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Coming from a background in literature, I'm a fan of reader-response theory, the idea that the reader brings something special with them in their interpretation instead of texts simply having a set universal meaning created by the author. As was mentioned, a wrestling match definitely is a text and rthe "language" employed by it basically amounts to every conceivable aspect of a match that we talk about here. Language is by its nature an imprecise communication medium with infinite room for interpretation and no inherent "truth" to be found, which is what makes it interesting to keep analyzing the same matches for decades. Still, I'd still say it's important to understand the historical context simply because the meaning behind the "words" chosen in a text is built off the connotations behind them, and those connotations are created by the context the consumer reads them under. Looking at Huckleberry Finn with "modern eyes," you could pretty easily make the case that it's just a racist book based on its heavy usage of the word "nigger," but if you ignore the historical context you're missing out on the clever ways it actually satirized racism that allow for a far more interesting reading. To analogize it with wrestling, plenty of times I've seen people knock off points on puro matches for having fighting spirit spots without trying to understand the cultural context and the in-match psychology behind them, while conversely there are probably tons of WWE matches I could watch with quality that would be lost on me simply because I don't have the time to keep up with the storylines. To tie this into the question of standards changing, when we talk about interpreting the moves in a match it would be helpful create 2 categories that the meaning behind the moves comes from. Firstly, there is the "symbolic value" that we see in a move like Hogan's leg drop that isn't going to look that deadly to someone watching cold but is treated as a big deal based off how that specific move has been built up within its wrestling context. Secondly is the "face value," which is how a move comes across with no prior attempt to build it up specifically. It basically serves as an extension of the "symbolic value" in that it relies on more general worldly knowledge than wrestling specifically. An example is Foley's first fall in his 1998 HIAC with Taker, which is one of the most famous spots in history due to popular conceptions of gravity and human limitations, even though he claims the second fall actually hurt more. The changing "face value" for moves is what I think is the main source behind this argument that standards change. Unlike a book where the interpretative value comes predominately from the ideas expressed, that emotional reaction derived from that "face value" plays a pretty significant role in interpreting matches. Viewers in the 50's might have been enthralled by seeing drop kicks and leg-scissor takedowns, but now it comes across pretty flat to see matches end with those moves as the "face value" of such moves has been pretty well eroded by virtue of modern viewers seeing so many more brutal and spectacular looking things regularly. In that respect, the "zeitgeist" has definitely been irretrievably lost as even if we can go back and see "this would have been impressive to those fans," that would really only be a small part of the moment as the bulk of the interpretive value comes from the sheer emotion of viewing it as something impressive. That is not to say that watching matches under historical context is the only way to do it. As has been mentioned many times, there are plenty of great 70's puro mat clinics that modern viewers can watch and mark out for all these details that historical viewers probably weren't even paying much attention to. Even the wrestlers themselves might not have been consciously intending the things we praise them for and that doesn't matter since like I said, what makes these discussions interesting is how we can construct our own strands of storytelling out of the moves performed in the ring. Because of the huge factor the viewer's interpretation of the match and attention to detail plays, I agree with what was mentioned before that matches don't have some "inherent quality" and I'm skeptical about looking looking at things "objectively" or that something can be "technically good but not entertaining." I also dislike the separation between a match's workrate and its storytelling that's become popular because like I said in explaining a move's "symbolic value" and "face value," some juniors doing flips that are supposed to excite viewers for their innovation is every bit as much of a story as some deep classic like 6/3/94, even if the junior match's might not stand the test of time as well. That said, I also wouldn't say the more recent perspective is always the best way to look at things either. Someone brought up the bashing the TM/DK series got on the NJPW set and while I definitely wouldn't call those matches flawless classics, I've since grown pretty sympathetic with what Resident Evil said about the psychological value in those matches. Like he said, I think this urge to "rebel" against the old guard and (justifiably) pimp things like the Fujinami/Choshu series from the time as far better did obscure some of the finer points of matches. Even granting that the spots didn't seem as impressive in 2010 as they did in 1983, Tiger Mask still deserved a lot more credit than he got for the spontaneous quality that he executed all his spots with that really gave him an otherworldly aura, as well as for the comic book rival dynamic he created with Dynamite Kid. With how people were talking about the matches at the time and dismissing RE's comments, one would have thought the only reason behind them being highly regarded were people in the 80's fetishizing guys dressed as tigers doing flips, and I would call that view point almost as harmful as the concept that they're untouchable classics. Having participated in that project, I was scratching my head for years at why someone like Kana would do an interview calling Tiger Mask one of her favorite until I came back to his matches with a more open mind. So, standards definitely do change and, just by virtue of the need to understand the "symbolic value" and the "face value" of moves, it's important to immerse yourself in the context of a match to get full enjoyment. Even granting that we're all humans watching guys fake fighting for entertainment, the language that they do that in greatly varies across time and place. It goes beyond even something like a speaker of Modern English learning to read Middle English since the language of wrestling deals primarily in creating emotions rather than conveying ideas. Lastly, to speak on what seems to be the cause behind this thread in Meltzer refusing to redo his reviews of older matches because of changing standards, I think he has a point. The guy is already way busy with current stuff but even if he did have the time to rewatch old material, I don't see what it would achieve. His star ratings are useful for viewers "in the moment" who share similar tastes but beyond that his play-by-play style doesn't led itself well to in-depth analysis and I have no idea why he seems to have gained a reputation for deciding a match's historic quality. Talking about these older matches, the main question that we should be asking is not "Are these guys doing something good," but "What are these guys doing."

