Winning Clean + Losing Dirty

Interesting how something that often crops up when defending or attacking a wrestler is how many times they win clean or lose dirty but it surely just depends on their heel/face persona at the time.

The main point I'm making is that people generally overstate how important winning is. HHH and Hogan can "go over" as many people as is suggested but where exactly does that put him and his opponent?

Take a hypothetical situation. HHH cleanly beats HBK at Wrestlemania. When Monday comes will the board be flooded with "HBK can eat me arse with a spoon, HHH is the best!!!!". Hardly likely. Admittedly Michaels has a reputation but even if Trips should cleanly beat someone like Kofi or Sheamus I think it is extremely questionable how much their real-life reputation will suffer.

Generally, wins and losses are simply second to story/character. 95% a clean win for a face or a dirty win for a heel is the right way to go. WWE just have to keep things fresh, ensure the matches are entertaining and the feud is interesting. The extra 5% of the time they can shake it up. For instance, would it help most heels to win cleanly? Why would the heel want to when he can cheat or do other naughty things to ensure victory. Same principle with a face just the other way around. Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's streak due to outside interference didn't hamper Goldberg's career. Undertaker beating Kane at Wrestlemania 14 didn't harm Kane's career. Hundreds and hundreds of examples can be given but posters will constantly say "he hardly ever had a clean loss...." as a reason for criticism.

"Going over" and "burying" are terms which are incredibly overstated at times. Wins and losses never have and never will make or break a wrestler. The term "burying" should be saved for example such as Sable powerbombing Mero effectively ending his wrestling career (not physically by the way). Bad angles, shit performances, zero charisma and injury is what truly ends careers.

I agree to an extent when talking about Heels winning Dirty and Faces cleanly,However there are occasions when a Heel has to win cleanly as if they keep cheating to win then that makes them look weak at some points,Especially if you got a big ass heel in the Abyss mould yet he has to cheat to win,that makes no sense when they could obviously destroy the opponent which has far more impact.

Agree about the burying and going over,Sabel powerbombing Mero those were the dark days

Good article, I can understand where your coming from, don't entirely agree with it though, not many guys can lose a lot of the time and still be considered a top contender, Chris Jericho has somehow mastered it, he has spent the majority of the last 4 months jobbing out in singles matches yet he managed to walk away from the Elimination Chamber as the Champion of the World.

I believe that Wrestlers of a certain experiance could lose cleanly without it harming them overall, I don't expect guys like The Undertaker or Triple H to lose cleanly all the time but if they lost cleanly now and again to certain guys it would give those guys such a rub, I think The Undertaker has only lost clean twice in the three years I've been watching again and that was to Jeff Hardy and Valdimir Kozlov, even then Hardy's match was a gimmick match, it was before Hardy won his first World Title though and it really made him look like he was seriously credible

John Cena is another one who could lose clean now and again, it would do his character more good than harm, I don't care if it comes over as a fluke, to see guys look mortal against underdogs helps build these undercarders and also helps build long term character of guys who have lost, seeing them NOT make the mistakes that might have cost them the first time ect...

There are guys I'd leave as strong not to be pinned under any circumstances though and that would be World Champions, if they lost I'd have them DQ'ed or counted out, if they lose a tag match have their partners take the fall, but I'd never give World Champions pin fall loses unless it was for the title, Champions need to look unbeatable and the guys who beat them need to look special for managing to do it