Loss

Thanks. I'll rate matches, but not with stars. I'll be using a 1-10 scale, breaking down in 0.1. In reviewing 140 matches a month, I think I need something a bit more precise to make comparisons. Plus, I think Dave has recently made star ratings laughably irrelevant. I'll elaborate on this more later, but I really want those ratings to not just reflect the in-ring bell to bell, but to rate the match as an overall presentation, the lion's share which is of course the in-ring bell to bell. The flaw of star ratings has always been the awesome five-minute matches that no one's going to go all the way on no matter how good they are. Or the matches that do everything they need to do, but aren't technically great. Or the matches that are aided by hot promo work or a post-match angle. The 1-10 rating is not just "this is how great this match is", even if it's often that. It's more my opinion of how worth your time the whole shebang is.

Continued thanks to all. I just posted a sneak peek of a review that will go up on the first day: Harley Race vs Terry Funk from 07/01/77. https://www.facebook.com/ProWrestlingOnly/posts/218984778891797

According to the latest WON, WWE has yet to plan any specific future dates for Lesnar.

It still amazes me how so many people that should know better think reality TV is a complete shoot.

I'm wrong in this post, in a sign I was inside a big bubble in how I was looking at this. The story wasn't newsworthy because Dave just gave his match a 7* rating. It was newsworthy because he's the IWGP champion. Ok, now I'm really done.

I don't mean in person, by the way. I don't really interact with a lot of fans in person, although I do some. Even on here, it's more difficult. That's what I mean. Cannon shapes everything when you have a hobby like this. I don't want to hit this too hard and don't plan to post anymore about it, but I just wanted to be clear.

I think this headline, the body of the article, and even the possibility that WWE is trying to appeal to NJPW fans says everything that needs to be said about why people care. (This is not a criticism of the article, but it is an example of a reporter, Dave, creating/being the story in a lot of ways.) Create the narrative, then report on the narrative. It's so intrinsic that a lot of people don't see it. https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/kenny-omega-match-added-wwe-network-hidden-gems-259676

I think they wanted Luger as their new star in the finals, even if the babyfaces were going over. They could have either teamed him with Arn or Tully. Arn-Sullivan was a makeshift team since there were no other available Horsemen.

It's not.

Pro shot? We have the edited version and raw footage version of that tag, but it would be nice to add that one.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's often a good thing. But the phrasing reads like you can now become a great worker if you just sign up with the University of Phoenix and watch their online training course matches. It also suggests that wrestlers in the past never learned from other places.

To me, this was the more stunning thing about the WON this week, more than the 7* rating:

Not only have we considered it, but he outright said it in the Wrestling Observer. It read like, "Yeah, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels were pretty good" the way someone would talk about Brad Armstrong or something.

Do you remember when ROH was selling DVDs based on star ratings? They'd make ad banners that said stuff like "*****" - Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Newsletter. I remember WCW laughably selling Chi-Town Rumble that way, arguing in the actual ad that Steve Beverly called Luger-Windham "a surprisingly outstanding match". If part of your enjoyment of wrestling is the social interaction with other fans through whatever medium, then this is important because more people have seen Misawa-Kawada than a match like, say, Yoshiko Tamura vs Toshie Uematsu from GAEA in 1997, which I gave 5* and I don't think Dave ever rated. Which match would it be easier to have a conversation with someone about? The social interaction, of course, doesn't mean that you need all of your opinions validated by others agreeing with you. But it does mean there's a basic understanding of what the common reference points are to check out new matches and styles, and Dave isn't just an option in that point of reference, the way I am or soup is or jdw is or DVDVR is or Segunda Caida is or whoever else. He owns the entire frame of reference. You can argue that you want it to change, and I do at this point, but that's how it is. As far as the "paper of record" point, whether or not people eventually move away from it is not the point. It's the easiest place to start. I remember not even having a concept of the idea of a "good match" vs a "bad match" when I watched pre-Internet. My favorite matches were when the wrestlers I liked won, and my least favorites were when the bad guys won. People aren't just learning about what matches are recommended, but they are learning that certain tropes constitute good wrestling and certain ones constitute bad wrestling. That includes young wrestlers, many of whom grew up reading the WON because Dave is such an institution now and has been for so long. So then they work a style that's based on what the WON "taught" them is good and correct. We've seen this play out so much in the last decade So I would say, if you are someone who cares about good wrestling, and you are someone who wants other fans to have a useful point of entry (of course we want more fans, it's good for everyone!), then Dave's ratings matter. Not because he's a dude with an opinion, but because he's a high-profile journalist with a lot of influence over how people think about what's good and bad, to the point that it's become an upward stream into wrestling instead of wrestling streaming ideas down into the Observer.

