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I can't comment on the Bruce Pritchard thing, but I would agree with the general sentiment that places like PWO have created an environment for in-depth match discussion where, outside his hardcore followers, Meltzer's shallow recaps haven't been a relevant voice for many years in turning people to new stuff or swaying opinions. Between social media, shoot interviews, and competing news sites, we also have more ways than ever before to get accounts of past and present news stories beyond just taking Meltzer's word as gospel. I haven't been a subscriber since 2010 for those reasons.

A near-fall heavy style like WWE moving away from every finisher ending a match is arguably a good thing from an artistic perspective. Guys still get finishing moves that fans can associate with them, but now they have a lot more options in giving the fans legitimately convincing near falls. The AA getting kicked out of more seems like an extremely petty reason to stop watching and something only hardcore fans would care about anyway. I'm not saying there aren't often some significant issues in execution through over reliance on kick outs and lackluster selling, but when people talk about how bad it is not protect finishers there's a tendency to ignore the good points. There's too much focus on the absolute worst examples of the convention while ignoring stuff like the Styles/Reigns series as an example of matches that worked really well largely because finishers weren't treated as instant death.

How much "legitimacy" is there in a HOF that only exists on one man's hard drive and which has many members who are unaware of even being in it? At the end of the day it's just an excuse for a bunch of longtime fans to talk about the business and maybe learn something new about its history. Pretty ridiculous to begrudge Dave for prioritizing a family member's health over it.

People feeling offended by Styles making a non-PC remark is a pretty accurate way of describing what's going on, at least with him getting fired from Chikara and Beyond and the ongoing online backlash. If it was just a matter of Styles being told no political jokes, making a joke about Trump's wall anyway, and getting fired for it, no one on either side would care. I'm not sure if saying people were "offended" is actually the right term to use in regards to the backlash, though. Is anyone seriously offended? It wouldn't seem so given that the two female wrestlers who commented on this were pretty firmly in the anti-PC camp. What's going on isn't a legitimate offense but a manufactured SJW outrage, wherein people have gone out of their way to take Styles's words out of context and interpret them in the worst way possible. It's obvious Styles didn't intend the joke to be about sexual assault, but that's what they say it's about because that's what they want it to be about.

Saying it was a line about grabbing women by the pussy that just so happened to mention Donald Trump is a perfectly acceptable interpretation if you take the comment completely out of context by ignoring the massive media frenzy last month over Trump being recorded saying that he can do exactly that. To use a bit of paraphrasing, when Styles said "Trump would grab her by the pussy" the focus on that statement isn't on the "her" and how it's completely acceptable to grab women by the pussy (because it's obviously not acceptable). The focus is on the "Trump" and the stupid things he said were acceptable. It's a mocking remark about some locker room talk and the subsequent shitstorm, and it has no relation to actual sexual assault or sex offenders. The uproar makes it sound like he had said something akin to, "she looks good enough to get raped," and that's not true at all. The argument that it's wrong for Styles to call someone a pussy as a synonym for coward or weakling is pretty out there. It's not like people don't also use "dick" as a synonym for jerks. It's entirely possible to use words invoking genitalia as an insult without meaning to denigrate either gender. This situation is a textbook example of the "social justice" outrage machine. Take something out of context, interpret it in the worst way possible, and then have a field day demonizing the guy who said it. If we label Styles as a throwback to an earlier time before the regressive left taught us all how to talk in a civilized manner, he has my support I would like to see other guys work a similar gimmick.

The "times change" argument doesn't work considering a week ago the USA had a vote, and the nation voted in the guy who was against making people walk on egg shells and supported free speech. Yes, compared to 20 years ago there are now more safe spaces where you can freely act outraged at the slightest things, but that doesn't make the movement to force alt-left politics into an art form that's about guys beating each other to a body pulp and which has traditionally been at the other end of the political spectrum any less ridiculous. I'm not going to dispute the Evolve firing if it was a matter of Joey feeling bad for disrespecting Gabe and asking for it himself (though the SJW pile-on in spite of his apology is still horribly unnecessary). What concerns me is his firing from unrelated companies over it and much of the community cheering such a move on. Say what you want about the job Styles was doing before that, but this sets a dangerous precedent for the artistic freedom of talent. Historically, some of the greatest and most memorable moments in wrestling happened when guys went against what their boss said or what was deemed PC, like when Bret Hart decided to blade Austin at Wrestlemania or those aforementioned original DX skits. Trying to force guys to bow to the altar of political correctness lest they be instantly fired and crucified is not something I can get onboard with.

