Corner Devastation

I’ve mentioned before on this Blog how much I love double-teaming, including the dirty bullshit in the Heel’s corner behind the ref’s back.  I’m actually surprised I don’t write about this scenario more often, I love it so much.

A double-team or triple-team attack is meant to appear especially devastating and difficult to recover from. When multiple guys assault the Good Guy in their corner, his pain is magnified exponentially, so three against one is made to seem ten times more painful than one against one.

Many pro wrestling matches depict a slow wearing down of the Baby-Face, each move incrementally sapping his energy.  As his Hit Points drain by small percents, we think to ourselves: “That Power Slam was bad, but he’ll get up…  That Camel Clutch did some damage, but he can still rally.”

Then the victim’s body is dragged into the wrong corner for a group beating and we’re soon thinking:  “Oh damn — that was too much!  How can anyone withstand so much abuse by so many other men??”  The abuse in the far corner is presented as being much more painful and draining than the usual one-on-one wrestling moves.

This effect is similar to the outrageous fight scenes in many action movies.  At first, we see the hero suffer some punches to the face, maybe some sand gets thrown in his eyes, and we think — “Come on — fight back soon or he’s going to hurt you too bad to recover.”

Then the villain pulls out a baseball bat or  a poolstick and drills our hero in the gut about eight times and he collapses to his knees, his head hanging down like a deflated balloon.  Suddenly some trigger clicks on in the animal part of our brains and our desperation to see the hero rally turns into a quiet and satisfied acceptance that he can never possibly fight back (but he always does…)

When the Face-in-Peril is forced into the wrong corner of the wrestling ring, his arms pinned back by the bastard(s) outside the ropes, the damage seems more damaging, his pain more painful.  We understand that his Hit Points are now in the red zone and dropping fast just because of the presence of a second or third attacker (who may not even be doing much of anything).

The implication is that two-on-one moves administered in the far corner are more momentous and more serious, and therefore more exciting, at least to me. I don’t know how else to explain why I enjoy the Corner Capture so much.