JerryvonKramer

Strongly resisting the urge to give a history of 150 years of literary criticism. But I'll give the briefest of Cliff Notes: The approach supremebve is talking about was popular in the 1930s, roughly equivalent to this classic foundationalist text of formalist criticism: This was also known as the Cambridge School. In the US it was known as New Criticism. It fell out of favour in the late 70s, and we've had a period of about 35 years of historicism since. For those interested, the book I've just written, which will be out later this year, is about exactly what that change entailed. I guess film criticism is still in its formalist phase in some places.

Always get excited for the Rumble, just because it's a unique experience, but the title being on the line this year for the first time since 92 just notches this one above.

Okay, I think we are on a closer page than it might appear. I guess what I was saying though is that there is a criteria -- a set of values -- behind the criticisms. Just using the Transforms case, and the criticisms you made: - that a story should be told coherently - that attempts at humour should be funny and not feel forced - that camera angles should aim for clarity rather than obscuring the action As I said before, critical theory most often comes about in post-hoc fashion. I.e. The reaction comes first, then you ask why, then you work backwards again from the why to the general principles. If another case comes along to complicate it, let's say a David Lynch film which doesn't tell "a coherent story" but isn't the poorer for it, then you have to look at adjusting the general principle again to allow for it. Loss says: "well, do away with the general principle". I say: you have to think harder about why you are making the exception for Lynch but not for Transformers. I say that because I think it's impossible to make criticisms without implicit criteria.

Was about to post this in Fujinami thread, but I guess it belongs here more: The core of Jumbo's case must still be made in the 80s. I had 22 matches at 4 or higher for Jumbo for the AJ set (with five at five star), and I was pretty much a pack voter: not an outlier in any way shape or form. Which is to say my Top 100 and the pooled Top 100 are not that far apart, except for that Steamboat vs. Sheik match. So far with NJ set I am still only 4 discs in to up to mid-83. The Fujinami I have at 4 or above are: ****1/2 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (7/7/83) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Chavo Guerrero (5/9/80) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Isamu Teranishi (10/8/81) **** Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Steve Keirn (2/3 Falls) (2/1/80) Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Andre the Giant & Rene Goulet (12/10/81) I didn't rate some of the Choshu matches as highly as some others are on them. But then some people are less high on Jumbo vs. Flair / Jumbo vs. Kerry. That evens out. So far, they are on about an even keel for me in terms of match quality, and Jumbo has his best to come (presumably Fujinami does too?) Jumbo had matches I really liked in that early 80s time frame vs. Dick Slater, vs. Harley Race, and over in AWA with Rick Martel and Bock with 9/29/85 vs. Martel at *****3/4 (for me) I'm just interested by why the gap is so big? Are you that much lower on those 20 or so matches I have at 4+ Also interested in views from the other people who also voted in the AJ 80s set. Don't really know why Jumbo's stock appears to have fallen. Seems like people were much higher on him when the AJ 80s set was happening and in its direct aftermath. What's happened in those 3 or 4 years that has changed?

Scott Keith was also wildly inconsistent with it. Flair vs. Steamboat didn't work in many ways, 5,000 people at the New Orleans Superdome, fans cheering Flair and booing Steamboat, that's the booking not working. But that didn't seem to bother him nearly as much as the booking not working for Garvin. Also, I guess non-WTBBP listeners would have heard a lot less of this Garvin talk because it tended to take place in the feedback threads to our shows.

I thought Hansen had very good to great matches with all three partners, see here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/20932-80s-catchup-thread/?p=5565451 B = ***3/4 Edit: Forgot about his run with Tenryu as a partner too. Some great ones with him as well.

Hansen tags with Brody, DiBiase and Gordy throughout the decade. In the same timeframe Jumbo tags with Baba, Tenryu and Yatsu Every AJ worker has a relatively high proportion of their matches that were tags. This is also the case in the 70s and 90s.

There are lots of us who think the Starrcade 87 bout is ****+ I also like the Jimmy Garvin match and think the finish is memorable. Maybe, you're right, it's not going to go anywhere.

Crusher, Dick the Bruiser, Chief Jay Strongbow, all got wildly estatic crowd reactions beyond the dreams of most modern workers and beyond the point that most of the NWA babyfaces in the 80s were over. This is one reason why the crowd can't affect things too much for me.

And see, ideally this is where a disagreement and conversation arises. Or we can pussy about saying, "hey dude, cool if you think that, you aren't wrong, but hey, I think this totally opposite thing and I'm not wrong either". We can't have conversations if we just do that all the time. Meaningful conversation starts when you put the (general, abstract, and basically boring) relativistic point to bed. I disagree with OJ for all sorts of reasons. How do we proceed? If I say "he's not wrong and he's entitled to that opinion", the conversation ends. Maybe we want the conversation to end, I dunno.

That came across as harsher than intended. I meant, yeah, it's well understood, we've discussed it a million times. I'm saying the opinion that Flair vs. Garvin isn't a good match because Garvin bombed as champ is a silly way of looking at matches. If I can't say that without relativist quibbles there is no hope for meaningful conversation ever to take place.

To elaborate on that, since true objectivity is impossible, the critic has to have values, he or she has to stand for something. And whatever that is becomes the benchmark of their criticism. This is true of virtually every great critic I can think of. This thread springs to mind as relevant reading: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32173-beginners-guide-to-analyzing-wrestling/

It's a point that doesn't need making.

It is. But I suspect his 81-84, a period during which he had several classic matches but worked a stodgy style, is being held against him.

