Loss

Whatever reaction Cena got, it wasn't an apathetic one. I realize a lot of this comes down to interpretation, but the boos of Reigns don't feel like the same thing. That could be my own biases creeping in, I don't know.

That they can push Roman Reigns without going out of business isn't really proof that they get anything positive out of pushing Roman Reigns at this point.

He's done that to me too. It's not personal.

I wonder why they opted not to have a special referee and corner people for HHH-Reigns, which was supposedly the original plan.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Parv this hostile toward someone who saw a match differently than him, for the record. The issues in Rude-Hashimoto are common when matches have two guys who are accustomed to being in the driver's seat.

Hogan-Boss Man held some pretty big records for a house show run until Austin broke them. In fact, when the WWF signed Boss Man in the late 90s, they were touting him to their younger wrestlers as a great draw and someone they could learn a lot from. Undertaker worked with Hogan on the way down, but I can't think of anyone other than Boss Man who worked with both Hogan and Austin at their peaks. It's a pretty cool legacy. There are obviously far more factors there, and I think a dry reading of the numbers doesn't prove much other than that some guys are in the right place at the right time. But he was a huge Hogan opponent.

Why is the conclusion to all that not just "wrestling was way better then"? for me, because history hasn't looked kindly upon that approach in much of anything. think of the people who kept saying the Eagles represented the death of rock 'n roll - how do they look in retrospect? there's merit to each generation's work, it just takes a lot of effort to find for those not steeped in that generation and its attitudes. i don't see what makes pro wrestling some special exception. also New Orleans is the best goddamn city and you better be having a blast there! quick recs: Central Grocery for a muffuletta, Jacques-Imo's so you can say you had a shrimp & andouille cheesecake. This works in theory. I'm not sure it works in practice. Wrestling originated under cultural norms that have evaporated over time. The traditional, territory-based framework for wrestling really only works if local culture thrives and people aren't interconnected. We now live in the Internet age, and also one where we can pass dozens of small towns on the highway, and they all have the same gas stations and chain restaurants. Small, local businesses still exist and many are awesome, but they aren't nearly as prevalent as they used to be. I've seen lots of guys have good matches and I don't want to write that off, but we still haven't really seen anyone put forth a vision - at least not in America - that says "With local culture basically hemorrhaged, and with the Internet making people in different locales more connected than at any time in human history, this is how you get emotional investment and this is how you draw 15,000 passionate fans to a wrestling show in a culture where fans have seen every angle, know too much about the inner workings and are glued to smartphones." I don't count WWE in that because they have always played by their own rules and existed in a very different framework, even in the 1980s. But I think it's important to distinguish that comments about how wrestling used to be way better aren't inherently an indictment of declining ring work -- although that can be argued, it's not really what is specifically being argued. It's an argument about the infrastructure of wrestling. It's an argument about the cultural relevance of wrestling. It's also hardly limited to wrestling. I still like lots of new dance music, to pinpoint a specific example, but the age of Detroit or Chicago or Houston or London or Berlin or New York or any other city churning out a new sound that originates in local clubs is sadly gone. The difference is that music has adapted to the times, or at the very least, has done a better job of adapting to the times than wrestling has. And I don't even have the first clue what the answer is.

"Great reaction" = desired reaction?

I thought the six-man was fantastic and the crowd sort of crapped on it, which was depressing. If I learned anything tonight, it's that Roman Reigns and Eva Marie as a heel supercouple is money.

I'm trying to pinpoint what it is about the matwork that's more in line with how NWA champs and the All Japan guys worked that makes it less appealing in many circles lately. Maybe that's not it. I'm just trying to get to to it.

This is as good a place to mention this as any. OJ, I sense that you're not really a fan of pro-style matwork at all. Headlocks, hammerlocks, armbars, figure fours, half crabs, sleepers, bow-and-arrows ... the more common holds in All Japan and the old NWA. Is that a fair statement? I've noticed that most of the matwork that gets praised -- and not even just by you but a lot of people at the board -- is more of the "tricked out" variety from lucha libre or WOS, or the more shooty stuff that we'd see from the UWF and all its spinoffs. Is that accurate?

It's more than championships and commentary. It's the whole concept of booking and guys doing programs.

I thought this was a fantastic read and I agreed with virtually all of it. It actually felt very similar to a couple of things I've written before: Homogenization of wrestling styles Wrestling On Fast Forward But it expanded further on those ideas.

