Ted DiBiase Sr. On The Dying Art Of Improv In Wrestling, Frequent High-Spots, No-Selling, More
On the latest episode of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” show, Ted DiBiase Sr. talked about the dying art of improvisation in professional wrestling, wrestlers doing frequent high spots and not selling, what he does not like about modern wrestling, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On wrestlers adapting to different crowds: “You know, being a wrestler, you’re the one out there, And it’s kind of like when I talk to guys, I said ‘You can’t go out in the ring and assume. You can do something in a match and it gets over? Great.’ Now, you could go to the next town and do something similar and maybe not get the reaction you got the night before. And I’m serious, every crowd is different now.”
On the dying art of improvisation in wrestling: The greater percentage of the people you do things in front of will have the same reaction. But you can’t count on that. I mean, that’s why you can’t just go out and before the match, I’ll say, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do step by step by step by step.’ The dying art of wrestling is improv because way back when, the only thing I knew going into the ring was the finish. Now if I had a history with a guy now, like say, Jake [Roberts] and I had already had a match and whatever. And the last thing that the people saw in the ring was me putting the screws to him and in a bad way. Well then, the next time I get in the ring with them I’m not just going to stroll out there and get in the ring, get introduced, and start the match. It’s like the next time I get in the ring and he hits the ring on a dang dead run and chases me right out of the ring and around the ring. So I might know the beginning. ‘Here’s how we will start, and here’s how it will finish.’ But everything else is on the fly. And there aren’t — I’m telling you, not a handful of guys today can do that.”
On wrestlers doing frequent high spots, not selling: “It’s so hard for me to watch today’s product because I watch them and it’s like, ‘Okay, I might as well be watching a tumbling match.’ Because all I see is them doing high spots. I used to take a bump, we call it an ass bump, where the guy picks you up and it looks like he’s dropping your rear end right on his leg. I would take that and then I would bounce off of that, and I knew how to hit the rope at just the right part of my body to where my legs would fly up and I would go over the top rope to the floor. Now today, when you do that, they bounce up like nothing happened. I would lay there and sell it. All you young wrestlers out there, learn how to sell. In other words, there’s got to be a reason for a babyface to make a comeback, and unless he sells, I mean, your comeback will only be as good as your sell-job.”
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