From: Lopen | #115
Eh I think planning is important in wrestling and comes in a lot of forms. It's not all about making connections or cheating, either. Like the Bret Hart vs Diesel match I was talking about... it was very common for Diesel to "play with his food" when he felt he had the edge, so for Bret Hart to possum him into a small package was excellent planning on Bret's part. I mean, yeah, it doesn't prove Bret is the stronger wrestler or anything, but he used tactics to make up for that and that's why he wins.
Heels with managers or allies and using them as their plan rather than the opponent's weakness is a similar thing to me. And if it's further allowed by the rules of the match so there was no technical cheating going on? Clean win-- the face should've been able to account for that or just brute through all of it if he's really the better man. I mean, would you consider a guy abusing the hell out of the lumberjacks and repeatedly tossing a guy into his rival at ringside to win a lumberjack match a tainted win? It's the same thing in that you're using interference you planned for to further your goals and said interference is allowed by the rules.
Wrestling is a thinking man's sport Bobby The Brain Heenan told us this all the time.
Heenan also said Jannetty tried to dive through the window to escape "lol"
And I'd actually say Bret doing that proves he was the better wrestler on that night. He used tactical planning in a one-on-one match, no outside interference or weapons, exploited a flaw in his opponent's personality and won. Now if, in a rematch, Diesel excised that part of his personality and went strictly for the win, Diesel would be the better man.
If you beat somebody one-on-one with no weapons, outside interference or other shenanigans (like using the ropes or pulling the trunks), then it doesn't matter about the circumstances, you were better on that night. Doesn't matter if the opponent showboated, that's his fault, a flaw that cost him the match and that you exploited.
If there are no DQs and you bring a buddy with you, like I said, it makes you smarter and more manipulative outside the ring. But it doesn't make you better than the other guy as a wrestler. If anything that is an implict acknowledgement that you're NOT as good as him. So it might get better results, but it doesn't make you the better man. That's like, the whole point of a heel. They're (mostly) inferior where the wrestling gets done, so they get other stuff to make up for it.
You can say the face should have prepared for it and maybe you're right but that doesn't make it clean - because a match (even a no DQ match) is supposed to be about deciding who the better man is. Outside interference in a no DQ isn't "wrong", but it's an admittance that you needed it, which makes you inferior.
...Unless the no DQ is put in place by some kind of heel authority figure, but then the whole point of that is that it makes a mockery of the sport for the sake of their own personal goals.
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"The great fallacy is that the game is first and foremost about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory." - Danny Blanchflower