History Main / SpotMonkey

* Most of the roster of ''Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX''. In some cases [[TropesAreTool this was deliberate]], as the show was only thirty minutes long and there was a segment set aside for a musical guest, so the wrestlers had to let everyone know what they could do in a hurry and still create a product that was distinct from WWE or TNA.

* Most of the roster of ''Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX''.

** Shane is this all over, despite the fact he was a sitting executive at WWF during all his absurd stunts. Did a flying elbow drop from the corner to the announce table at [=WrestleMania X-Seven=] to his dad, his signature move is a corner-to-corner dropkick into a trashcan, and his most famous spot is definitely the leap of faith off the Titantron. He has also taken some nasty bumps too (such as being thrown through the King of the Ring set onto unpadded concrete).

** Shane is this all over, despite the fact he was a sitting executive at WWF during all his absurd stunts. Did a flying elbow drop from the corner to the announce table at [=WrestleMania X-Seven=] to his dad, his signature move is a corner-to-corner dropkick into a trashcan, and his most famous spot is definitely the leap of faith off the Titantron. He has also taken some nasty bumps too (such as being thrown through the King of the Ring set onto unpadded steel).

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

* Neoclassical[=/=]Jazz Fusion shred guitarists in RockMusic and HeavyMetal often have this reputation. This is because in may cases, these musicians, while technically excellent, will merely rely on their ability to play extremely fast[=/=]complicated guitar parts rather than contributing anything of value to the song they are playing. In fact, this was part of the HypeBacklash against HairMetal in [[TheNineties the early '90s]], as many of the genre's bands relied too much on flashy leads and guitar work rather than musical substance to sustain their songs, which caused listeners to turn against them.

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

!! Non Wrestling Examples
* 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.[[note]] Modern roller derby matches are regularly promoted and described as "bouts".[[/note]]
* 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.
*** To be fair, these guys ''did'' [[DoingItForTheArt give up their manhoods for the art]]...
*** Actually, the church had banned ''creating'' castrati for musical purposes decades before they fell out of use- all later boys had just '[[ContrivedCoincidence 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."
* MelismaticVocals in general can be considered a musical Spot Monkey, since many cases result in the song getting thrown by the wayside in favor of letting the singer show off (depending on who you ask, you can thank/blame either MariahCarey or ChristinaAguilera for this getting ''really'' out of hand.) It's not so bad when it's a solo singer since lung capacity will usually keep it under check, but if it's a group, the melisma never seems to really stop. ([[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lO5eGEnyRA "Where My Girls At?"]] by 702 seems to always have someone warbling in the background.)
* This can happen in piano too, most often in styles such as Ragtime where the player is allowed and sometimes even expected to improvise. So they decide to show off their speed and technical ability, oftentimes at the expense of the music. Compare [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ocdQjQTAig this version]] of ''The Chevy Chase'' by Eubie Blake, which is fairly close to the way it looks on sheet music, to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBcfXuvo0_c this one]] played so fast and altered so much that there's almost no trace of the actual song left.
* Because of the way the game is played, basketball players can become Spot Monkeys by choosing to go for the highlight reel dunk shot instead of simply scoring, sometimes to the point of refusing to make passes to teammates who have wide open shots.
** During the 90s, the Melbourne Tigers in Australia's National Basketball League seemingly kept a player named Brett Rainbow on their list exclusively for slam dunk competitions, never playing him in an actual game.
* Gore-driven Torture Porn films are this to the horror genre. Many of these films ignore trying to build suspense in favour of elaborate gore. As a result the scenes end up with a "wasn't that cool" mentality instead of being actually scary. There's a reason the more effective and scary horror films don't have buckets of blood.
** This said, this may not be deliberate - many of the more famous "torture porn" directors are haemophobes, and to them, these scenes are as legitimately scary as a more traditional horror moment.
* For a similar reason above, Creator/MichaelBay has built a career off of this for his films. He doesn't get the best scripts to work with, and his direction may leave something to be desired, but his films are CGI filled, car chase ridden, explosion fested love letters to the word ''awesome''. He's made a lot of money doing this, so it's not like anyone can fault him (and his plots and directing aren't usually all that bad anyhow, just not masterpieces).
** He does have a sense of humor about his status, at least, using SelfDeprecation humor in a few TV ads and cameos.

* Neoclassical[=/=]Jazz Fusion shred guitarists in RockMusic and HeavyMetal often have this reputation. This is because in may cases, these musicians, while technically excellent, will merely rely on their ability to play extremely fast[=/=]complicated guitar parts rather than contributing anything of value to the song they are playing. In fact, this was part of the HypeBacklash against HairMetal in [[TheNineties the early 90's]], as many of the genre's bands relied too much on flashy leads rather than musical substance to sustain their songs, which caused listeners to turn against them.

* Some indy wrestlers could be called "stiffness spot monkeys". Stiffness is a wrestling term to describe how hard the fake strikes are - the harder they are, the stiffer they are. William Regal and Fit Finlay are two good mainstream examples of stiff workers, and two examples of ''good ones''. But on the indy scene, some guys just whale on each other as hard as they can for no particular reason. Wrestling/{{Raven}} actually ranted about this phenomenon on his blog. This is due to the influence of Japanese wrestling on the indy scene, and the popularity of super-stiff Japanese wrestlers like Wrestling/KentaKobashi. But Kobashi, like Finlay and Regal, can work stiff responsibly, and the Japanese touring schedule is much more relaxed, allowing the wrestlers more time off to recover and thus allowing them to take more punishment in the ring.