Thanks a lot for doing this. I made a similar journey a few years back, but I didn't really have the same attention for the little details back then. It was fun seeing these matches reviewed from a fresh perspective and reliving that journey. One thing I noticed was that early on you skipped a few very highly pimped matches (9/90 Misawa/Jumbo, 5/92 All Asia Tag Titles), but then got a lot more comprehensive with seeing all the little gem matches later in the decade. Was that just a matter of being more familiar with the earlier part of the decade than the latter half?

I don't know about right now but back in the 90's puro definitely had some appeal to the upper-class. One of my favorite things about the 90's AJPW big matches is that, if you look in the crowd, there's loads of well-dressed businessmen that you can easily imagine coming there to have some fun after a stressful day at work. It's like night-and-day with the families and hardcore fans usually drawn by American wrestling. Provided it goes with the proper level of promotion, I don't think it's that complicated to draw those people. Just copy boxing's model by going for a more straight-forward presentation built solely around the matches rather than using stupid gimmicks to get guys over. A more physical style also couldn't hurt matters. It doesn't help anybody to build matches around cheesy heel shenanigans and interferences that only lowest-common-denominator fans fall for. If I wanted shit like I'd just watch a soap opera. Brutality is wrestling's only universal language On the subject of it being "real," I think we should analyze exactly what that word means. Under the terms cited of discounting wrestling as being real in how it's cooperative and predetermined, boxing wouldn't be that real either since you often do see showcase fights getting booked with judges that are often absurdly biased for the fighter promoters want to win. Floyd Mayweather even pretty much said after his recent fight with Maidana that he was trying to entertain the fans and that he could have made it a one-sided and boring fight if he wanted, so it's really no different from how you see wrestlers working together to have great matches. Yet the fans looked past all that and called it a great fight and there's big anticipation for a rematch. I definitely don't think the appeal of boxing is in its sportive aspect, otherwise you'd see more than marginal stateside interest for Wladimir Klitschiko fights. The appeal is in the excitement, which is in-turn derived from how well it simulates idealized reality. That is, fans watch boxing to see intense conflicts of guys taking brutal punishment and showing heart in fighting through it. The fans know in the back of their minds that the guys are sacrificing some "real" skill to please the fans and they don't care because they'd rather have an exciting simulation over the boring reality of true top-level boxing. When that mentality bleeds over into what's promoted by the network, the result is that the simulation supersedes the "real" and it's the simulation that's viewed as true boxing while the technical displays are seen as jokes. Modern WWE fails to achieve the real effect seen in boxing. Instead of drawing from conceptions of an idealized real sporting event, it draws from fake Hollywood movies. It gets mocked as fake not because it's not real, but because it relies on goofy shit that don't even fit with anything people would expect from the real. That 90's AJPW I referenced, though, definitely was as real as boxing as you had the same levels of physicality and stupidity like blatant heel characters downplayed (but not eliminated) in a much better approach of guys simply molding their own characters and having fans cheer who they want. Only by becoming real in that way can wrestling reach its full storytelling potential and appeal to that upper-class crowd. I don't see that ever becoming widespread in American wrestling, though, simply because of how deeply ingrained those awful stereotypes are of what wrestling should be as something self-consciously fake, going back to the Hulkamania boom period. tl;dr: wrestling should be real

