History Main / SpotMonkey

* 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. The advantage of stiffness is that it's easier to make strikes look real when they for all intents and purposes ''are'' real. The disadvantage is that if not ''very'' well-timed and targeted, stiff strikes can greatly increase the risk of injuring your opponent. Wrestling/WilliamRegal and 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.

* Most of the roster of ''Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX''. In some cases [[TropesAreTools 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. They also had to appease executives who were most interested in explosions and broken furniture.

* Despite having its roots being in realistic martial arts, not even Japanese pro wrestling is immune to this phenomenon, and it is even believed to be a source/inspiration for this showing up in the American indy scene. Partially it comes from a lot of Japanese promotions employing a psychology an American fan may not immediately understand, like 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]] (which is easier for foreign fans to understand but can still be a little weird when a wrestler suddenly powers up) and selling almost nothing at the start of the match but sell progressively more as it goes on (which makes wrestlers seeming more energized at the finish rather than wearing down as the fight goes on). But of course, it also comes too from the Japanese love for extreme things, in this case athletes doing some high spots for little reason other than them looking nice, which wrestlers from Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and Wrestling/FrontierMartialArtsWrestling were guilty of popularizing.
** Wrestling/TheGreatSasuke has been often called the original Japanese spot monkey, as not even injuries and ring wear have prevented him from trying to kill himself on the ring from time time, though Hayabusa also came behind, and even Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger had his own moments (he was the innovator of the shooting star press, for instance). Extreme high-flyers from Japan like Wrestling/KotaIbushi, Wrestling/TakuyaSugi and MIKAMI can trace their style back to 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. The advantage of stiffness is that it's easier to make strikes look real when they for all intents and purposes ''are'' real. The disadvantage is that if not ''very'' well-timed and targeted, stiff strikes can greatly increase the risk of injuring your opponent. Wrestling/WilliamRegal and Wrestling/{{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.

A "spot", in ProfessionalWrestling lingo, is a move as scripted into a match, including the reaction by the opponent.[[note]]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]] Some (particularly younger) wrestlers know a lot of great spots, 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).

* Most of the roster of ''Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX''. In some cases [[TropesAreTools 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. They also had to appease executives who were most interested in explosions and broken furniture.
* Wrestling/{{WWE}}'s Wrestling/JeffHardy went through a severe Spot Monkey phase before his departure from the company, but got somewhat better after his return; while he's still known for his tendency to dive off high things, he is at least much better about using such spots as part of a match's story.
* Former Wrestling/{{ECW}} and Wrestling/{{TNA}} (and recent re-signee with Wrestling/{{WWE}}) wrestler Wrestling/RobVanDam often gets accused of being a Spot Monkey, but he shows more awareness of the "story" factor in his matches than most Spot Monkeys do, making him a borderline case at best.
** 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 Wrestling/{{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 marijuana recently' fits better. It may just not be in RVD's emotional design to be able to get, or sell, being seriously angry.
* Some of the members of Wrestling/{{TNA}}'s X Division, including Sonjay Dutt and Wrestling/JayLethal. 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".
* Averted with Wrestling/ShawnMichaels. 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.
* While most of Essa Rios's spots were both impressive and oddly sensible, some during his WWF run were senseless such as his Jakked match where he gave Low Ki an arm drag that did not carry any of the momentum from his prior acrobatics, making him look like a showoff. In his better spots, his acrobatics made basic moves seem a lot more painful.
* Wrestling/JohnMorrison gets painted with this brush. Mostly since he's a former gymnast who now practices LeParkour 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. Since leaving WWE and working for Wrestling/{{AAA}} and Wrestling/LuchaUnderground as Johnny Mundo and Wrestling/{{TNA}} as Johnny Impact his psychology and consistency has improved substantially, so he rarely faces these accusations any more.
* A non high-flying example would be Wrestling/GailKim 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.
* Despite its roots being in realistic martial arts, not even Japanese pro wrestling is immune to this phenomenon, and it is even believed to be a source/inspiration for this showing up in the American indy scene. Partially it comes from a lot of Japanese promotions employing a psychology an American fan may not immediately understand, like 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]] (which is easier for foreign fans to understand but can still be a little weird when a wrestler suddenly powers up) and selling almost nothing at the start of the match but sell progressively more as it goes on (which makes wrestlers seeming more energized at the finish rather than wearing down as the fight goes on). But of course, it also comes too from the Japanese love for extreme things, in this case athletes doing some high spots for little reason other than them looking nice, which wrestlers from Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and Wrestling/FrontierMartialArtsWrestling were guilty of popularizing.

* 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. The advantage of stiffness is that it's easier to make strikes look real when they for all intents and purposes ''are'' real. The disadvantage is that if not ''very'' well-timed and targeted, stiff strikes can greatly increase the risk of injuring your opponent. Wrestling/WilliamRegal 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.

