JerryvonKramer

Well as you know I fucking despise Inoki and think he's the most boring wrestler ever to work multiple main events, so any shift away from being like him is a good thing.

I thought the style he worked the Ishii match in the 2013 G1 and the style he worked the Goto match from a couple of nights back was substantially the same.

Apart from wearing black tights and being Japanese I can see literally zero of Inoki in Shibata. I don't see much 80s in him either.

I agree with OJ's point about consensus but disagree with the idea that ratings can be anything other than personal. If I give something five stars that's my take. If five other guys also give it five stars, that's looking more like a consensus, if the number gets bigger than say 15 or so, in the world of PWO that's probably enough critical mass for it to start looking like a lock. Consensuses are important and I've always thought so. It's the moment of being able to look beyond your personal views and recognising that good and bad aren't and can't be defined by just you. Sometimes in whatever field there are things which have consensus approval that for whatever reason I just don't rate highly myself. One such case is the Nicholas Roeg film Don't Look Now which I have disliked for at least twenty years now. But I accept that "probably I'm wrong". I am wrong on Dandy vs Angel Azteca too. In those cases, I always feel like it is me who has failed in some way. But in these things honesty is most important. I can't pretend to unsee the flaws and things I dislike just to mesh with consensus. To do so is posturing. And that is what I oppose above all else. It would be dishonest to brush things you don't like under the carpet and it would be equally dishonest to act like consensus doesn't matter.

Can anyone remember what the crowd were like for the first ten minutes of Bock vs Hennig? I mean is this the same board I see people routinely rag on Ric Flair for going to some signature spots early in matches to pop the crowd? So ... he was right to all along because the crowd being constantly hot is what matters? I don't get the crowd point here, honestly, I don't. I can remember arguments from people saying that the crowd doesn't matter, that sometimes the match is better than the crowd or whatever. I did not think Omega vs Okada was even close to being a classic like I said, but the crowd was super stoked for all the high spots and quieter for the bits in between, and I don't get the issue with that. Isn't there an argument to say that after the last three matches the crowd even needed a bit of down time as others have said?

The crowd talking point is a bit weird, I can think of a lot of highly rated matches during which the crowd were sitting on their hands a bit for portions. What happened to the idea of bringing the crowd up and down?

Ah, that'll me be getting the date from cage match! Bloody Germans. It's taken me years to train myself to put month first for wrestling matches!

I don't think I've ever said that modern wrestling is ALL athleticism over psychology, just that it has been a trend, and one that is exacerbated by overly fancy movesets. This has been something increasingly prevalent in indie epic ROH main event style, which has now been fused with the worst excesses of WWE main event style, and it seems like NJPW main event style has picked up elements of both too. Seems to me that 90% of workers could be improved if they replaced two of their fancy suplexes with a basic stomp and a basic bodyslam. Feels like the lower order of moves have been all but eradicated. Does anyone do like a basic atomic drop any more? It's funny really, the atomic drop was Backlund's finisher at one point. Does anyone even do that move any more? People say things like "things evolve", but that's not really evolution for good in my view. It's almost like trying to evolve language by eliminating conjunctions. Conjunctions are words like "and" and "but", and it's like a style has developed in which the workers have no conjunctions. Imagine writing to write sentences without the words "and", "but", "so", "because" etc. That's Kevin Owens, Kenny Omega and other such workers.

I seem to remember rather a lot of hype around the Shield and their matches not too long ago and from people on this board. Are all those six mans people raved about suddenly shit then?

Late request for Kenny Omega

I'm just going on the one match for Omega, but I can't see that really. I'm honestly not trolling but to me he didn't even seem like a *good* worker, let alone a great one. I'd be willing to watch maybe more matches of his to try to make a fair assessment, but if this was his career work, I'd rank him below someone like Mike Enos (Blake Beverley). Might be laughable to some people that I think one of the Beverley Brothers is better than this guy but it's something I do think. I'd be interested to know how Dylan would compare Omega with someone like Enos.

Wasn't that the one I just reviewed above?

Seemed like he was being cheered to me.