I am not quite sure why I'm being singled out for something many people have said, especially something I said years ago, but wrestling doesn't work as a comparison to sports analysis. It works better as a comparison to music or film analysis in my opinion. If there's a movement to demonstrate what Phil Spector could have accomplished as a producer in the 1960s had he had a Synclavier or been part of the sampling culture, to me, that comparison would work better.

Dylan's post is a goldmine of stuff and I'd like to give it a deserving response. First, I should probably get out of the way that I am a fan of wrestling canon and have no problem admitting to it. I don't want to talk around that, and I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of at all. I feel like navigating this hobby would be really difficult without any wrestling canon at all. Now is every aspect of canon something with which I agree? Of course not! Will I watch something that has no rep? If it features wrestlers who have impressed me at other times, of course. But it's hard for me to imagine doing any historical wrestling watching of note without any canon at all. I'd have no idea where to start and would never get out of the gate. I'd also say that canon is something that constantly changes, and every time we say something declarative or that fits a specific narrative, we're developing or reshaping canon -- whether it's me saying that Ken Shamrock is the lost top WCW star of the 90s, or Dylan saying Rey has had more good television matches than any wrestler in history, or JvK claiming that Harley Race invented the modern working style. People take those observations -- sometimes we say them casually and sometimes we say them after great deliberation -- and run with them, and they take on a life of their own. Before the AWA set, I don't recall ever hearing anyone say Shawn Michaels peaked as a tag team worker in the mid-1980s, and now I hear that semi-regularly. I think we're all influenced by canon, just like we all shape it. On the subject of All Japan, again, I think a lot of the stuff we've talked about through the years is probably overplayed in some ways, but I also think All Japan is more of a conducive environment for it, simply because there's a greater spotlight on the wrestling, a heavier focus on wins and losses, a sharper sense of hierarchy and more protected offensive moves. They do 5+ year title chases and count on the fans sticking with them the entire time. It's not a promotion that has all-gimmick PPVs, love triangles or battles for control of the company. They don't have a PR wing advertising their fights against breast cancer and bullying. And we know even from seeing American companies that greater emphasize the in-ring work that details do matter more in companies other than WWE. WWE has always been wrestling's version of fast food, aimed at the lowest common denominator. That doesn't make it a completely worthless company or anything like that, but it's hard to dispute how they've always seen themselves. It's a company that has trouble keeping the details straight even in the main event programs of their biggest shows sometimes. There is nothing about how WWE is promoted that I can see that suggests any interest in making the details of the ring work matter. I did not intend to make a statement on the comprehension skills of WWE fans as much as I was speaking to the dissonance of working that way and how WWE promotes itself as, as Bryan Danielson (and supposedly even Cesaro) once described it, a parody of pro wrestling. You can substitute "8-year old" for "casual fan" or any other term that describes WWE's most sought after customer. Their entire programming suite is crafted for new viewers -- they constantly ID themselves, tout how long they've been on the air and promote their social media presence and charity work. They don't do that for the benefit of the people already watching. My criticism of the Inside Baseball style of working as you put it (and I do like that description) is less Bush v. Gore and more When In Rome. I can think of wrestlers like Bret Hart who took a very thoughtful approach to his matches, but there's also nothing about how Bret Hart worked that I think was antithetical to the house style. It's hard for me to think of match choices he made that didn't work for the general audience. Again, I want to stress that a lot of this is based on examples of Cesaro doing this -- as a response to me asking how he's more than just a "moves" guy -- that I haven't seen for myself. So once again, I will say that if he's doing spots in his matches that work on two levels, then that's great and a credit to him. Once again, "two levels" in this context means that the spot or sequence works for the casual viewer, but the hardcore fan may pick up on some subtlety that only enhances it more. In fact, now that I think about it, I can recall one example of him doing that in the Zayn match from the first NXT special, when he countered Zayn's tope through the middle turnbuckle with the uppercut after getting hit with the move in their previous match. That's actually something I'd call a great callback, because the spot works whether you have the background information or not. On the flip side, The Wyatts putting The Shield through an announce table at Elimination Chamber 2014 I don't think is a great callback because without the context of previous Shield matches, it just comes across as a cliched, tired spot that has been done to death. I think sometimes in the desire to find smart work, it's easy to consider any evidence of thought put into the work as evidence that it's somehow smart. Labored or heavily considered work isn't necessarily smart work. Playing off of previous matches I think is on its own of neutral value to me -- it's neither inherently good or bad. It's a matter of doing it in the right time, at the right place and in the right matches, just like most other choices wrestlers make. I will never dispute that immersion creates a clearer pictures than cherry picking. It's usually better when attempting to gain understanding to watch more wrestling rather than less wrestling. But I also think wrestling in general is a medium that always aims to attract new fans and I don't see match choices that only work for the already converted as a sign of great psychology.