It's from 2006 and I'd agree that's easily his best match I've seen. Good action, nice selling from both guys and, most importantly, it's short enough to avoid the masturbatory elements plaguing his other pimped matches.

The internet is about eight times bigger than it was in 1999, much of that growth coming in China, India and the rest of the non-English speaking world. It's much larger, I'll grant you that. But your premise that the internet wrestling audience has grown 1000 times in the same 15 years? I don't see why that's believable. Especially when the actual wrestling audience is a fraction of what it was in the Monday Night Wars. The two biggest wrestling site, by the way, are Bleacher Report and WWE.com. Neither audience has shown much interest in puroresu. Is there evidence of more than a niche fandom at any major wrestling site? I think Bryan mentioned once that in terms of sheer numbers, there really hasn't been that much of a drop off since the attitude era. They were drawing ~5 million viewers in 1999 and that's about what they continue to draw in 2014. The ratings just don't show that because there's way more homes with TV's compared to back then. In terms of sheer exposure, I wouldn't be surprised if they're reaching more people now given the number of networks they produce content for compared to just having Raw and Heat on USA. For evidence of a more than niche puro fandom, just look at the view count for some of the big matches on Youtube. KENTA/Marufuji from 2013 currently has around 100k views, so unless you're saying 1/50 of those casual attitude era fans had internet access and was willing to pay the 20$ for a tape, that pretty much proves there's a lot more interest now. Sure, there's definitely views from China and Japan, but that's just 1 match from a company that some people here like to think no one is paying attention to, so it evens out. Also, I wouldn't call WWE.com a good indicator of interest considering that the kind of fans who go there and keep up with the ridiculous amount of content WWE produces probably simply don't have time to bother with anything else if they have any real-life obligations.

Yeah but that was to be expected. Misawa's style didn't mesh very well with the US workers of the time (he also had a very underwhelming match with Steamboat in 89), and Bret's style certainly did't mesh at all with Japanese workers. Went to a 20 minute draw, headlock galore. Why is the Steamboat match considered underwhelming? I've seen it several times and always thought it was great. They do some good 70's matwork in the beginning that's simple but really well executed with lots of nice struggle. Then it builds to some hot near falls in the stretch run that give a taste of what was to come in the 90's. I'm not sure what else people expected. Also, Tiger Mask Misawa actually had some pretty good tags a few months before with the Bulldogs. I think the Bret match sucking was mainly due to Bret not caring to figure out how he could modify his style to fit in with Misawa's and not wanting to put in the effort to make it work. The only mention of the match in his book is a paragraph about Misawa not being as good as the original Tiger Mask. That should speak for how little he knew about the style given that Misawa was already working a heavyweight style completely different from Sayama's flashy junior spots.

So you're saying it would be fair if it was an audience that actually was representative of their core fanbase? As in the same people at home who saw Benoit/Malenko and similar workrate stuff as great wrestling? Notwithstanding shit like crowd brawling that's a cool visual for the camera but fucking awful for the 99% who he can't even see the wrestlers, I don't buy simply being there live somehow completely changes my tastes compared to if I was watching at home. I've never been to a live show and suddenly started loving the posing and heel cheating bullshit generally associated with "working with the crowd." If anything, it's the stiffness and workrate that comes across even better when you're seeing the physicality happening before your eyes rather than through a camera.

I think it's dumb to not include the viewers at home when talking about "working to the crowd." If a large segment of PPV buyers enjoyed Benoit/Malenko and wanted to keep supporting the product, I don't see the problem if they didn't dumb things down for the biker fans.

