Spot Monkey: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Interestingly, the term "Spot Monkey" is being used quite similarly to "Mary Sue" in its overuse. It's quickly losing its definition and becoming shorthand for "wrestler I don't like."

* Most of the roster of ''[[Wrestling Society X]]''.

** Van Dam's is more about his lack of selling a story rather than lack of selling an attack. A case in point would be his match with Abyss at ''Bound For Glory''. Abyss had tried to ''kill'' RVD with a block of wood covered with huge nails and forced RVD to vacate the belt. During the match, RVD played to the crowd and generally acted like this was just another match rather than a high-level blood feud. Spot Monkey may not be the correct term to describe this though.

* Averted with [[Shawn Michaels]]. He is a great practitioner of high-level spots and was a major influence on today's spot monkeys. However, he also happens to be one of the greatest wrestlers of all time and one of the absolute best at telling a story through a match, thus completely averting the stigma of a spot monkey.

* [[John Morrison]] gets painted with this brush. Mostly since he's a former gymnast who now practices [[Le Parkour]] and Capoeira, his spots can be ''spectacular'' when he does do them. As far as everything in between them, he's improved since his debut, but many of his TV matches boil down to him doing three spots, followed by his finisher, with the other guy doing most of the work.

* A non high-flying example would be [[Gail Kim]] from her first WWE run, who used complicated, nasty looking submission holds with no rhyme, reason or buildup. Ironically whenever she wrestles with her high flying moveset, she shows full awareness of how to tell a story with her moves.

* Lucha Libre can often seem like this to a casual viewer, in that the rules for trios matches don't allow for American-style heat building and the harder rings make traditional "bumps" all but impossible.

** Also in Lucha Libre it's somewhat common for the tecnicos (faces) to be Spot Monkeys and provide the high spots, and for the rudos (heels) to be more grounded and responsible for telling the story. Watch pretty much any Rey Mysterio vs Psicosis match from the 90s, and how Psicosis controls the pace and sets Mysterio up for his high spots.

* A good portion of the [[Ring of Honor]] roster in the early days could be accused of this; most notable is the group Special K, who almost served as a [[Lampshading]] of the wrestling style. All of the members were rich kid ravers who were on so much drugs that they could pretty much kill themselves doing ridiculous moves with no rhyme or reason to it (conveniently sidestepping the question of how they actually had the motor coordination to actually pull these spots off in Kayfabe), and they flaunted their lack of storytelling and "respect for the business" for heel heat.

** Special K was negatively contrasted with [[Low Ki]], a "[[Serious Business|shoot-style]]" pro wrestler who relied more on stiff kicks. It didn't help Special K's reputation (or them in kayfabe) that [[Low Ki]] was one of ROH's top stars and kayfabe threats at the time.

** Not to mention that both Punk AND Hart got blackballed (at least from that company) for a fight that they had while both employed by TNA.

* Jack Evans in a big bad way. Practically every single move he does involves at least one flip. The worst part, he's sloppy as hell and has landed on his head countless times.

* [[Dragon Gate]] was described by Vince Verhei (of [[The Wrestling Observer Newsletter|Figure Four Weekly]]) as "two guys/teams come out, they do 75,000 moves as fast as they can in a 10 minute span, and then at a random point, one of them is pinned."

 

* Roller derby used to involves entire teams of spot monkeys back in the 70s, where every score, every block, every fall, and every fight was scripted beforehand, though [[Kayfabe|the players obviously denied this.]] Modern teams occasionally pull some spectacular trick skating out to gain popularity with the audience before the match or during half time, but these days matches are totally unscripted and often about ten times more brutal as a result.

* Curiously-related Non-Wrestling Example: [[Opera]]. In what is meant to be a sung story, a lot of the more spectacular singers ignore the acting element, in favor of scene-stealing vocal performances (i.e., not making eye contact with someone you're meant to be 'acting' with in a duet, opting to sing for technique and not for emotion, etc). The phenomenon is strikingly similar enough to call them Spot Monkeys.

** Even MORE curiously related, this behavior contributed to the downfall of the Castrati - men who'd been gelded at a young age so that the high pitches and clarity of tone from their pre-pubescent voices never faded, but were instead added to by the power of adult male lungs and a more flexible ribcage. Many, many Castrati, shamelessly self-satisfied, embellished and improvised the arias they were given to make themselves look as magnificent as possible, with no regards to what the opera was about or what that aria itself was even trying to say. Fed up, one of the most influential opera composers of the time announced he was sick of this bullshit and that he was no longer writing ''any'' parts for Castrati in his operas. This caught on as many composers were equally done with having their carefully crafted art chewed up and spat out with gaudy, vocal acrobatics and as a result, the Castrati vogue - which had gone on for quite some time and produced a number of bonafide superstars - began to subside. The Church finally capped it by forbidding the practice entirely. Ball-less Spot Monkeys.

*** Actually, the church had banned ''creating'' castrati for musical purposes decades before they fell out of use- all later boys had just 'happened' to 'need' their testicles removed or destroyed at about 13 for some 'medical' reason (surgeons in those days not having any sort of regulation, and child abuse only being regarded if it were liable to actually kill the child...) France managed to stop the craze first by banning them ''performing''- everywhere else, the change in fashion came at about the same time as changes in medical practice (with surgery done by doctors) ''and'' a change in social attitudes to children's rights.

** There's another musical version of Spot Monkeys. There are several singers who can achieve very high notes in a range known as the Whistle Register. Minnie Riperton was one of the first, and others such as Mariah Carey and Debelah Morgan have been able to achieve it more recently. Possibly because it's difficult to make your voice jump up and down your range (or because listening to it for long periods can get frustrating), but any time a singer uses the Whistle Register, it's never used for the purpose of the song, or even ''during'' a song. It's usually added on to the end of it, almost just to say "Listen to what I can do."