Explain the logic behind sexual assault being "PC shit". And Joey Styles isn't a fucking comedian. There's no charm when he says it. He's a gross, old man. Him thinking that it was a joke doesn't make what he said any better. In Dave Chappelle's monologue this past Saturday, he said it in a way that brought healing. Styles' brought a harsh reminder that we live in a country that accepts sexual assault. Your logic about Gabe running an angle like that is beyond my comprehension. I can't imagine spewing that line out there and thinking it's logical. More power to you, I guess. It is PC shit. Styles making a joke about locker room banter from the president elect has nothing to do with real sexual assault. By that logic, you may as well get triggered by commentators talking about guys killing each other for joking about murder. I am struggling to see how Styles mocking Donald Trump somehow means accepting sexual assault. At most, it means not giving a fuck about PC shit.

It's a fair point if he was told not to do political jokes beforehand, though I'd argue it's not that political given Trump's history with wrestling and that the joke wasn't about any of his announced political stances. It seems like a dick move for Chikara and Beyond to fire him solely for that. The outrage over it is dumb given that it's not something that would feel out of place at all if said in the company where Styles built his name. What this amounts to is an ECW talent getting ass blasted for acting like an ECW talent. Fuck PC culture.

Assuming the average PPV was $40, 1.4m subs would be equivalent to about 350k PPV buys every month, which is far above 100k-200k buys they were averaging for pre-network PPVs. And it all presumably goes straight to WWE without cable providers taking anything. Certainly seems like a good deal for WWE.

I don't think Dave casually implying any of his readers who supported Trump are racists is a little thing. Such a claim also ignores that white voters in Trump's key states voted Obama in 2008. Given that the person who brought up the F4W board did not provide the full context I might be wrong on this, but the board posters would be justified if they feel offended by Dave's whitelash remark.

As a non-subscriber, I would be interested in a summary of what the board thought about the piece. I thought it did detract from the piece that Dave bought into the liberal media's narrative about Trump support being a "whitelash" without giving proper credence to the real reasons people supported Trump.

Some lucha action http://m.imgur.com/o1Js3C8

WWE debuting a hit angle on Raw around the summer months then having no idea how to follow up on it has been pretty common. 2007: Cool Vince limo explosion that got dropped for shit son storyline 2008: McMahon's millions angle that went nowhere and cool Regal authority figure angle that got droppped 2010: Nexus 2011: CM Punk pipe bomb 2012: Lesnar returns to massive excitement then jobs to Cena and is stuck into a Triple H feud no one wanted 2014: Botched Daniel Bryan reign 2015: Botched Seth Rollins reign and diva's revolution

I don't think it's weird. ECW/AJPW seemed to have a loose talent exchange agreement with Sabu and Dreamer working some tours in AJPW while ECW later borrowed Doc/Gordy for a few matches. There's also a RVD/Sabu vs CanAm match from ECW that's a hella fun spotfest.