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto (6/22/13) Whatever "it" is, Shibata has it. This was a lot more spot heavy and near-fall orientated than the other matches, but still really damn rugged. Goto looks a tiny bit like post-pizza blow out Yatsu. Another really good match but lacking the throughline story that made WK11 match so compelling and the sheer brutality of the Ishii '13 match. **** I have to go to bed, but more than happy to take further recs on Shibata. Matt, I can see Misawa vs Hase is coming up in PWO2K, so will hit that soon. I am jumping on board that 2000 train as soon as I get this Shibata kick out of my system.

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Chris Hero (11/11/16) I probably should have been at this show. I live in London proper now so maybe I'll make more towns. Loved Hero in this match busting out an array of different piledrivers. This was a sprint really. Good for a quick bombfest. Was interesting to see Shibata work more from underneath here almost as a classic Ricky Steamboat type. *** Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii (8/4/13) This style is fucking mental and I love it! This right here is some real fight club shit. I mean holy fuck. There is a moment in this match in which Shibata is elbowing Ishii so hard in the corner, it looks like a murder attempt and the ref HAS to step in. It's ... AMAZINGLY brutal. And then he follows it up with the patented floating drop kick. Pretty sure Ishii has a legitimate hardway shiner after that. I don't really know what to say this Shibata dude is just instantly one of my fave guys. This style is all about hyper masculinity but ramped up to ridiculous levels. I can see some people not liking the "I'm going to kneel and take it like a man" stuff. But for some reason I get it, it makes sense to me. Absolutely fucking mental. And a masterpiece of dumb fuckery of the dumb fuckingest fuckery. Awesome stuff. Like snorting pure adrenaline through a straw up your nose. *****

I hate seeing my beloved 80s-early 90s WWF sold so short in these convos. The most fully realised, integrated, self-contained universe in wrestling history, and I include Memphis in that. I don't believe I could have done a show like Letters from Kayfabe for any other promotion or period. The lore and world simply aren't deep enough. Mr Fuji having a party with the Barbarian deep. Jesse Ventura: undercover reporter deep. Ian Mooney deep. WWF always sold so short

I did not have an issue with the pop up stuff since this seemed to me to be an intrinsic part of Shibata's character. I believe the phrase I used was "cock measuring stuff". The no selling was clearly -- at least to my eyes -- a form of goading on. "Come on then! Come on then! Come and give me your best shot you fucking loser!" And the first few times Shibata rode that out, whatever Goto could give him to save face / show he could take it, and then cut Goto off to dominate more. But in the end Goto whacked him so hard with enough truly brutal shots / drops on his knee that Shibata was literally dazed KO'd. You could almost see the birds around his head. And it seemed a fitting pay off for such a bullying prick. To complain about these moments of no selling to me seems to sell the story arc and character work short.

I think Twitter has some in-built features (such as followers, "likes" and retweets) that encourage tribalism.

I mean, GOTNW, you could also probably find lots of matches that are consensus five stars that I've reviewed where I've given a lower rating, sometimes a lot lower. Look at Rey vs. Eddie. I just rate matches as I see them and try to be as honest as I possibly can be.

Another example would be Funks vs. Sheik and Abby from 78, whereas history talks up 77 or 79. I'm happy to challenge existing consensus and always have been. Sometimes others agree with me, sometimes they don't. That's all cool it's why we write reviews. Also why I'm happier talking matches than workers.