** La Nazi's counterpart North of the border is Trenesha Biggers, who was snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA ''without'' receiving similar instruction[[note]]She had been through WWE's Deep South developmental territory, but Deep South was considered a failure for a reason[[/note]], leading to a fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving out the rare minus five stars rating after she beat on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada in the latter.

* 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 [[note]]In lucha libre, if a wrestler leaves the ring, a replacement can enter without tagging, meaning there is no such thing as a RickyMorton scenario[[/note]] and the harder rings make traditional "bumps" all but impossible. Since about 99% of modern American pro wrestling is babyfaces selling heel offense, and then heels taking big bumps for the comeback, it just looks like a bunch of masked men doing pretty flips.
** 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 Wrestling/{{Psicosis}} match from the 90s, and how Psicosis controls the pace and sets Mysterio up for his high spots.

* A particularly infamous example is indy ''primadonna'' Teddy Hart. In addition to being a royal pain backstage and [[SmallNameBigEgo having delusions about his own popularity]], Teddy was well known for no-selling within seconds of a match's finish just so that he could show off with more athletic moves. The height of this was Teddy performing several unplanned spots off the top of a cage following a Wrestling/RingOfHonor cage match. The spots made no sense, diminished the story of the match by having Teddy be energetic enough to perform them, were a blatant attempt at drawing attention to himself, and put the other wrestlers in danger because they had to catch him with no preparation. ROH blackballed him, and future WWE Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/CMPunk [[http://cmpunk.livejournal.com/9301.html publicly lambasted]] Teddy for his actions. This single incident is probably the most extreme example of everything that is wrong with the Spot Monkey style.

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

* One of the more common complaints from detractors of Wrestling/TheYoungBucks is their matches tend to involve a ton of unnecessarily added flips and way too gratuitous use of Superkicking. On the flip side, many also see the pair as a [[ParodiedTrope parody]] of this trope, as they are well aware of the smarky audience that tends to watch their matches (they named one of their moves after ''[[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer]]'' for crying out loud) and purposely act like spot monkeys as a way to piss them off in order to play the {{Heel}} role.

* A curiously-related example can be found in {{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.

* 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 Music/MariahCarey 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 Music/MariahCarey or Music/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.

* Because of the way the game is played, UsefulNotes/{{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.

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

* 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. Another common form seen in Japanese matches is to sell almost nothing at the start of the match but sell progressively more as it goes on, which is easier for foreign fans to recognize but can still be a little weird when a move that did nothing previously goes on to knock a guy out.
** Japanese high-flyers Wrestling/KotaIbushi and Wrestling/TakuyaSugi are examples of this dissonance, even in their different wrestling styles. They often perform acrobatic versions of routine wrestling spots in place of the actual spots, which leads them to be too spectacular in moments in which it is not needed for the story of the match. Both have improved their wrestling psychology, mainly due to the need to ground their styles because of their injuries.

* Wrestling/DragonGate was described by Vince Verhei (of [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter 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."

** Japanese high-flyers Kota Ibushi and Wrestling/TakuyaSugi are examples of this dissonance, even in their different wrestling styles. They often perform acrobatic versions of routine wrestling spots in place of the actual spots, which leads them to be too spectacular in moments in which it is not needed for the story of the match. Both have improved their wrestling psychology, mainly due to the need to ground their styles because of their recent injuries.

* 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. Wrestling/WilliamRegal 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.

** La Nazi's counterpart North of the border is Trenesha Biggers, who was snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA ''without'' receiving similar instruction[[note]]She had been through WWE's Deep South developmental territory, but Deep South was consider a failure for a reason[[/note]], leading to a fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving out the rare minus five stars rating after she beat on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada in the latter.

** 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.

* Wrestling/JohnMorrison gets painted with this brush. Mostly since he's a former gymnast who now practices LeParkour 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.

** La Nazi's counterpart North of the border is Trenesha Biggers, who was snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA ''without'' receiving similar instruction[[labelnote:*]]She had been through WWE's Deep South developmental territory, but Deep South was consider a failure for a reason[[/labelnote]], leading to a fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving out the rare minus five stars rating after she beat on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada in the latter.

* [[{{Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon}} Shane [=McMahon=]]], despite the fact he is a sitting executive at WWF/E, part of one of the most legacied families in the business, and the boss' only son, who knows how to fight and wrestle. 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 or Hell in a Cell. He has also taken some nasty bumps too (such as being thrown through the King of the Ring set onto unpadded concrete, a bump that took ''multiple'' attempts to make work, with him landing squarely on his head on the failed tries), being sent through a plate of plexiglass twice and landing on his head and neck the first time, doing a Shooting Star Press onto a garbage can in his match with [[KurtAngle Kurt Angle]] at the King of the Ring PPV, since it was pure showing off as the move would only hurt Shane and do nothing to Angle.