This is a question I've thought a lot about. To understand what makes a good nearfall is fundamental to finding the answer to such commonly discussed topics here as "why are 90s AJPW stretch runs the best," "what causes us to mark out," and "what is overkill." The key to answering it is in the conflict between what the viewer expects to happen and what he actually sees unfolding in the match. Everything is simply a matter of symbolic interpretation. If you've lived your life thinking things are going to end up a certain way and then it ends up completely different, the surprise you experience for the exact moment that happens is the strongest emotion humans can experience. That's basically what a good near fall does, taking prior audience expectations of the meaning behind the symbols exchanged in the ring and using them tell a story inducing those feelings of shock and awe. Wrestling gives us a middle point between seeing a plot twist in a movie we entirely know is fake and having something shocking actually happen to us in real life. The spectacle of legit violence wrestling strives to create gives a higher level of involvement than what we'd get from a fictional story, but there's also a level of detachment from just being fans that allows us to fully savor the emotions instead of getting entirely caught up in the moment. Best of both worlds. This same thing is even at work in boxing, when guys take ridiculous loads of punishment without getting knocked down. In that moment, conceptions about what human limitations are are shattered and the boxer effectively elevates himself to demigod status. The will to power is consumated in its highest form and the fans living vicariously through the boxer are brought to that same fight-or-flight high of marking out. I remember a Youtube comment on Gatti-Ward saying something along the lines of "people would complain this was too fake if it was a movie," and that pretty well summarizes it. 90's AJPW is the best wrestling ever because it pushes the pscyhology of Gatti-Ward the farthest it's ever been pushed, entirely demolishing expecations for perseverence in so many of their big matches. This is why the concept of overkill is incomprehensible to me, aside from the fact that nobody can even seem to agree on what it is. It's perfectly valid to say that the guys just weren't doing enough to keep the match interesting and to keep the near falls engaging. There are tons of great selling details and such in Misawa/Kobashi 1/97 beyond just "finisher->kickout->finisher" that aren't there at all in actual finisher spamming shit like Cena/Rock II. The version I see more often is akin the "energy bar" thing seen previously in here, and that makes no sense to me since you do need to think a guy's "energy bar" is down for any of the kickouts or hope spots to even be engaging. Otherwise, you are just left with something like that token first suplex nearfall in an AJPW match where fans give a reaction out of respect but you can tell they aren't truly into it yet. This also explains the psychology behind the 1 count and fighting spirit spots. Just like a boxing crowd doesn't need knockdown selling to see what's going on with a guy taking a barrage of hard punches, neither do wrestling fans need a 2 count and epic selling to know what happens when a guy gets dropped on his head. I've seen people here deride the psychology of matches like Shibata/Gotoh from January for killing finisher credibility, but I think a match like that is actually great at getting across finisher credibility. The visual of a guy leaping straight up from a move to show off his pride effectively skips right over "this move should really hurt" into really getting it into the audience's head that they should be shocked a guy is able to get up from it. When I was watching that match, I was legit amazed that they were even able to do that exchange and given the reactions from they got from the crowd I doubt I was alone. To cross over from just being a worked match and creating a shocked reaction as if it were real is exactly what a near fall should do.

Shit, this happened? I'd watch it just because it's fucking Hase v. Misawa.

I think that Misawa and Kobashi were trying to capitalize in fan interest coming off the Tokyo Dome show. It's easy for casual fans to get into big moves and near falls, so I'd imagine that's who they had in mind when they were laying things out rather than giving spots the same level of thought as in 1/97 or 10/98. Like you said, it's completely unfair that it seems to have become the stereotype for how they were wrestling at this time. As you saw with Misawa getting his spine decompressed, their bodies were too broken at this point to be wrestling like that with any regularity.

If it's such a no-brainer to pick the 80's over anything from the last 20 years, why spend so much time keeping up with the new shit?