No way! That's great news!

I had a lot of fun doing this and wanted to share here. http://wrestlingwithwords.com/pro-wrestling-punditry-with-charles-lynch/

I'd start the thread if I had the first clue what to call it.

Because it's not all about pops and I've never said that. I have also explained many times in many threads why I'm not ranking Hogan.

I'd call Shawn-Angle at Wrestlemania XXI and Regal-Finlay at Uncensored '96 both ***1/2 matches for entirely different reasons. (I also really enjoyed your post, Woof.)

Yes.

We know the difference by how the crowd reacts. If a crowd pops for Shawn Michaels missing the splash off the top of the ladder, then the spot worked for the wider audience. For those who remember Wrestlemania X, it works even more. That to me is a good example of playing off of a previous match. Countering a move done the previous week, if it's not something where the crowd reacts in that moment, then it didn't work on both levels. It's not *wrong* per se or even bad, but the spot that works on both levels is the better one. It's funny that you mention not dumbing down for the audience, because I do remember high school plays where we'd do the show in front of parents and anyone who wanted to come, then we'd do an abridged version the next afternoon during the school day that was just for students. I remember the Director actually giving different pointers to everyone involved for the abridged version, indicating that certain lines should be cut out because a bunch of highschoolers wouldn't laugh as much as their parents would, and to not pause as long at certain points, and so on. My criticism of Cesaro is not at all that he puts too much thought into his work. It's that effort alone doesn't make a great wrestler. If I'm assigned a project at work and turn something in that isn't very good after laboring over every meticulous detail, I'm not going to get praised just because I worked really hard on it. My point is that if he's crafting matches full of spots and sequences that only work for hardcore, detail-oriented fans (which I'm not even saying is the case), then that's not something I'd point to in his favor in a company where every single thing they do is an attempt to appeal to the masses.

Psychology is by definition doing things that an audience will understand. It's not maintaining consistency with some internal, personal ethos of logic. The idea behind logic in psychology is that it's easier to keep a crowd by doing things that make sense than it is by doing things that don't. As for what we do, or at least what I thought we did, we see matches that do or don't connect with wider audiences, then backtrack and try to figure out how they got to that point. Of course most of our analysis is going to go over the heads of a casual fan, just like most things in a film review would be lost on people who see it in a theater. It's generally not the role of a spectator to search for why, but it is the role of a critic. So again, us picking up on or recognizing those types of details in a match is a nice enhancement, sure, but I think as a standalone trait of a match, playing off a previous match is a neutral quality. I don't think doing it on its own is something admirable. If a match is being constructed to only appeal to a narrow swath of an audience, then that's a strike against it, not a feather in its cap. If a match is being constructed to appeal to the masses with nods thrown in for people who are paying close attention, then I think that's pretty cool. There's a difference.

I also realize that a lot of spots are callbacks that can work on more than one level, meaning that it's great for people who are paying attention, but the match's success or failure doesn't depend on understanding that history. Wrestlemania VII. Savage goes for the double axehandle over the guardrail in his match with Ultimate Warrior. Was that intended to be a call back to the Steamboat feud? Possibly, possibly not. The announcers didn't mention the history of the spot, even though it was clear they knew what he was doing, despite it not being a spot he had done since 1986. If you're reviewing the match, sure, it's something worth pointing out as an extra bit of detail that enriches the match. But the spot works whether you know the history or not. We can argue about the intent because that's what we do. The history of the spot doesn't make or break the match, though. Summerslam '95. Shawn goes for the splash from the top of the ladder. This time, Razor rolls out of the way and Shawn eats canvas. Was that intended to be a call back to Wrestlemania X? Almost definitely, even though the announcers didn't mention the history of the spot, despite it being in highlight reels on television from pretty much the moment it happened. If you're reviewing the match, sure, it's something worth pointing out as an extra bit of history to enrich the match. But the spot works whether you know the history or not. So let me say that: If Cesaro is constructing matches that work on that extra level for people who are paying close attention while also working equally well for someone who isn't aware of the history, then that's commendable and a credit to him. If he's working matches where recognizing the greatness is dependent on understanding all of the history, then I question doing it at all.

There is nothing wrong with it on its own. But doing something that is going to go over the heads of at least half the fans seems like a waste of time. I admire the principle behind it. I just don't think something that isn't plain as day to everyone watching is an example of good psychology. I have a lot more to say about this that I'll post later.