* Some of the members of Wrestling/{{TNA}}'s X Division, including Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal. Others, like Wrestling/AJStyles and Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels, employ a wrestling style with just as many impressive spots, but manage to actually chain them together with decent wrestling, and thus avoid being tarred with the Spot Monkey brush. It should be noted Alvarez still gave the match mentioned in the page quote three stars. "Good but could be better".

* Pro Wrestling Ponderings have accused AR Fox of degenerating from doing moves because they hurt people to doing moves because they look cool as his EVOLVE run progressed.

-->--Bryan Alvarez on Christopher Daniels vs Jay Lethal for the TNA X Division Championship at Bound For Glory 2007

* Pro Wrestling Ponderings have accused AR Fox of degenerating from doing moves because they hurt people to doing moves because they look for after he joined EVOLVE.

* For a similar reason above, Creator/MichaelBay has built a career off of this for his films. He doesn't get the best scripts to work with, and his direction may leave something to be desired, but his films are CGI filled, car chase ridden, explosion fested love letters to the word ''awesome''. He's made a lot of money doing this, so its not like anyone can fault him (and he plots and directing isn't usually all that bad anyhow, just not masterpieces).

** 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 Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio Jr}} vs Psicosis match from the 90s, and how Wrestling/{{Psicosis}} controls the pace and sets Mysterio up for his high spots.

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."

** ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' will usually make note of something like this happening. If a book is utter crap, but has great artwork, Linkara will not shy from complimenting the art and making sure the viewers know he likes the artist's work. He will then break apart the story and show us its faults, thus proving that good artwork not a good story make.

* [[Wrestling/LayCool Michelle McCool]] was a more traditional example, doing handsprings and such for little reason than to show off (they would not even transition into another move or anything). She quickly got better about it but some fans {{never| live it down}} really let it go and insist she was always a mediocre talent who was only being pushed because of her relationship with The Undertaker.

->"If you can enjoy a match where a man gets a uranage on a guardrail and then gets body slammed on a guardrail and five minutes later is making a comeback and not selling his back? This is a match for you. If that sort of thing annoys you, not a match for you. This was a video game match with better psychology but a wrestling with not great psychology."

* Some indy wrestlers could be called "stiffness spot monkeys". Stiffness is a wrestling term to describe how hard the fake strikes are - the harder they are, the stiffer they are. William Regal and Fit Finlay are two good mainstream examples of stiff workers, and two examples of ''good ones''. But on the indy scene, some guys just whale on each other as hard as they can for no particular reason. Wrestling/{{Raven}} actually ranted about this phenomenon on his blog. This is due to the influence of Japanese wrestling on the indy scene, and the popularity of super-stiff Japanese wrestlers like KentaKobashi. But Kobashi, like Finlay and Regal, can work stiff responsibly, and the Japanese touring schedule is much more relaxed, allowing the wrestlers more time off to recover and thus allowing them to take more punishment in the ring.

* Jack Evans, innovator of the 720 moonsault and leader of ROH's Generation Next, 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.

* Unfortunately, not even Japanese pro wrestling (believed to be a source/inspiration for this showing up in the American indy scene) is immune to this phenomenon. Partially it is from a lot of Japanese promotions employing psychology an American fan may not immediately understand-rapid exchanges of high impact moves (as opposed to reeling after one or two), constant transitions between submission holds (rather than locking one in as long as possible) simultaneous adrenalin surges punctuated by [[{{kiai}} screaming]] (wrestlers seeming more energized at the finish rather than wearing down as the fight goes on)-and partially just from athletes doing some high spots for little reason other than them looking nice.

** 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.

* [[LayCool Layla]] is an odd variation of the trope - she is a '''comedy''' spot monkey. Moreso as a heel than as a face (as a face she merely comes across as a little playful before getting down to serious business). She has a habit of forcing excessive comedy spots into a match where they don't make much sense and don't particularly flow well with the story. And she has very little understanding of subtlety - as a heel she's a fountain of {{Narm}}.
* Michelle [=McCool=] was a more traditional example, doing handsprings and such for little reason than to show off (they would not even transition into another move or anything). She quickly got better about it but some fans {{never| live it down}} really let it go and insist she was always a mediocre talent who was only being pushed because of her relationship with The Undertaker.

** 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.
*** Perhaps 'so laid back by nature that he acts high even when he hasn't touched any marijuna recently' fits better. It may just not be in RVD's emotional design to be able to get, or sell, being seriously angry.

A "spot", in ProfessionalWrestling lingo, is a move as scripted into a match, including the reaction by the opponent. Some (particularly younger) wrestlers know a lot of great spots[[note]]In wrestling parlance, a "spot" is a scripted moment in the match. While the outcomes of matches are scripted, most of the match is improvised with the exception of spots at key moments. One of the most important and difficult parts of a pro wrestler's job is to make the improvised parts flow properly from one spot to the next, and come off like a real athletic competition, or at least like a real ''fight''.[[/note]], which look absolutely brutal and require a great degree of athleticism, and yet they still don't really know how to ''wrestle''; they have no idea how to tell a story in their matches, or even the basics of acting like something really hurt. They're the type of wrestlers who will do a Triple-Tope-Quebradora-Con-Queso through three flaming tables onto a bed of thumbtacks and ground glass wired with explosives, and then get up like nothing happened, only to perform an even ''more'' spectacular spot later in the match. These wrestlers are referred to as Spot Monkeys by fans, and their matches are often Spotfests (in other words, spot after spot with little or no rhyme or reason to them).

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