I was basing my thoughts on Flair's formula on one of the Butch Reed matches. Given that it's him in one of the most prolific years of his career against a local guy I think it's a fair representation of what his touring match was like. First 12 minutes of the match dominated by Reed. Ric Flair then does a figure four and runs through his spots for a bit before the match goes back to Reed in control before the bullshit finish. I would be open to the argument that he was more thoughtful for some of his bigger matches, but I still think him being too giving and too liberal in doing shit like the flop is a problem with a lot of the matches where he built his rep as a broomstick guy. I watch something like the GAB cage match with Ricky Morton and I can't help but think it would be much more rewarding viewing if, instead of pinballing around the first 10 minutes of the match, he went straight to working the nose and, after some struggle and cut-offs, they did the big face run of offense towards the end and saved the big bumps for then. It's far more satisfying to me to see escalation in the action instead of knockouts and begging off just a few minutes into the match. Thesz/Gagne is a masterclass in escalation and selling. They already start at a higher level of intensity than most Flair matches with the caution and tension with which they approach even a collar-and-elbow tie-up, but then there's a disrespectful shove from Thesz, some cheap shots a bit later in the match from him, and soon there's retaliation from Gagne. It is a mat-based match, but it's far from accurate to say they never get off the mat as the striking exchanges are an important part of the match that mirrow the escalating intensity in their approach to the mat. https://youtu.be/yvv1wvegguA?t=16m44s Here we have Gagne grabbing the headlock off a rough tie-up. These guys have already thrown some strikes at each other standing and they're soon going to start doing it on the mat. Notice the struggle over the headlock takedown and the nice snap and thud when Gagne gets the takedown. Notice the fierce expression on Gagne's face as he applies the headlock, how he wrenches the headlock in, and how he shifts his body weight to make it uncomfortable for Thesz. Notice how Thesz keeps squirming and the struggle surrounding him trying to get onto his knees. Notice how Gagne wastes no time in how he keeps going back to the head lock after it's released, as if he wants to teach Thesz a lesson for the disrespect earlier in the match. Notice as well the progressive selling from both guys with Thesz selling slowly losing consciousness from having a guy crushing down his arms over his head while Gagne seems to be tiring out from having to apply the head lock for so long. Notice how Thesz unsuccessfully goes for the backdrop several times until, just when it looks like he is about to lose consciousness, he musters his last bit of energy to finally hit it and win the first fall, ending in both guys looking like they have almost nothing left. The second and third falls have some great stuff as well with Thesz putting on a clinic in working the subtle heel. He picks just the right moments for cheap shots and both guys use a lot more strikes than they did in the first fall to reflect the escalation. Because of how spent both guys were as the first fall ended, there's a sense that a single good shot could end the match, and that leads to some really hot moments, like when Thesz collapses off a Gagne shoulder block on a rope break. All the mat work they do in the latter half looks very hard fought compared to the start of the match and I also love how they mix in the strikes. It's a 60 minute match but it feels very tightly structured and just flies by to me for how they work in that escalation and milk every move to feel meaningful. For comparison, I think Jumbo/Flair 1983 is a very good match, but nowhere near as good as it got pimped during the DVDVR voting or an all-time classic like Thesz/Gagne. To me, the match doesn't really get going until the last 20 minutes with Flair getting busted open and giving a spirited comeback. Much of what they do before that seems a bit shapeless, though I do give Flair credit for wrestling what seems to be a more back-and-forth style than his usual US touring match and also being sensible about when to use his signature spots. I wouldn't put the mat work (or most of the brawling, for that matter) on the same level as Thesz/Gagne. They do a greater variety of holds, but they don't milk them nearly as well as Thesz and Gagne do. For example, there's a point early on where Jumbo catches Flair in an octopus hold and they fall to the mat, and Flair barely even tries to fight back. There's also a Flair's arm work vs. Jumbo's back work dynamic in the first half of the match they don't really do much with. It just strikes me as a bloated 60 minutes with portions where they're only doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. They tried, but I don't think it's a particularly good example of mat work in a heavyweight title match, even amongst matches where that's not the focus. The 90's AJPW guys weren't known for their mat prowess, but I wouldn't rank it above the stuff in the beginning of the 6/99 Misawa/Kobashi match, and I'd also say Misawa/Kobashi did a better job of using it to segue into the rest of the match.

