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06/10/2025
I want to talk about wrestling .. Just hear me out 👀
I know wrestling and motion design might seem like they're worlds apart, but I believe that they do share quite a specific fundamental truth about what makes movement compelling.
With wrestling, Stone Cold's Stunner is just a guy sitting down as he pulls someone's head onto his shoulder. But when the People's Champ, The Rock, takes that move, he launches himself back, flipping through the air - sometimes clearing the ring entirely. That explosive reaction .. The 'sell' - totally transforms a simple move into one of the most devastating moves in all of sports entertainment.
Motion design lives by the exact same principle. An icon dropping onto the screen is just an icon .. But when the world around it reacts - a subtle screen shake as it lands, some nearby text shifting from the impact - suddenly that icon has weight and significance .. The secondary motion 'sells' the primary action.
If you're stuck, knowing something is off with a piece of work, but can't quite figure out why - it might just need a little consequence. It's never just animating objects .. You're directing an entire ecosystem of reactions, giving weight to the story that you're trying to tell.
When Raw would go off the air, wrestlers would come out to entertain the crowd - competing to see who could take the best Stunner, and the 'sell' was everything. But watch an untrained person take one, and they'll just crumble to the floor, making one of wrestling's most iconic moves look clumsy, and completely ineffective.
With no 'sell', even the best animation can fall flat .. And nobody wants their work looking like a bad Stunner.
