Endless War : The Similarities Between Metal and Wrestling

 

Wrestling is the oldest sport in existence. One can find it in any culture on earth, Egyptian hieroglyphs depict various techniques, Islam recognizes it as one of the main sports for preparation in combat and European knights trained extensively as a lot of armored fights quickly become tests of who could pin who to be able to deal a finishing blow with a dagger through the gaps in the plate armor. Throughout the years wrestling has proven to be the best art for all forms of combat as every region in the world has at least one form of indigenous wrestling.

Not all forms of wrestling are equal, as technology relating to sports has evolved so have the rules and the competitors to reflect these changes. Most older forms of wrestling as practical as they may seem have no interest except for maintaining tradition. Even though wrestling styles appear different since wrestling can be any sport without strikes and where one wins through submission or positional dominance, there are three useful types in this day and age.

Greco-Roman: An Olympic form where using or grabbing the legs is illegal so that upper body moves may be demonstrated, possibly the hardest style in existence since it requires an above average individual to understand the intricacies of how to defeat an opponent without tackling him or tripping him up.

Freestyle: An Olympic style that permits an incredibly large number of techniques and rewards fast explosive sequences, by far the most popular style due to its diversity and propagation throughout the world.

Folkstyle: Trained exclusively in America from a very young age up into collegiate level with many of these athletes winning international accolades in the other two styles. Unlike the Olympic styles, dominance is prioritized over everything else. Fancy throws score as much as the basic ones and there is unlimited time for the athletes to fight on the ground while the one on top keeps gaining points for positional dominance.

We shall concentrate on Folkstyle wrestling as it is the most similar to metal in that it discards showmanship in favor of results and while it may appear to be random and chaotic on the outside, it is a very organized sport with distinct sequences. The two most common techniques folkstyle are the single leg and the double leg, both deceptively simple for someone who doesn’t follow the sport but contain a myriad of details and variations like bare bones playing of early death and black metal. Kung fu movie throws do not work on someone who actually has a minimum of strength and balance and can fight a bit and varied throws are lower percentage techniques than diving down to grab the legs.

Metal relies on the same conviction and determination that is essential in wrestling. Average musicians like those of Sarcofago and Sepultura shocked the world with the power of their music that they achieved through hard work and an unbreakable desire to share their vision. A strong motivated wrestler with endless willpower will eventually smash through a technician in the same way Morbid Visions will always best a tech death album. The technician may have a fancy bag of tricks that will initially impress but once the bag is empty or the tricks are similar to the previous ones, the brute will eventually discard the illusions and obliterate the technician. The brute relies on an a high work rate, draining his opponent’s energy while making sure that every action is efficient, works towards a larger objective while using as little as energy as possible. Imagine the machine like grinding of Pierced From Within vs the randomness of Behemoth’s later works, one is designed perfectly down to the last millisecond, the other is a list of random ideas connected with no overall purpose.

Folkstyle is also known for its intense and soul shattering physical preparation that most humans would never even dream of attempting. Like metal, raw strength is valued immensely as it is the basis of achieving victory. Having the physical tools to accompany mental strength is necessary as the mind is not isolated from the body. A mixture of speed, endurance, power and strength(power being the speed that you can use your strength) allows the mind more freedom since the body can execute more actions without being held back by weakness. Wrestling and metal are very tiring in action as technique comes together with power unlike more popular sports and genres, where you can replace physicality with tricks like being able to shoot football penalties (soccer for the yanks) or repeating the same sweep pattern. Tricks that are attained from repeating an excruciating number of times the same thing mindlessly. Jon Schaffer perfected his rhythm attack through technique and immense endurance and Lord Worm possessed great lung capacity and some conceptually weird tricks to produce some of the most awe inspiring tones in metal.