I'd take this one step further. I took a criticism class in college and the thing I learned is that you can only judge things on what they are, not what you want them to be. We had to watch the movie "Invincible" which is the true story of a regular ass dude who tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles and somehow made the team. It was an overwhelmingly average movie, but that isn't what bothered me. I wrote my entire paper on how the movie portrayed the well known, to me at least, characters in the movie who clearly had nothing to do with the real people. I got my paper back and the professor basically told me to rewrite it, because whatever I wanted the movie to be is irrelevant to what the movie actually was. I try to bring that to any criticism I do for anything. Unless someone specifically asks me what I want to see, hear, feel, smell, or whatever I try to remove what I want from my criticism of it. If Cactus Jack and Vader put on a grappling exhibition full of chain wrestling and subtle limb selling, I'm going to judge it based on that. I'd find it ridiculous for them to do that, but I can only judge them on what they actually did not what I wanted them to do. Whether or not a match is successful should be based on whether or not Vader and Cactus Jack were able to put on a great match based on chain wrestling, not the fact that I'd rather see them brawl. I think 95% of my arguments about wrestlers and matches is based on people wishing a wrestler or a match was something else. What we want is irrelevant to what actually happens in a match, so judge what actually happens. If what they do doesn't work in the structure of the match go ahead and say it, but don't ask, "why didn't they work the match I wanted?" Not sure I can go along with this. I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement. Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms. See also: TNA circa 2005. There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

Yeah it does actually, because the position was that Ron Garvin wasn't a very good wrestler because he bombed as world champ and that his matches weren't very good as a result. That is the wrong conclusion. Starrcade 87 would get ratings like **. Comes from a wrongheaded way of reviewing, where backstage stories somehow end up being reflected in the rating. That's not an opinion thing, it's a "smart" fans being stupid thing.

The Bob Backlund of NJ, in a way.

Suffice it to say that matwork does not figure into my ratings. By which I mean it's possible to get a base score of 10 without being any good at it.

The former.

Well I guess it's more like if I'd listened to 36 Chambers, Ready to Die, Liquid Swords, Straight Outta Compton and Capital Punishment and the decided that only Biggie is worth bothering with. Which to any rap fan is a patently nonsensical view just as my views on Lucha and pretty nonsensical to Lucha fans. It's like damning the rest by exalting the executeption. And let's face it, I dig Cota because he's just like a US heel and dig Casas because he works like a US babyface. It's like a backhanded stab at all the Lucha I haven't connected with. Much more comfortable saying I won't rank em, just as many have said they won't rank minis or Joshi. I reserve the right to call an 11th hour audible though, if I feel the calibre of people going in is getting too low. I'd call that right around the Haku / Earthquake / Bossman sort of mark. If guys like that start creeping in, I'd probably rather pull the trigger on Cota / Casas / Breaks to shut them out. Mainly because I have strong feelings about the sorts of standards I'd want from all the guys on my list.

It's more out of respect to the guys who really dig Lucha. I feel me sticking Casas on my list is, in a way, disrespectful. I say this as someone who got generally irritated by guys listing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasty in their top 100 albums of all time, when it had not long come out and then ignoring all the other great hip-hop albums because they weren't really rap fans but indie kids who just got caught up in the hype of that one album. Call it irrational, but I won't do the equivalent of that here.

Housekeeping Mid-South d4 ****3/4 Terry Taylor vs. Ric Flair (6/1/85) ***3/4 Rock N Roll Express vs. Ted DiBiase & Dr. Death (5/3/85) ***1/2 Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair (4/28/85) Dirty White Boys vs. Terry Daniels & Bill Dundee (5/11/85) *** Rock N Roll Express vs. Ted DiBiase & Dr. Death (6/19/85) Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair (5/4/85) Rock N Roll Express vs. Terry Gordy & Buddy Roberts (6/24/85) **1/2 Rock N Roll Express vs. Dirty White Boys (5/11/85) ** Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (5/3/85) *1/2 Rock N Roll Express vs. Jake Roberts & The Barbarian (6/28/85)

Sidenote: For those that haven't been watching along on the Mystery Theatre stuff, Kelly and I watched an awesome opener between Rene Goulet and B. Brain Blair that knocked our socks off, turned out to be a great match coming in with zero expectation and zero heat. Would be a perfect example of this. Would recommend seeking that out. May 84 Cap Centre card.

I should explain that the reason I won't do this is because I hate fair-weather-ism. I need a more thorough-going look at WoS to get a measure of if he's really the only guy to come from there. When we did the album thing a few years back, I was against guys voting on the couple of rap records they liked when they were little more than day-trippers, tourists. Hadn't done their rap homework. What can I say, I have a puritanical streak. I can't vote in an area where I feel I haven't done my homework. I won't vote Hase unless I watch a good chunk of Hash, Liger, Muta, and other 90s NJ types as well. Just what I'm like. Naturally, people can do what they like with their lists, but that's my own thing. My opinion on Lucha really does mean jack shit, so an endorsement for Casas or Cota from me means absolutely nothing. Genuinely how I see it. I'd rather not give a meaningless endorsement.

I am very likely to rank Joshi workers just based on what I've seen, I know I will. There's a lot of hours of my life I've spent on trying in vain to get Lucha at this point and I don't like that vague feeling that I'm just pissing people off with it. Like, I don't like Jesus and Mary Chain much either, or the brand of noise pop they helped influence for the next twenty years, but I don't go on Jesus and Mary Chain forums talking about how much I think Psychocandy sucks and how much I see the muddy production as a form of cowardice, a lack of faith in the songs. I don't go on Noise Pop Central and talk about how I don't get it. So time to stop I think. I just can't in good faith rank Casas and Cota when I'm writing the rest of them off. Feels wrong. I also will not vote Jim Breaks if I don't watch a good bit more WoS before deadline. Just goes against my general ethos.