That's an interesting point about Terry Funk. I'm not familiar with what old-timers have said about him, so I never thought of him as being like Flair or Race due to the lack of footage. I'm not really surprised though, given that my thoughts on the Funk/Jumbo NWA title match last I watched it was it was a great mat-based title match marred by some bitch champ goofiness. There's nothing wrong with being bored by matches from the 50's and digging the bitch champ style and I don't expect to convince you otherwise. For the point on workrate, though, I should clarify that my issue is not with going from matwork to a workrate based style but with the things surrounding the matwork that were lost in that transition. If you have even a cursory understanding of how the holds used are meant to hurt, there's all kinds of great details to enjoy in Golden Age matches in the application and selling of holds. The constant struggle for control, back-and-forth exchanges, and cumulative selling gives it the feel of a chess match. Flair's formula loses much of that. In a Flair match the challenger is in control from the beginning while Flair does all his chickenshit spots, and that continues until the face slips on a banana peel so Flair can get his shit in before the cheesy cop-out finish. The things that made the 50's matwork matches so interesting are largely de-emphasized to accommodate the workrate. I also feel that the crafty champ formula gives a much more interesting showcase to the challenger as you see them have to outsmart and outwrestle the champ instead of just ragdolling them without much struggle. Buddy Rogers and Gorgeous George might have done the begging off at points, but their style was still pretty far off from what Flair did. But I also don't begrudge Flair as an individual too much for this as I agree that how he wrestled was as much a reflection of changing trends as it was a reflection as on his own stylistic preferences. That's why you don't see me pimping much stuff from 80's US territories. I agree that excess is a played out talking point and I have been writing here for years about why I think its simplistic and restrictive to look at matches to see whether or not they pass some arbitrary point of "excess"/"overkill." My usage of it in regards to Flair was primarily to offer a counter example to the talk of excess through spamming near falls, but my view point has always been that it's far more productive to focus on the context of the supposed excess than the excess itself. On that front, I would have no problem conceding that Flair's formula is praiseworthy when judged in the context of 80's territorial wrestling even if it's not a style I care much for. I think that terms like excess and overkill do have a place in wrestling discussion, but primarily to describe the viewer's own tastes and the point where a match diverges too far from them regardless of the talent on display rather than as an indictment of the matches themselves. The point about making the distinction between someone's character and their psychology is interesting. I alluded to something similar in my earlier quote when I noted how I enjoy watching Race in AJPW even if I'm not a fan of his US work as the bitch champ. It disappoints me that he chose the working style he did in the US, but I still have high respect for him because I don't doubt that he had the ability to have worked as he did in Japan every time out if he wanted to. At the same time, I still don't rate him as highly as the AJPW natives or the NWA champs before him who did work my preferred style more often. It is an important question to ask for something like the GWE, but it seems to ultimately boil down to the old debates about working for the audience at the time vs. people watching on tape decades later and objectivity vs. subjectivity, neither of which have a definitive answer. Yeah, this. I didn't say that Flair didn't do mat work, just that it felt like he was going through the motions when he did it. He might have let the other guy put him in a headlock at the start of a match, but it was never sold to mean anything and was quickly forgotten. Look at how the headlock is worked in Thesz/Gagne and I think it will be clear where I'm coming from on that point. I'll grant that he was good working the figure four, but I'm not really sure if I'd consider it traditional mat work as its just a single submission hold.

