Note: These are my views on everything and I'm not saying I know it best or whatever. If anyone feels differently, do tell as I'm willing to learn. I just thought this might help.

I’m certainly not complaining about wrestlers using “new” moves. In fact, I’m all for that! The first thing I do when I have a roster, is open Excel and give each wrestler a move set. I’ll put their signature spots in it, of course, but I’ll add new ones as well. All my wrestlers have a mini-profile in Excel. The main eventers are on one sheet, the mid-carders on another and the Tag Teams on two others. I make it like this:

Wrestler
Entrance Theme
Gimmick/Style
Finisher
Finisher
Semi-finisher
Semi-finisher
Semi-finisher
Regular move
Regular move
Regular move
Arsenal

I used to have three finishers, but I thought that was overkill. I’ll show you an existing profile I have.

The Undertaker
You’re Gonna Pay
The Undertaker
Last Ride
Tombstone Piledriver
Big Boot
Chokeslam
Triangle Choke
Side Slam
Leg Drop
Old School
Power Arsenal

I use the colours so I can see the “type” of move more easily (finisher, semi-finisher or regular). The regular moves don’t include basic moves like a Body Slam or a Back Body Drop.

As you’ve probably noticed, I put “The Undertaker” for Gimmick/Style, but it could be anything else. I just put that because it would be very weird to see him as someone else than the Deadman or the American Badass. But you could put anything there. For some guys, I’ve put the name of a Japanese wrestler there because I want to have a similar gimmick. For instance: I could put Genichiro Tenryu as any veteran’s gimmick. Tenryu’s 54 years old himself and acts like a grumpy old man that doesn’t take shit from anyone, especially the youngsters who dare to disrespect him. Or you could put an in-ring style there instead (brawler, technician, high-flyer...).

The arsenal thing isn’t really needed, but it allows you more freedom if you want to stick to your move set. I know that “Power” is very vague, but it describes a wide variety of power moves. I didn’t know what else to put for The Undertaker, but you could “Suplex Arsenal” for Tazz, “Submission Arsenal” for Chris Benoit or more specific stuff like “DDT Arsenal” for someone. He would hit all kinds of variations of the regular DDT. The arsenal thing could be useful if you don’t want to clog up your move set with nothing but suplexes if you use Tazz, for instance. The system may be frustrating when you’re setting it up. By God, I know I got fucking pissed off at times because I couldn’t come up with new moves that’d fit the wrestler well. But in the end, you’ll find that it really pays off.

That didn’t answer any of your questions, of course, but I thought I’d throw it out there as a possible help.

But you see: I’m not against new moves. The problem I had with your match was that sometimes, those moves didn’t make sense. I recall two moves in particular: Michaels is basically rocketing back from the ropes and does a Baseball Slide Uppercut thingy. Why? Why wouldn’t he take advantage of the speed he has built up. A Kneecap Dropkick would have been much more effective because of the speed behind it. The exact same thing happened before that, when Michaels was moving at lightning speed again but decided to counter a clothesline with an Arm Drag. A Kneecap Dropkick or a Leaping Forearm would have been a lot better. Not too long ago, Kid Jericho wrote a match between Christian and Kurt Angle. At one time, Christian was on the top turnbuckle. Angle did his typical delayed selling (more on that later) by rushing towards Christian and trying to give him a Super Belly-To-Belly Suplex. Christian managed to counter it into a Sunset Flip Powerbomb from the top rope instead. I thought that was cool because you wouldn’t expect it from Christian at all, but it was the way to capitalize. Thinking outside the box, even for a little thing like moves, is what can make or break a match. And if not that, it can certainly create a mark-out moment, even in Fan Fiction. So: have wrestlers do “new” moves if you want and you might even give them a new signature move or finisher. I know I’ve done it for several of my guys. Of course, don’t overdo. A Shawn Michaels match is not a Shawn Michaels match without a Top Rope Elbow Drop and an attempted Sweet Chin Music. What I said about Angle in the review, about a Dangerous (which stands for “head drop”) Angle Slam would be a perfectly fine example. It doesn’t really go outside Angle’s universe, and still it’s new.

I guess I’ve said enough about moves. Let’s go on to what’s in my opinion the two most important things in a match. Things that can make or break not only a match but an entire feud. You can have all the build-up you like, if the match doesn’t reach the expectations or is just a fuck-up, the angle is ruined. Those things are selling and psychology.