They're highly regarded because said "guys in it constantly dropped themselves on their heads" in a way that gets massive emotional engagement out of people even watching it 20 years later. I'll explain. The things in that first post rest on some pretty basic assumptions 1. Wrestling is never going to top the stories seen in books or the acting seen in movies. Its main advantage is the same as "real sports" like boxing and MMA in its appeal to the strong primal aspects of human nature (the fight-or-flight response) through its ability to project a sense of legit violence and perseverance. 2. Therefore, a match's quality is proportionate to its ability to project a sense of legit violence and perseverance. 3. Head drops are some of the most violent looking moves out there. 4. When actually sold well (as in not the American indy shit you're bashing), matches with such brutal looking moves are more engaging (as in higher chance of "marking out" for them) than ones that don't. 5. Hence, "head dropping epic" to summarize the disparity between the level of engagement achieved by the best puro matches and what WWE can safely allow its performers to do. I'm not sure why this is such a point of controversy. I watched the Cena/Cesaro match after Bix called it a MOTYC and it's not like the guys were going out and creating a Greek tragedy. It was definitely a workrate match and there's nothing wrong with that since the idea that a match's workrate is somehow separate from its storytelling value is kind of stupid anyway. But let's just not pretend there's some huge gap between what folks get out of WWE and what others get out of puro. Talking about wrestling that actually is like Greek tragedy, just look at that Undertaker/Lesnar Wrestlemania match. That whole thing was a fucking amazing bit of modern tragedy done on a pro wrestling stage, and most WWE fans shit on it. Instead, the match most seemed to be calling the MOTN was that "ROH style" Bryan/HHH match. And the most talked-about spot from that was a head drop. Which just proves what I'm saying.

Someone tell me how giving star ratings to fights is dumb but calling them "good" or "worth watching" isn't. These methods of evaluating quality only have meaning in that you know they're saying a fight is better than one that's "bad" or that you should "avoid watching," in the same way that rating a fight ****1/4 only has meaning because you know it's better than fights that are **** or below. Those folks at Ring magazine must have had it all wrong these last 90 years attempting to pick 1 FOTY rising above all others instead of just assigning them to ranges of quality, which some posters in here would call a beyond herculean effort with all the variables they need to account for to even decide what's entertaining.

Any reason the 1989 Steamboat match didn't make the 80's set? I always thought that was a great match and way better to set the stage for 90's heavyweight title challenger Misawa than the 1988 Jumbo match.

Sorry, but the idea of rating an actual sporting contest is stupid. If somebody won via a KO in ten seconds, does that make it a zero star fight? You're not actually being series, right? http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/30453/the-10-greatest-world-series-games http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/10-most-memorable-mlb-world-series-wins http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-10-23/greatest-world-series-yankees-dodgers-reds-red-sox-mets-braves-twins I could literally post another 100 links to people rating the Greatest WS Games of All-Time... without putting much effort into finding those 100. We could do the same with most every major sporting event. In fact, people in the first *two days* of this season's NBA were talking about how many really good games there were. People do it all the time. I'm 100% confident that you "rate" sporting events as well on some level. Of course I do. An exciting football match is easy to spot over a boring match. Basketball, baseball etc. But "excitement" doesn't always correlate to skill. So are we basing on excitement or skill? What is one star and what is five? I'm into chess for example. I can watch a chess match between two great players working each other into a stalemate where nothing of consequence happens, but where both are so good at their game they don't move an inch. Is that good or bad play from the players in terms of being rated? In MMA, if we saw an amazing looking KO due to somebody's incompetence or lack of concentration does that get five stars? But if the athlete were more skilled to avoid contact, or to give the knowledge to the opponent that the strike would not be effective in the same scenario and therefore would not attempt the blow (resulting in a more "boring" fight despite there being an increased skill level by both), would that garner one star? I think written word is the true friend of sports, not numbers. I like how you no-sold my previous point about boxing. I'm not sure why it is so hard for you to grasp that there is no law that says "skill" needs to be factored into ratings given that this doesn't board generally go nuts for matches just because they draw well, feature lots of impressive moves, or conform to whatever definition of "skill" you could throw out there. The entire experience is rated. "But," you say "I sometimes find the skill side of sports enjoyable." "Enjoyable" is the key word there. "Excitement" and "skill" aren't 2 diametrically opposed concepts, but simply different ways that a match can be entertaining. It all goes back to the entertainment value. If sports weren't a form of entertainment, you would need to explain why shit like bass fishing doesn't get the same level of spectator interest as boxing or MMA. Either fans are arbitrary in what they watch or it's all a form of entertainment. What you don't seem to realize is that if we pushed your argument to its logical conclusion, we shouldn't even be describing sports in terms like "good" and "shitty" since those are basically a form of a rating system in themselves and as you say, sports simply can't be discussed in the same terms as entertainment. Numbers are every bit as part of the written word as those other terms, BTW. Here, let me translate that last bit for you: I think pointlessly vague phrases is the true friend of sports, not something that's actually precise and infinitely more meaningful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USi_l4Okkbg When you get to it, watch this version of Misawa/Kobashi 10/98. Great quality and crazy post-match.

