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Honor Before Reason/Professional Wrestling

< Honor Before Reason


Examples of Honor Before Reason in Professional Wrestling include:

  • Earlier in Professional Wrestling, one of the markings of a face was that, win or lose, they'd wrestle fair while the heels would do whatever they had to in order to win. Eventually, as wrestling got Darker and Edgier, wrestlers like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ric Flair, and Eddie Guerrero would be massive faces for the fans despite cheating often.
  • This trope was teased with at ECW: One Night Stand 2006 as Rob Van Dam fought John Cena for the WWE Championship in the Hammerstein Ballroom. Towards the end of the match, Cena was attacked by Edge (very much to the approval of the rapidly pro-ECW/anti-Cena crowd who shouted "Thank You, Edge!" as he departed) while Rob was out. When Rob came to, he recognized what happened and looked as if, for a moment, that he wasn't going to take advantage of the situation. The announce team (Taz and the legendary Joey Styles) yelled for him to capitalize on the opportunity and to not let his pride get the better of him. RVD then decided to shirk his pride and frog splashed Cena to win the title.
    • This ended up being RVD's downfall later on in the storyline; during RVD's run as ECW champion, Paul Heyman was handling him with kid gloves and protecting him from challengers. Recent ECW draftee The Big Show decided he wanted a shot at the title; Heyman was against it, but RVD demanded the match. Heyman ended up betraying RVD and cost him the match, the championship, and his job (in reality he was suspended for a dwi incident).
  • A face will continue to fight despite overwhelming odds or injuries causing the announcer to say "he has more guts than brains".
  • One type of match is the Steel Cage match, where the objective is usually to climb over the top of the cage and escape before your opponents do. Chances are high that, at least once during the match, one wrestler will climb to the top only to sacrifice what could be a sure win for the sake of executing a high-flying move on the combatants still below. Bonus points if doing this move has put the wrestler in such a state that he's no longer in any condition to try climbing the cage again.
    • The same in Ladder Matches.
  • WWE Money In The Bank 2011's main event had John Cena apply his "STF" hold onto a tired CM Punk when Vince McMahon and his cohort appeared, with Vince instructing his cohort to have the timekeeper ring the bell (recreating the Montreal Screwjob with Vince's minion of place of Vince from the original incident) -- however, Cena actually broke the hold, exited the ring and promptly slugged the henchman, knocking him down and out and staring at Vince to make it clear, "no, not that way"... only for Cena to catch a "GTS" (Punk's own signature move) and be pinned for his troubles.
    • Speaking of Money in the Bank, the actual Money in the Bank gimmick has become almost a character study in this trope. The winner of a Money In The Bank match has an open contract for a title shot, that they can invoke at any time. Honorable grapplers will announce ahead of time when they are going to cash it in. Daniel Bryan, for instance, has already announced that he'll be using it to challenge for the title in the Main Event at the next Wrestlemania. Dishonorable ones will run in right after the champion has taken a vicious beating, allowing them an almost assured victory.
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