* The final confrontation between Wrestling/BrockLesnar and Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} at ''Wrestling/{{Wrestlemania}} 33'' showed that the only way to get a really entertaining match (distinct from the 86-second SquashMatch they'd had at ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries'' the previous year) out of them was to go for a full-bore hoss spotfest. The two did nothing except trade signature moves and finishers for less than 5 minutes, with Goldberg hitting multiple spears (including one through the barricade outside the ring) and Lesnar delivering ''ten'' of his trademark German Suplexes, kicking out of Goldberg's Jackhammer (the first time anyone has ''ever'' done that other than the botched spot where Wrestling/HulkHogan was forced to kick out when Wrestling/KevinNash's interference was late) and finally putting Goldberg down with an F5. For the entire match neither man so much as threw a punch, it was just spot, spot, spot from bell to bell. Surprisingly, it was considered an excellent match between them, ''worlds'' better than their plodding and overly drawn-out encounter at ''[=WrestleMania=] XX'' 13 years earlier.

* 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). Furthermore, he does have a sense of humor about his status, using SelfDeprecation humor in a few TV ads and cameos.

* An in-universe and accidental aversion in ''[[Literature/ElementalMasters Reserved for the Cat]]''. When dancing the title role in ''La Sylphide'' for the first time outside a rehearsal room, Ninette is so wiped at the end that she delivers a very brief death scene for the Sylph. One reviewer compliments her for not padding out the death scene to show off her ballet moves (something the ''prima'' she was substituting for was notorious for doing). Later, when she and Nigel are planning the show in England, the trope is played straight -- Ninette's part will involve several flashy ballet moves linked together with "looks nice, but no strain whatsoever" dance.

* Wrestling/KellyKelly used to have a big problem with this around 2009. As a former gymnast she would often pull out all kinds of headscissors, hurricanranas and complicated flips in every match with little rhyme or reason. When she was moved to ''SmackDown'' she worked to improve and has averted this now.

** La Nazi's counterpart North of the border is Trenesha Biggers, who was snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA ''without'' receiving similar instruction, leading to a fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving out the rare minus five stars rating after she beat on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada in the latter.

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

** Wrestling/{{M|ontelVontaviousPorter}}VP has also ranted about this on the independent circuit, though unlike those above his complaint was about opponents hitting him too lightly, saying too many people who had no business throwing kicks were trying to imitate Wrestling/LowKi and Wrestling/SamoaJoe thanks to the match that [[StarMakingRole made the latter a star]].

** La Nazi had trouble finding work on the Mexican independent circuit during the 90s due to her unrelenting stiffness. Eventually Commandante Pierroth taught her how to protect opponents, after which she was quickly snatched up by Wreslting/{{AAA}} and Wrestling/{{CMLL}}.

** North of the border La Nazi's counterpart is Trenesha Biggers, who was eventually snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA, ''without'' having received similar instruction, leading to her getting fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving one of her matches the rare minus five stars rating in the latter after beating on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada.

* North of the border La Nazi's counterpart is Trenesha Biggers, who was eventually snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA, ''without'' having received similar instruction, leading to her getting fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving one of her matches the rare minus five stars rating in the latter after beating on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada.

** La Nazi had trouble finding work on the Mexican independent circuit during the 90s due to her unrelenting stiffness. Eventually Commandante Pierroth taught her how to protect opponents, after which she was quickly snatched up by Wreslting/{{AAA}} and Wrestling/{{CMLL}}. North of the border her counterpart would be Trenesha Biggers, who was eventually snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA, ''without'' having received similar instruction, leading to her getting fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving one of her matches the rare minus five stars rating in the latter after beating on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada.

** La Nazi had trouble finding work on the Mexican independent circuit during the 90s due to her unrelenting stiffness. Eventually Commandante Pierroth taught her how to protect opponents, after which she was quickly snatched up by Wreslting/{{AAA}} and Wrestling/{{CMLL}}. North of the border her counterpart would be Trensha Biggers, who was eventually snatched up by TNA and Lucha Libre USA, ''without'' having received similar instruction, leading to her getting fight after hitting Roxxi Laveaux too hard in the former and [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Bryan Alvarez]] giving one of her matches the rare minus five stars rating in the latter after beating on Octagoncito and Masacrita Dorada.

* [[{{Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon}} Shane [=McMahon=]]] doing a Shooting Star Press onto a garbage can in his match with [[KurtAngle Kurt Angle]] at the King of the Ring PPV, since it was pure showing off as the move would only hurt Shane and do nothing to Angle.
** 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, a bump that took ''multiple'' attempts to make work, with him landing squarely on his head on the failed tries).

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." In the other direction, "spotfest" isn't always a negative term and can just mean impressed with conditioning or ability to put together rapid fire spots ''well''.

* Most of the roster of ''Wrestling/WrestlingSocietyX''. In some cases [[TropesAreTools 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.