Star ratings for fights are ridiculous because it's not something prepared ahead of time like a meal, a movie, or a wrestling match. If someone lands a massive KO in the first 30 seconds, is that plus stars for the finish or minus stars for lack of length? Do grappling exchanges count for more stars or striking exchanges? Are two guys exhausted in the third round but still "swinging away" rewarded for "showing heart" or docked for being too exhausted to fight technically? Is a fight with clinical precision rewarded more than something like Frye-Takayama? It's one thing if you're saying "I had fun watching the fight" or did not, much like other sporting events. But if you assign stars to it, it turns into "eh, i would have liked to have seen a little more ground work before the big KO", which I think most of us can agree is beyond ludicrous. You could just rate based off entertaining the overall experience is. You know, like we already do for wrestling matches. I don't see your point in saying "fights" aren't prepared ahead of time, because they definitely are with guys spending months training and coming up with a game plan. Also, I don't follow UFC but at least in boxing there is an immense pressure for guys to migrate towards a brawling style so they can get big money fights, even if it's at the partial expense of high-level competition. The result is you see a boxer like Timothy Bradley going with the strategically absurd plan of trying to knock out Manny Pacquiao because he knows fans want to see a war. Meanwhile, one of the best boxers out there in Guillermo Rigondeaux has a very difficult time finding network interest because his style doesn't entertain the fans and he refuses to change it. I'm also not getting your second point. People definitely do say "That was a great fight except the early stoppage," or "That was pretty entertaining, but fighter X was an idiot for not doing X when he had the chance." I have no problem with star ratings as a more precise method than what we're already doing when we talk about "good fights" or complain about shows being shitty. "Ludicrous" is to pretend sports exist as somehow above wrestling as something beyond just entertainment.

Yes, never mind the soft strikes and repetitive formulas plaguing 99% of the other matches, Triple H did 1 tiger suplex in 1 match therefore WWE is working Japanese style now! (whatever the fuck that is) That must be some nice kool-aid. This is bullshit. I watched a few Wrestlemania matches and that's it as far as what I've seen from WWE in the last 6 months. Also, KENTA/Sugiura currently has 60k views on Youtube and KENTA/Marufuji from last year has nearly 100k. That's a hell of a lot more than the people on here and DVDVR who would prefer WWE B-show matches over high-end puro because it doesn't have enough said soft strikes and repetitive formulas. It's an irrelevant point anyway, since the amount of people watching a product has little bearing on the product actually being put out. It makes no sense to say Japanese wrestling isn't "inherently better" like it's some big revelation because nothing can be "inherently better" than something else. The point is, there are differences and to deny this by trying to group everything, including WWE, into one "Japanese style" is laughable. The differences are clearly evident in the preferences that people have in watching certain matches over others. This is what the OP was asking about. The fact that we are answering his question makes your claim that people like Japanese wrestling just because it's Japanese wrestling utterly ridiculous. Thanks for the laughs, though.

Well, from a match-quality perspective, WWE workers are at a pretty big disadvantage to puro guys right out of the gate. The rigorous schedule forces guys to work a much less demanding style and you also see guys forced into much more formulaic and limited match structures as a side-effect. That holds true whether you're comparing the 90's or the modern era. AFAIK Punk/Lesnar was the most pimped WWE match of last year and even that doesn't hold a candle from a workrate or storytelling perspective to any of the top matches from the big puro companies (ie Shibata/Ishii G1, KENTA/Sugiura 5/12, Shiozaki/Suwama 7/14). That's kind of why WWE has so much emphasis placed on promos and storylines, since the guys need a crutch when they simply can't go out and do a head dropping epic every night.