It's his choice to do what he wants, of course. I was just reading his full explanation for it in the WON and while you could question a lot or even most of his logic, there is a consistency there. The challenge I think he'll face is that a better match can come along, particularly with so many people of the current generation producing matches at that level that are still so young. If there's a better match next year, then what? What if there's a better one after that? And then another? I think in his mind, great! He doesn't draw a line. So be it. It's as much a commentary on star ratings in general as it is Dave's approach to them. I've used them for years myself, but the limitations have become more apparent to me, to where it's baffling as a long time fan hearing complaints that a match "only" got ****1/2 or ****3/4. If we start hearing that about ***** matches, wow. But when he intentionally has no historical compass in matches, the ratings become useless. The reason people care so much is that the WON is the closest thing to a "paper of record" that pro wrestling has. It will live longer than Dave or any of us. It will eventually be not that someone had a match rated seven stars in the WON, but simply that they had a seven-star match. I noticed when he did the Misawa and Kobashi bios over the last decade that he (and more interestingly, Bryan Alvarez in deference) did not say that they'd had "22 matches rated ***** in the WON". They simply said, presented as fact, that they'd had "22 ***** matches". When an opinion or viewpoint is prevalent and unchallenged enough, time turns it into a fact. See current debates about the very existence of climate change being a matter of opinion. It's either happening or it's not, regardless of what those opinions are, but we've socially constructed the idea that it's an opinion. It's not so much about what Dave likes and dislikes as it is that he's made it much harder for future fans to understand the era when compared to previous eras. Wrestling changes, life goes on, yes to all of that, but now it seems like the matches in the past didn't get a fair shake from Dave, the most high-profile match critic in wrestling. People rely on those to determine what they prioritize in their viewing and it has a huge impact on consensus. That's why people care, not so much because they disagree with Dave on how good a match is.

Thanks again to everyone for their continued outpouring of support, interest, and encouragement. The marketplace idea is going to come to fruition sooner than I thought! There's a simple, inexpensive add-on that can be purchased to make it an extension of this board. So you won't have to go somewhere else and create an account or anything like that. Just learned this tonight and it's very exciting!

Update: I planned to pull a regular report of the people who had checked the box indicating that they'd like to subscribe to the newsletter, but the report functionality doesn't meet my needs. If you would like to subscribe via email, please complete the survey below. There is an optional field at the end for you to provide your email address. Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfi0ckQZNnhLkHpWL_jgVt3qRZNU7jCTsqoomKEzDQg_He88w/viewform

If there is anyone here that is pretty skilled at design, if you could do some pro-bono work creating a logo for me, that would be great! I know what I want, but I just haven't been able to pull it off. PM me if you're willing and able to help. Thanks!

Sabu love was reported at the time too. Vince asked one of the agents why he wasn't hired years earlier. He liked how old school he was, apparently. This was during the same period that Vince said casually in a meeting that 1979-1985 was his favorite era of wrestling, and Tony Atlas was hired back for no apparent reason.

To put it politely ... that a dominatrix shoved a banana up his ass and injured him in the process.

Guys, I got this.

Not sure if it's the first, but Harley Race vs Hogan in 1988 predates. In 1985, Terry Funk took bumps on the ringside table around the loop during his feud with Junkyard Dog.

Has Jim Cornette ever offered any type of explanation for why he wasn't around during the Bash tour in the summer of 1987? I know what the rumor has always been (which I won't get into), but just wondered if Cornette has either officially said why he was off the road?

Watched any good matches lately? Comment on Facebook if there's something you'd like me to write up. https://t.co/QymR5I35ru

It will! Everything that's here now will still be here.