Psychology is the easiest thing to accomplish, a lot easier than in real life. You just have to keep your head with it. I’ll give you a small example. Kawada & Taue fight Misawa & Kobashi. As you might or might not know, Misawa/Kawada is the singles feud in the history of wrestling. Not reaches the heels of it. When the match I’m talking about takes place (they’ve had more tag matches), that feud was around its peak. Kawada had never beaten Misawa, but Misawa had Kawada beaten on a few occasions. Kobashi’s leg was injured, so that would be the obvious focus of Kawada/Taue. The match went on and some great psychology already happened, but if I have to tell you every instance of beauty in that match, I’ll still be typing this over a week. So Kobashi became the focus of Taue and Kawada... Let me start with another example of psychology first. It’s nothing big, but I think it’s a good example. Since Kobashi’s leg was injured and attacked viciously during the match, it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to save Misawa if he were to be knocked out cold. What did Misawa do? He let Kobashi spent the majority of the first half in the ring and he himself fought only short periods. Kobashi wouldn’t be able to save him, but Misawa was healthy. He could save Kobashi should it be needed. And if Kobashi’s fighting spirit flared up, he could even deal some massive damage. Let the opponents tire themselves on Kobashi. Misawa was biding his time, healthy and well, on the apron. Good logic, right? Yeah, it would be. Except: Kawada hated Misawa. He didn’t care about beating Kobashi because he had beaten him before. All he cared about was beating Misawa. Sure, he could win the match by pinning Kobashi but there was no real victory in it. Kawada started early in the match by trying to make Misawa pissed off. Even in the opening scene of the match he did so by giving him a Yakuza Kick in the face while he was standing on the apron, hitting Misawa’s broken orbital bone. In the end, Misawa realized his mistake but now Kobashi was in a worse state than when the match started. He was fucked. Taue and Kawada were both relatively fit, but Misawa was basically on his own. Kawada knew it and threw everything at Misawa because he knew victory was in his reach. That’s fucking cool psychology to see unfold. Especially when in the end, all the pieces fall in place and you see the entire puzzle. Now that might not seem like much, but it’s amazing when seen played out. If the match would have been a regular “Face in peril/hot tag” match like the WWE has every time, it wouldn’t be the best Tag Team match ever. Decent psychology can be hard to pull off and I’m fully aware that 90% of Fan Fiction wouldn’t recognize psychology if it licked their ass crack with their own mother’s severed tongue, but that shouldn’t mean you should lower yourself to their standards. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good tips or a guide about psychology. I get my ideas mostly from watching matches (old puro ones, of course), but if you read or see something non-wrestling related, but it’s a story, you could extract the basic psychology from that story and pour it into a wrestling shape. It’s harder to pull off, but the results can be quite good.

And finally, selling. Selling is a big pain in the ass. Everywhere in the wrestling world it’s a big pain in the ass. There are very few wrestlers who can sell like Kawada (there he is again), and most of them sell very spotty at best. There’s a thing to be said about the old motto “Sell hard when on defence, sell well when you’re on offence but only so hard that you can still do your moves”. Misawa used to be a master of that and he could pull it off. But most of the time, I hate it. I hate no-selling. From the ridiculous hulking up to Japanese head drop fests where people get right up again. I hate delayed selling: you get dropped on your head yet you rush to your feet and hit a head drop yourself before collapsing to the mat. Kobashi was a master of that, despite having the status of being an awesome seller (in the nineties, of course). In my opinion, selling should be done the entire match. You don’t have to describe it between every move, but make sure that nobody forgets it. Repeat it a lot, in different ways. From a grunt of pain to a painful cry while suplexing someone, it all helps and adds much-needed realism to the realm of wrestling. Many people confuse fighting spirit with no-selling and I admit: it’s a very, very fine line. Fighting Spirit is just that: the will to fight. It does not equal no-selling or delayed selling (although it might look like it in 5% or so of the cases). Michaels had obviously a strong fighting spirit in the match with Guerrero, but it wasn’t portrayed as such. It looked liked overkill. Only when I saw him collapse in the back, I thought of it like fighting spirit. He had given his absolute everything in the match but when he lost, he didn’t have to hold on anymore. He had no goal. Well, at least I hope that’s what you were portraying. If it has something to do with what Eddie did under the ring, I’ll be very fucking pissed. If it was what I think it is, though, you should try to describe it. Honestly, I don’t have a good idea at the moment of how you could have described it. Short, slow comebacks with the most basic of moves is one thing. Michaels could be on his knees and punch Eddie in the gut. He continues to punch him as he slowly gets up. He then musters his strength for one big move (it doesn’t have to be a finisher, but something bigger than a regular Body Slam). If you have him do a friggin’ Flying Forearm and a kip-up, I’ll immediately crown you as Shit For Brains. That scenario was just something that came to mind. The point is: you should be able to feel the tiredness (yes, that’s selling as well) and pain of the wrestler. I remember reading the summary of a Japanese match. It wasn’t fiction, it was a summary of a real match and I was exhausted after merely reading it! I could picture everything so well, it drained me mentally. Repeating and detailing are the two major points of selling. There’s nothing I can really add at this moment.

If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to PM me (unless you don’t want to risk receiving another essay).

I just hope this helped a bit. Cheers!