Two folkstyle greats Taylor and Dake demonstrating the beauty of the sport

While technique without any foundation is guaranteed failure and nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Technique is the stuff that can make those excellent into legends. Cause of Death as much as it is a great album, lacks a certain level of sophistication that stops it just short from being a transcendental effort. Whereas Atheist added technique on top of an excellent base that allowed them to pierce into the top of the death metal pantheon. High level wrestlers focus on the bread and butter tactics that work but in times of need are able to muster all the confidence and previous training required to pull of such moves on high level and mostly equal combatants. Most great metal bands have the potential and the ability to throw around technical parts but what makes them great is when they do so in time of need. Sinister’s Cross the Styx enforces easy melodies to play combined with occasional NYDM sections that are fairly complicated to play. Being overly technical at the wrong moment generally tends to backfire in metal as well as in wrestling. In wrestling it allows the opponent to counter fairly easily and in metal it is discarded as a useless diversion.

Wrestling has kept strong conservative values and even during various periods of corruption never sold out or made a mockery of itself. For all Hessians interested in combat, I strongly recommend trying the sport in any of its variations at least once as it is truly a very hard and punishing sport where there are no shortcuts on the road towards success and unlike metal the values from metal have reached the top of the world in that most of the top cage fighting athletes have a very strong base folkstyle base, proving that the values in wrestlingare the best to have in times of war and that metal should seek to create ties if it wants to exceed itself.

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29 thoughts on “Endless War : The Similarities Between Metal and Wrestling”

  1. matters says:

    I haven’t watched wrestling since the whole WCW/WWF merger, but in recent memory there were the “Headbangers.” The were active during the “Raw is war” era. One of the guys would wear Obituary and Sepultura t-shirts. Then in the 80’s there were the “Rockers” but they took on a more 80’s hard rock imagery. Then there was Demolition who wore corpsepaint-looking facepaint and had spikes and s&m gear. In the late 90’s there was a WCW wrestler named “Vampiro” who even had the Misfits escorting him into the ring, I think Jerry Only may have gotten into the ring too. Not to mention countless wrestlers who had metal-sounding entrance music.So yes, metal and wrestling had some similarities.

    What do you think of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or MMA?

    1. Ignorance says:

      He’s talking about REAL WRESTLING, not showbizz bullshit.

      Graeco-Roman wrestling, Judo (a descendant of ju-jitsu), BJJ (A descendant of Judo trying to reconnect with ju-jitsu and develop more), Mongolian wrestling, etc.

    2. LostInTheANUS says:

      You do know that pro wrestling is basically a circus show and not actual combat, right?

    3. canadaspaceman says:

      I missed the WCW in the 1990s, due to my best friend saying WCW was only for niggers, so every week, we would go to a bar and eat and drink and ONLY watch WWF.
      Now that downloading exists, WCW was super-cool, now that I got to have seen all the Monday Nitro’s (haha, via torrents)…any my friend was a jerk, but maybe he was correct that WCW was aimed more at a black audience?
      and to hell with you all that don’t like “pro-wrestling”.
      It is supposed to be FUN, enjoyable, like heavy metal. gets you angry. gets you happy. blah blah.
      Yeah, it’s in a slump right now, and f’n WWE is aimed mainly at the smarks indy wrestling crowd into Ring of Honor, japan, etc etc , but there is always TNA/Impact to make you think of the good old 1980s stuff, like, WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling.

  2. Charles Stuart says:

    Wrestling is a great starting point for anyone interested in martial arts. While it appears stylized in certain aspects, anyone who has been in a real fight knows that those always quickly end up on the ground as grappling and leverage matches. It is good to have a solid grounding here before moving onto other styles like Aikido or Jiu Jitsu.

    1. keyboard worrier says:

      Yeah except for all the fights i’ve won by punching someone so hard they fall down

      Which is all of them

      You wanna learn to fight go join a boxing gym and get some training

      “Real” fights (by which I take it you mean street fights) are won by showing the other guy that he’s going to get hurt way too bad to get what he wants and nothing says that better than laying him out completely with one punch

      Besides in many cases you’ll be overwhelmed by numbers and that is the worst time to be crawling around on the ground, you’ll eat shit guaranteed

      1. Charles Stuart says:

        It sound like you are just sucker punching people.

        1. keyboard worrier says:

          “Real” fights don’t have rules faggot so there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking the initiative to dominating an opponent, the one who walks away without getting hurt wins, but enjoy your spandex bushido and stay out of the hood

    2. Flying Kites says:

      Emphasis on “starting point.” That Kyle guy classed at the top in four weightclasses. That’s exceptional youth.