Flair has been mentioned before in this thread, but no one has yet made a detailed case against him in this thread, so I'll go ahead and do it as he is by far the biggest example to me of a favorite I soured on. I got into wrestling right around the time of Ric Flair's retirement angle in WWE, so I pretty much bought into the idea being pushed that he was the GOAT. I watched a lot of his 80's NWA title defenses on YouTube and WWE 24/7 around this period and thought they were great. As the years went on, though, I found myself in a similar spot as I've seen people here as growing tired of watching his often by the numbers work and had a hard time keeping my attention for his longer stuff, but I still gave him a degree of begrudging respect. If I had voted in GWE he probably would have made my ballot just because the idea of not voting for a guy so widely respected and who I used to really enjoy watching would have felt weird. The moment where I soured on him came in the last few months, when I started diving into Golden Age footage and some stuff from even before that. That's when I started to form the opinion that he and Race actually marked a turning point to degeneracy in the pantheon of NWA champs. I've written about in the past and feel it's relevant here, so I'll copy it. I find it pretty odd that a forum where people speak out against "excess" and use a term like "workrate dogma" unironically still champions a guy like Flair. People often use excess in the context of guys shrugging off big moves, but in Flair matches I find the opposite kind of excess in play as he sells way too much for the challenger and goes way over the top with his stupid begging off and flop spots he does every match. It damages the credibility of the championship and presents a view of wrestling that's more like a cartoon rather than a sport like his predecessors tried to present. Flair was also very much a workrate guy who cared little for the matwork the NWA style was built around in the days of Thesz. Flair's matwork lacked much of the detail work seen in the Golden Age and even 70's champs, just feeling like going through the motions. I've seen even JvK agree on me with this point while also arguing that Flair's decision to emphasize workrate over matwork could have played a part in birthing the Meltzer workrate culture. In comparison to Thesz, Flair strikes me as a guy whose work is largely predicated by his ego. Whereas Thesz respected his opponents and adjusted his working style to match them, Flair insisted on dragging his opponent into his formula and expected the fans to get off on the workrate.

Agree with this. My biggest criticism of 90's All Japan and what ended up being their biggest handicap was the lack of variety. Different combinations of matches between the same guys (barring some gajin) over and over can become tedious and since no one else was really able to work at their level, there was no significant change-up. They were kind of stuck and escalation was the way to go forward. The alternative was completely abandoning the style and starting over (sort of) but that's implausible. I get where you're coming from, but on the other hand, I just watched the entire PR set that had a shit ton of Abby vs Colon matches that I was fully expecting to be the same match over and over again. But each match was different and they didn't at all fall back on "Lets just do more stabbing in the face this time" when it came time for the next match. I again point to Kobashi vs Hansen as an example of a series in All Japan that brought different ideas and structures. Again, maybe this has as much to do with the points they were at in their career and the sort of organic inevitable differences you're going to get. But doesn't that sort of reflect poorly on the pillars when the only ideas they (the pillars) have when wrestling their peers is "MORE BABY MORE!" as the years pass? Doesn't it say as much about Misawa not being able to have have a compelling match with someone on the level of a Johnny Ace as much as it does about Ace? Take Tamura for example. He had great matches with Volk Han, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Vader etc. You know, great workers. But he also figured out to how to have an awesome match against Gary Albright and compelling matches with weirdos like Tom Burton and Billy Scott who weren't on his level or the level of the other greats. I'm not necessarily disagreeing that Misawa relied too much on bombs and it does count against him a bit that he ended up killing himself instead of knowing his limitations and wrestling a much safer style, but that criticism gets a pretty big caveat from me in that it seems to a large extent it was him not wanting to let down the fans rather than not understanding how to work a different way. Meltzer mentioned after he died that the reason he didn't wrestle a big match with Kobashi after 2003 was they didn't feel they could live up to what the fans would expect of such a match-up, and the guy was also really banged up in the months leading to his death but kept touring anyway due to pressure of not wanting to let NOAH down as its only big draw. I think part of what makes so endearing his persona as the stoic ace who just did what was expected of him without complaining is that that was largely was the ideal he aspired to be in real life, albeit to a fault. I also think you're exaggerating in treating Kobashi/Hansen as some outlier compared to the big Misawa matches in how they managed to keep things fresh despite facing each other many times. If you gave proper analysis to the Misawa/Kawada and Misawa/Kobashi matches you would find just as many differences between them that have little to do with bigger moves. The 10/92 match has Misawa and Kawada wrestling while still teaming together and, though it's a nice showcase for both guys, it's clearly wrestled with Kawada as the subordinate going in trying to prove himself, and it leaves little doubt afterwards that Misawa was the champ. 6/3/94 has them wrestling more as familiar equals with Misawa showing vulnerability while we also see Kawada show frustration and desperation from still not being able to beat Misawa. Their 5/98 Tokyo Dome match has the roles reversed with Kawada wrestling a very smart match against a hurt Misawa who, despite a valiant effort, comes up short against his long-time rival. They're all great matches but each tell distinctly different stories. The earlier claim that 90's AJPW was "bloated title match after bloated title match" is totally off. One of the main reasons the period is so highly regarded is actually the high quality of the random TV bouts and how the guys struck just the right combination of character work and action to make many of the build-up tags and six-mans great while leaving the truly epic moments for the big matches. I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the people complaining about "excess" in long pimped classics (like Matt D, no offense) are guys who just dove right into those big matches without taking time to understand the proper context. The context that you get from watching those build-up matches is that the promotion was always heavily built on hierarchy, and the 90's crew respected that. Those big moves you might think had their credibility killed by being kicked out of in big matches were often treated as serious near fall in tags to build up their credibility. They didn't kick out of finishers in big matches because they had no idea how else to pop the crowd, but because that's the clearest way to show the audience where guys stand on the hierarchy and, yes, to show growth within the hierarchy. I'm not going to deny that the 1998 Ace match was uninspired. I'd say the same for the 1997 Williams and Akiyama matches. But you seem too generous to him in giving Kobashi as a counter example of someone who didn't do such matches. I guarantee you that you'd think similar things about Kobashi's GHC reign if you ever watch it, especially in regards to something like the Nagata match as something that should have felt a lot more special than it did. Everyone has off nights, especially when they're wrestling full time in a style as hard on the body as these guys did. It's insane to expect guys to have great matches every night. Even something like the Hansen/Funk pairing wasn't a classic every time if you watch their 1986 match. The reason you couldn't plug just anyone into 90's AJPW style wasn't that the 5 guys doing it were so much more skilled than everyone else but that those 5 guys were the only ones crazy enough to destroy their bodies with the head drops they were regularly doing. But the actual structures could be replicated without the head drops without losing much, as can be seen in a lot of matches from AJPW since Akiyama took over. I think it's unfortunate that the 90's guys wrestled how they did when the matches could have been just as good and the wrestlers in much better shape today if they had taken a safer approach.

