made it look about as devastating as getting piledriven on a trampoline.

You never would have seen Dusty Rhodes or Jake Roberts sell a piledriver like that; they knew how to sell.
 
I prefer Bret's style of believable selling. His reactions are consistent with how someone would act after taking a huge hit IRL. It creates a better overall product IMO, vs the HBK et al style of selling moves in a caricature fashion, then a few seconds later acting like nothing happened.

Watch someone take a huge hit in The UFC - not a knockout, just a huge hit that they can still continue from and tell me if the way they react is consistent with Bret Hart's "believable selling." Doing this will convince you that either Bret Hart's selling was not consistent with how a fighter would react to some type of punishing maneuver sustained in a fight, or that UFC is fake and filled with guys who don't sell properly.
 
Speaking of hilarious oversells, the timing of Shane's beer explosion here is awesome.
YAakv2A.gif


Back on topic, I always thought nobody could take an asskicking as convincingly as Ricky Morton, but Steamboat was a close second.

The rings WWE uses are so bouncy that nobody believes any impact with the ring actually hurts. You never used to see guys bounce like that back in the days of Bruno Sammartino. The ring was made solidly and kept people from doing that trampoline act that makes a joke out of the whole business. ECW had a bouncy ring too but they at least did a lot of bumps out on the concrete where they didn't even use those padded blue mats that you saw placed on the concrete around the ring at that time in WWF or WCW.

Those bouncy rings make practically anything possible.. In ECW you saw guys take all kinds of bumps in the ring and not get hurt but when Pitbull Gary Wolfe insisted that Shane Douglas piledrive him on the TV title belt, Gary ended up with a legitimately broken neck (which resulted in some of the best heel promos in the business from Shane Douglas).
 
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Watch someone take a huge hit in The UFC - not a knockout, just a huge hit that they can still continue from and tell me if the way they react is consistent with Bret Hart's "believable selling." Doing this will convince you that either Bret Hart's selling was not consistent with how a fighter would react to some type of punishing maneuver sustained in a fight, or that UFC is fake and filled with guys who don't sell properly.

Yeah, ummm...go watch a fight where some dude gets leg-kicked 20x, and tell me there's no difference in his gait. That's the kind of selling Bret did. In any case, still more believable than cartoonish over-the-top selling of a move, only to act as if nothing happened 20 seconds later.
 
The Bossman.


Check him out here getting his 'clock cleaned even before the match started' by DiBiase at WM 6:





Selling those stomps.....
 
And 10 min later Bret would still be selling a banged up knee, bruised ribs or a injured shoulder...


Now people get their knee worked for 5 min straight and 10 min later they're pulling top rope shit on it

Or that shit at Mania a few years ago HHH has a match with Sting and 15 minutes later(slight exaggeration) he was wearing a suit and hamming it up in the ring like it never happened .
 
I'd add Jeff Hardy but he was probably legit hurt by half of those.
 
I got to go with Bret Hart...Mr Perfect...

Hart was selling stuff in a way that made you believe...not over the top like Michaels who flopped around like a fish...

Just watched a couple of matches between Hart and Tiger Mask...great stuff

Flair was awesome too...
When he just flopped down, face first, after a hard hit...over the top but too funny...
 
AA Arn Anderson. He had to do all the heavy lifting in those horseman tags and war games and he always had to eat finishers from everyone.
 
Selling a move....or selling as in psychology of selling a body part?

For me, it's either Bret Hart or Chris Benoit. Both guys sold moves the way one would think it would look. For example, the RVD piledriver spot is awesome at first glance but it is just ridiculous, HBK-Hogan level ridiculous. Someone drops you on your head, your neck does not compress and then rebound like a spring. Same with Rock's ridiculous Stunner sell job. Bret Hart's selling of the Stunner is still the best, looked like he broke his jaw. Benoit was very similar in that fashion
 
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