  3. Adam from Malokarpatan says:

    here’s what they have in common:

    1. tons of implicit homoeroticism

    2. hygienically challenged male fans

  4. dead butt dreaming says:

    Tl;dr

    Both metal and rassling are all about the fearsome unbridled frottage

  5. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    No pankration or catch-as-catch-can? Modern freestyle is the only real American martial art. This article blew it.

    I can’t believe the first response brought up WWE…

  6. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    This was like a random noobie thread on Sherdog’s off topic forum. The autbor clearly avoided wrestling in MMA even though it’s the main fundamental crux of it all. This guy should stick to karate…

    1. Psychic Psych Toad says:

      Edit- Oops, somehow I missed the cage fighting reference.

      1. Nicholas Vahdias says:

        Mate Sherdog is mostly retarded wannabe tough guys, bjj white belts and old men far beyond their prime that warmup for an hour.
        Wrestling exists outside the confines of MMA and eventually I will get on to it.
        Who the hell trains catch apart from a few people in the north of England, do you even know what catch is and how it evolved into folkstyle?
        Pankration hasn’t existed for god knows how long and the modern stuff is just MMA without ground strikes.
        Try wrestling once in your life.

        1. Psychic Psych Toad says:

          Way ahead of ya noobie. I train harder in one day than you have your entire life. Glad you see you know how to use google now, your article could have been better referenced and historically complete beforehand though.

          Obviously I used Sherdog because of it’s nature, but you produced content down on Reddit MMA’s level, congrats.
          Sherdog is full of metalheads though, and a good article defining similarities between metal and wrestling would go far there.

          1. Nicholas Vahdias says:

            What are your accolades and in what sport?
            There is an obvious reason why this article refrains from technical details, most people don’t know much about the sport.
            You are one of those idiots who go on Sherdog asking why you can’t take anyone down with your single leg.
            Don’t worry I will teach you a few takedowns

  7. 1349 says:

    They say Imprecation’s bass player served in the army.

    1. Nespithe & Burzum says:

      One member of Necrovore was in the military.

      1. Trust Me, I`m Christian says:

        And that one guy from Benediction was a Knights Templar.

        1. Nespithe & Burzum says:

          That’s good meta-comedy, but I might be wrong on Necrovore since I can’t find the interview. I know it was an American band.

          So far, military would be Sodom, Demilich, Imprecation, Convulse, and?

  8. Dirk says:

    Some of the Band of Orcs guys instructed me in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and are black belts. I also have trained over 15 years in various arts and play metal. Metal and jiu jitsu wrestling are very challenging, and not suitable for Justin Bieber fan.s

  9. Flying Kites says:

    The ancients love trolling moderns by interspersing their wrestling manuals with tantric sex forms.

  10. Psychic Psych Toad says:

    You’re really running with this Sherdog thing aren’t ya manlet? Need to be more socially active in that arena.

    Let’s all whip our dicks out and see who’s the biggest!! Should I already know your accolades? Should I care?

    I could teach you how to counter my counter to your single leg though, yell “That’s my purse! I don’t know you!” Then proceed to rub my outer ankle against your balls whilst I elbow a hole into the back of your ear and curbcheck your teeth out just for shits n giggles. Even if I let you take me down, I could still kill you easily from anywhere at any time, any way I want to, with any appendage… I would strangle you with your own underwear! I think I used the word “I” too much!

    Were you the guy who said “size doesn’t matter” on the old forum here? Circa 2006ish?

  11. Exfoliation says:

    Metal and wrestling are very much alike in that’s it’s a bunch of fags trying to fuck each other in the ass

  12. Nicholas Vahdias says:

    Never posted on sherdog nor the old forum.
    If you want to act like a keyboard warrior then at least tell me your age size, your numbers in the gym and your experience in combat sports.
    No need to pretend to be tough when you are hiding behind your screen.

    1. Exfoliation says:

      A/S/L big boy, I want to know your…… size

  13. canadaspaceman says:

    The depiction you show always has the negro attempting anal sex on the white.

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