Of related interest: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/31793-jvk-reviews-pimped-matches-from-late-90s-10s/?p=5782006 One thing I've always been kinda interested in is the spearation of stuff "within 5-star". Like in the world of film ratings, there's 5 star and then there's ... top top end pantheon. I have a big reference book, a Halliwell's guide that will give a film zero stars, and then 1 to 4 stars. But the films that get 1 star are films that would typically get 5 stars in most publications. For example, in there The Deer Hunter gets just the one star. That's clearly one of the best films of 1978, but it's not really like ALL TIME Citizen Kane, Vertigo level, it's just one of the best films from 78. It gets 1 star in Halliwells. The VAST majority of films in there get zero stars. The stars are really filtering all 5-star films. When Chad and I were doing the top 100 rankings in 2015, we sort of did a version of this. For example, I have Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Duggan at 5 stars but that was ALWAYS going to be one of the matches closest to the ****3/4 mark whereas something like Clash 6 was always going to be top 3. In Halliwell's terms Ted vs. Duggan is like 1 or 2 stars, Clash 6 is 4 stars. That's a different scale. You are measuring the absolute elite stuff against itself. But that's only useful for all-time sort of stuff. For the day-to-day you don't really want Halliwells telling you virtually every film ever made apart from a handful are 0 stars, you want your radiotimes telling you that Skyfall is a four-star movie and probably worth a watch on a Sunday night. Hope this makes sense. For day-to-day, the 5-star scale is the one we have to use. For all time, it shifts to something grander.

One thing I've always been kinda interested in is the spearation of stuff "within 5-star". Like in the world of film ratings, there's 5 star and then there's ... top top end pantheon. I have a big reference book, a Halliwell's guide that will give a film zero stars, and then 1 to 4 stars. But the films that get 1 star are films that would typically get 5 stars in most publications. For example, in there The Deer Hunter gets just the one star. That's clearly one of the best films of 1978, but it's not really like ALL TIME Citizen Kane, Vertigo level, it's just one of the best films from 78. It gets 1 star in Halliwells. The VAST majority of films in there get zero stars. The stars are really filtering all 5-star films. When Chad and I were doing the top 100 rankings in 2015, we sort of did a version of this. For example, I have Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Duggan at 5 stars but that was ALWAYS going to be one of the matches closest to the ****3/4 mark whereas something like Clash 6 was always going to be top 3. In Halliwell's terms Ted vs. Duggan is like 1 or 2 stars, Clash 6 is 4 stars. That's a different scale. You are measuring the absolute elite stuff against itself. But that's only useful for all-time sort of stuff. For the day-to-day you don't really want Halliwells telling you virtually every film ever made apart from a handful are 0 stars, you want your radiotimes telling you that Skyfall is a four-star movie and probably worth a watch on a Sunday night. Hope this makes sense. For day-to-day, the 5-star scale is the one we have to use. For all time, it shifts to something grander.

I was just trying to demonstrate how it's not some lunatic view, but one that was represented by a number of people who watched the same show. Others preferred the main, others still preferred the semi-main. Meltzer gave the main 6 stars so naturally there was going to be a lot of attention on that. Anyway, you are coming across like someone intent to stir trouble in this thread, and I have no idea why. I will be watching more Shibata matches soon and reviewing them here. He's probably the stiffest worker I've ever seen.

I did do a search on twitter earlier and it seemed there were quite a lot of people who thought Shibato vs. Goto was the stand out match of the evening. Here are what other viewers said: That Goto vs Shibata match was a thing of beauty . #wrestlekingdom11 But Dave! The stars only go to 5! Shut up and enjoy wrestling. (I personally liked Goto/Shibata best, so whatever.) I liked the match. But liked Shibata and Goto more Aside from Shibata/Goto i legit had no match at 4+. All the praise i'm hearing is making me kinda jealous. Wrestle Kingdom Top 4 ranked for me is 1. Goto/Shibata 2. Okada/Omega 3. Takahashi/KUSHIDA 4. Naito/Tanahashi Shibata vs Goto on rewatch gets slight a bump. Fantastic match, and the best story told at WK. Still not ***** imo. i don't think so. i liked shibata v goto more than the other matches Goto vs Shibata was a slept on match. That match was fucking excellent from start to end. Holy shit...#Goto vs #Shibata was one of the best matches I've seen. Incredible story told throughout the match. #WrestleKingdom11 Shibata v. Goto was one of the most grueling matches I've ever seen. You can call wrestling fake. That wasn't fake. #WK11 @njpw I don't need to go on. The fact is, you are taking potshots at me here, when there are plenty of other people who thought it was MOTN or a classic. I've been watching wrestling for 27 years, I am perfectly happy to say when I think a match is an all-timer or not.