Back Man, 2 of 2

Last week, after I confessed my love for wrestlers’ backs and identified myself as a “Back Man,” a reader left me a fantastic suggestion:

“Perhaps you should follow up with the logical: doing a spot devoted to back work in match. On that focus, I really am a back man.”

OK — here is a look at the back work that often occurs during a pro wrestling match, broken down by the four most common categories: stretches, slams, strikes, and squeezes.

1. Stretches

A back stretch is any move that contorts the spine or bends the opponent backwards, such as an Over-the-Knee or Over-the-Shoulder Backbreaker.

Of all the back attacks, the stretches tend to have the most exotic (and erotic) names, like “Torture Rack,” “Bow and Arrow,” or “Camel Clutch.”  Just hearing these sadistic sounding moves is like pornography to me.

The back stretches are also the slowest and longest-held of the back attacks, and therefore the most likely to pop boners.

What tribute to back work would be complete without the “Messiah of the Backbreaker” — Roderick Strong?   Roddy has adopted focusing on the back as his signature move set, bending and breaking his victims every which way he can.

This nickname is such a cool way to describe one’s love of back abuse: “Messiah” as if it’s a religious devotion.  It’s respectful of the tradition of pro wrestling, breathing new life into the classic moves and honoring them as your chosen offense.

2. Slams

“Slams” are any maneuvers where you scoop up or flip the opponent, causing him to land on his back.  The impact of his body into any solid object (such as the mat, the edge of the ring, the floor outside the ring, a wall or post, the steel steps at ringside, or the seat of a chair) harms his back. The variety of hard surfaces to slam him into is only limited by your imagination.

Your job is just to beast up and throw the sumbitch; his job is to squirm around on impact like you just misaligned his lumbar vertebrae.  Common slams include the Bodyslam (duh), Power Slam, Suplex, and Monkey Flip.  As a general rule, all of these moves hurt worse when performed outside the ring instead of inside the ring.

I don’t talk about the classic Vertical Suplex and how much I love this move often enough.  You collar him, grip a big fistful of his trunks, hoist him upside down, then crash-land him onto his back — it is so basic and cruel.  And it sounds like a cannon firing when the bodies impact the mat, I love that.

You can either “Snap Suplex” him, focusing on the speed and force of impact, or you can hold him inverted, letting the blood rush to his head.  Modern pro wrestlers are prolonging the length of the Suplex inversion while the fans count off the seconds and the victim hangs there in suspended animation, unable to resist.

Irish Whipping someone so that his back crashes into something solid such as the Turnbuckles is another form of Slam.  Selling the pain of the impact is critical here — the recipient should collapse to his knees and put a hand on his lower back as if he was driven, not into a padded ring support, but into the Great Wall of China itself.  We need to believe that slam fucking killed.

3. Strikes

Strikes are the percussive attacks where you drive a knee, fist, boot, elbow, or any other body part or object into his back to hurt him.  Strikes are often applied after you’ve already injured the back using one of the above maneuvers.

Back strikes are also much more fun when repeated.  In other words, don’t just kick him once; dance all over his back like it’s on fire and you’re trying to stomp out the flames.

Strikes are cheap as wrestling moves go, so they should be issued without restraint.  Any time an opponent lays down on his stomach, the attacker’s first question should be: “Do I want to drop a knee or an elbow this time?”

4. Squeezes

Crushing moves like the good old Bearhug are sometimes included in a series of back attacks — packaged and sold as back weakeners.  Any move where our attention is drawn to his back eroticizes this body part, at least for me.