WhyGamesMatter

There are a lot of interesting sounds in professional wrestling.

Listening From Down Under

One thing I used to wonder about was the slamming sound that we hear when someone is thrown down to the mat. The sound occurs in a wrestling ring, but not when someone goes down in a boxing ring. Why is that?

It turns out that several things are involved. First, the center of the ring often has a spring that adds bounce to the ring movement. In addition to giving the appearance of wrestlers bouncing off of the mat, the banging of the spring adds to the sound heard under the ring.

Of course, that leave the question, “but what does it matter if the sound is heard under the ring?” It matters because wrestling promoters also have a microphone beneath the ring to capture all of those banging sounds, and project them through the PA system to the audience.

Calling the Match

Another thing that I find fascinating is the ability of professional wrestlers to coordinate their movements in the right. Some of those matches go for 30+ minutes, and there’s no way that they can have an entire script of moves memorized for each match.

As it turns out, they don’t memorize the moves; they call the match in the ring. Right before our very eyes, the wrestlers are in constant communication between themselves and the referee. Every move, setup, instance of “cheating”, etc., is discussed as they go along. In fact, the only thing that the wrestlers and the referee often know going into the match is (1) how long the match needs to go, and (2) how the match will finish.

They are able to do this, of course, because of the soundscape of the wrestling arena. Every time they tie up, they can talk, and nobody can hear them. The louder the crowd, the easier it is for them to put on a good show.

Here is an excellent video on the topic.