What a bunch of bullshit. How many kids lose their dad every minute everywhere in the world ? Yeah, since we all saw them at the HoF, we feel really bad for a minute or two. And yeah, the Warrior dying brings back memories from when some of us were a bunch of kids. But nostalgia goes a long way. Once the thoughts are rightfully sent to the family, it's time to be fair and point out the guy was a gigantic asshole who harmed and insulted a lot of people by his comments over the years, that he was a shitty worker who delivered a bunch of good matches and a vast majority of unwatchable hours of crap, and that the WWE guys are all shedding crocodile tears now because after years of burying the guy in the dirt (and making money out of it), they just had made a deal with him and were onto the process of making more money from nostalgic old geezers who now are feeling bad because the guy who use to run and shake the ropes and blow up died at 54 after a life of steroid abuse (despite the fact he himself showed no compassion for his peers who died from the same kind of chemical abuse over the years). (Ted DiBiase being a hypocrite leech is nothing new either.) So, according to you, immediately after having put all that work into reconciling with Warrior and getting him to appear at the HOF, WWE should have randomly and pointlessly gone back to burying him because it's what they were doing a decade prior and it's impossible for anyone to reevaluate their opinions about him after meeting him again or seeing him die young. Genius. But, let's presuppose that they're all heartless assholes just putting on a facade to protect their property. So what? Wouldn't it be far more worthy of criticism if, in the midst of the public outpouring and right after showing his family on TV, the company had simply ignored his death or responded by burying him? If fans enjoy the material they're releasing like the new doc, I don't see why their intent matters. Much of this thread just comes across as people getting on a moral high horse and circle-jerking at how much better they are than those carny bastards, and it looks ridiculous.

Once again, there is no big line you can draw between what's "clean" and "unclean." If there were no steroids, you'd probably see something similar to the testosterone shit in MMA. Even if it's "clean," it probably isn't any healthier considering high testosterone has been linked with weakening the immune system and putting stress on the heart. It's just the nature of the business and sports in general for guys to take whatever they can to get an edge, and banning steroids doesn't change that. lol at anyone calling steroids the main reason for the 80's guys dying young. I'm sure wrestling 250 matches a year and getting barely any time to recover from injuries has nothing to do with that.

Agreed. Also, when you actually look into the supplements that athletes take, the line between what is/isn't a PED and what is/isn'tharmful is a lot more blurry than topics like these make it seem. The idea that we should shame people for taking something someone has decided to call a "performance enhancing drug," as if drugs are taken for purposes other than enhancing performance in some way, is utterly ridiculous to me. These are grown men who I would wager have spent far more time looking into these drugs and weighing the risks involved than random message board posters, so if they want to dope they should fucking be allowed to dope.

Cool that you're enjoying the late 90's stuff. The narrative usually goes that the promotion went downhill around 1995 or 1996, but they were still producing plenty of great stuff up to the NOAH split. Misawa/Kawada 6/97 is actually a favorite of mine and I don't mind the no-selling at all. It fits right in with the tense, bomb-throwing match they were working, getting across how desperate both guys were to maintain control. I think Misawa getting booked like he was was the natural side-effect of the repetetive booking the promotion had forced itself into. Someone said "Akiyama alone wasn't enough," but the late 90's were actually the point where the promotion realized that and started doing things like pushing Takayama, Omori, Kea, etc. to add some depth to the cards. It's just that none of them were ready yet to put on the kind of TC matches fans were accustomed to, so they had to keep running Misawa vs. Kobashi, Kawada, Taue. The only way to do that without sending the message that the other 3 just weren't good enough would be to sell Misawa as having evolved into this inhuman superman in the kind of punishment he could endure.

Out of curiosity, did you people saying Undertaker looked like shit watch the match while knowing the result ahead of time? I could understand finding it boring if you watched it like the live crowd just waiting for an inevitable Undertaker win, but as a mostly puro guy who doesn't regularly follow WWE and just watched it because I knew the streak was ending, I really appreciated all the acting touches Undertaker brought in telling a story of him trying all his usual stuff but simply being overmatched by this freak. I'm surprised more people here aren't digging his performance given the praise Memphis smoke-and-mirrors stuff gets here.