TFW me giving ***** to Lee/Everett from June and shoe giving it ****3/4 got nowhere close to this much discussion.

Inb4 Vince steps down

Who do you think were the last guys who did it well? There's plenty of really good 70's AJPW matches in that style as mentioned. There's kind of a dearth of footage of the 70's NWA champs Dory/Terry/Brisco working the style, especially stateside, but what we have shows them as fine in that regard. There seems to be a steep decline with Race and Flair with their go-go-go workrate that often treated the mat work as just something to get out of the way or to kill time with. Unfortunately those two are also who we have by far the most footage of as old school NWA champs, which probably plays a factor in the criticism the style received earlier in the thread.

I went with shoot style and it's not even close. The fact the guys practicing it needed to be proficient in shoot grappling gives it a depth and richness that other styles often reliant on milking a few holes simply can't match. Meanwhile, the fact that it's based on a real fight gives it the grittiness that's sorely lacking from the theatrical lucha and British styles. As I think about it more, though, I would say that NWA style as practiced by Thesz and other Golden Age greats is also really good and probably my 2nd favorite, though the going through the motions stuff seen in long Flair matches has hurt soiled its legacy a bit in my mind. It's similar to shoot style in that to make it work well you need guys who are adept at shoot grappling so you can get both good application and selling of holds.

A large proponent of Trump's rise has been the "alt-right," a movement fueled by middle class white males who feel left behind by the left's SJW rhetoric and being vilified as "oppressors." So I would say frivolous word debates about things like if it's ok to continue the centuries old practice of calling bad works of art "abortions" or of it's ok for Dave to talk about old timers' usage of naughty words without calling them Satan for it has played a pretty direct role in fueling Trump's rise.

Dave said on Twitter today he has the full Shepherders/Fantastics Crockett Cup match.

He ended up having to issue a tweet specifically saying he didn't see the two words as the same thing, as if him explaining the views of old timers meant that he shared those views. Sad that SJW's are so eager to embarrass themselves the guy can't even explain wrestling history properly.