The Taboo of Tapping Out....

... needs to end.

The first time I remember hearing the "You tapped out!" chant was the RAW after WrestleMania 20. The chant was directed at Triple H, following the epic Triple threat match with Benoit (winner by submission) and Michaels. I had to give begrudging credit to Triple H, because he spat it right back at the audience. "Yeah! I tapped out!" I think, as a performer, he knew what I, as an audience member, suspected. Flair wasn't met with this attitude after tapping out to Bret Hart. This attitude is trouble.

A submission was regarded as a valid victory, and had no stigma attached to it. Heel, baby face, it didn't matter. Sometimes you were at your opponents mercy, and you needed to live and fight another day. Suddenly, the audience and commentary team use the device as a method to detract heat from the heel, HHH. It made Benoit look good, and rightfully so, but did it really need to come at the expense of equating submitting to being a coward, or sensitive, or more vulgar versions of those two adjectives. By indulging in that attitude, there is suddenly a new variable you need to consider when protecting talent credibility, and in turn, a new limitation in how matches finish.

Enter John Cena, and hit the fast forward about ten years.

Cena has (in my opinion, wrongful) detractors in regards to burying talent, and the most voicetrous in those detractors offer more criticism when Cena beats someone by submission. In today's WWE, a submission victory does kill some momentum, but it really shouldn't. In fact, it wouldn't be so damn taboo if WWE hadn't continued to cultivate this attitude. Remember Fastlane, when Rusev "technically" beat Cena by submission, and Michael Cole was forced to pretend it was the most tragic fucking thing?

This taboo needs to end, and funny enough, I think it hinges on John Cena(yep, the same Cena that I just defended). I think because of Cena's kayfabe success, we've equated said success to the Never Give Up demeanor. In turn, there is a tranferance to all of the main event talent. If Cena doesn't tap, they can't either. Stop me if I'm blanking out here, but the last main eventers that I remember tapping out were Batista at WM XXX and Triple H at SummerSlam 2013. When is the last time you remember Orton tapping out? Daniel Bryan? Seth Rollins? Roman Reigns?

I believe that if Mr. Never Gives Up finally Gives Up, this poor attitude towards submission victories will start being ushered out of WWE. Hopefully we can accept that even top tier talent has a breaking point, and can stop worrying about it, kayfabe and otherwise.

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