pol

Thinking about it, I think that the first and third categories are two sides of the same coin. To go back to the excerpt I posted earlier, they're both about aesthetic enjoyment, rather than emotional. They're just two common approaches to appreciating the aesthetics of pro wrestling; we might say ideologies. It's possible to imagine other approaches, too, or ones that combine aspects of each.

Great post, Joe. I hope people start to become more aware of these differences, as I think it's responsible for a lot of the "talking past each other" we see in wrestling discussions. There's so much room for disagreement even within a single category, but first we have to be clear on where we're actually coming from.

Probably warrants its own thread, but I was doing some Googling on this subject since I've never really read anything on aesthetics. Found this excerpt from this book, which I think neatly describes a division between different types of fan (and even different experiences from single fans) that doesn't really get talked about all that much. Just dropping it here in case anyone else finds it interesting: (I don't mean to imply that it's impossible to make a defense of Okada/Omega as a great match primarily from 'appreciation' rather than 'involvement', but seeing this laid out did ease some of my frustration with people who rave about matches yet seem unable to launch an aesthetic defense of them.)

Dug the Hechicero/Rey Bucanero match from the Dia de Muertos show. In some ways I want to call it a one-man show as Bucanero looked like his typical worn-out self throughout, but then he did a crazy dive sequence in the tercera so that wouldn't really be fair. Nice to see Hechicero get a title win as that means more Hechicero singles matches.

Running the ropes against a stunned opponent just to eat a move is the most overused transition in modern Japanese wrestling. I swear you'll see some matches where it's the only transition they use at all. I've honestly been reluctant to point it out to people because once you start noticing it, it irritates the hell out of you.

It's not like you don't get modern matches with sustained heat though.

I relate to Dylan's statement about not having any investment in the characters. It's obvious that a match lacking a clear structure or really any sustained periods of control, but with a ton of big moves, counters and near-falls is going to be much more effective if you have some kind of stake in seeing one or the other participant win the match. It's a rollercoaster ride. Absent that investment, I really only had my sense of wrestling aesthetics to go by, and they didn't judge that match kindly at all. That raises the question of how valid an aesthetic sensibility that finds itself so at odds with what works for people enjoying wrestling 'properly' is. I don't think I've given that enough thought to answer it yet, but to say that I don't think it's all that rare in other narrative forms to become engrossed a story that, viewing with detached eyes, you recognise is poorly (or perhaps manipulatively) told, but still enjoy due to your investment in the characters.

There's a funny thing in current NJPW where no matter what crazy shit you see in a match, a guy is always going to win in the middle with their standard finish.

In the well-regarded AJPW and even NOAH matches, the big spots are tentpoles around which the narrative twists and turns. It's a symbiotic thing, where the ensuing impact on the story of the match makes the spot itself meaningful, while the raw visual impact of the spot hammers home the narrative significance. I didn't get any of that with Okada/Omega. Really I'd say this is true of far more good wrestling than just AJPW/NOAH stuff, but those are the promotions known for building matches around dangerous moves.

I was kinda surprised how few people objected to the egregiousness of the top rope dragon suplex spot. I had already kinda checked out at that point (which admittedly is not the fairest way to evaluate a match), so I was very much looking for how long it would be before Okada was back on offense again. It was like 30 seconds. Crazy.

I think in good matches the big spots have implications beyond the immediate visual/sell, yeah. Whether that be to introduce a momentum shift or some plot point (such as an injury) that's revisited later, etc.

Problem with talking about "Wrestling Twitter" of course is that two people can inhabit completely different worlds on there, but from what I see the Smackdown talk is overwhelmingly positive (a little too much so, I think, because once an idea like "Smackdown is great" takes hold it takes on a life of its own).

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's normal to want to enjoy things with your friends and not have some negative nancy self-styled critic harshing your buzz. I'm just glad communities like this exist for us self-styled critics.

To add to this, I think there is perhaps more of a reluctance among many fans these days to be a detractor of something well-loved, and less people interested in engaging those detractors. A lot of Wrestling Twitter folks are more into shared enjoyment than debating and dissecting. Those kind of fans have really always been the majority in real life, but the internet didn't lend itself to that kind of fandom until recently.

Almost doubt it's a typo. As I said elsewhere, that was the most Dave match ever.

He's really an excellent, versatile wrestler who is hampered both by his promotion's house style and his tendency to over-rely on some of the more eye-rolly tropes of modern Japanese wrestling.

Enjoyed this one: Puebla is often the land of guys sleeping through matches, but they had a packed house here and they made the effort for them. Hechicero/Tiger/Puma is such a great rudo team. The upside of Puebla is that the fans seem less ADD than in Arena Mexico, so we get a relatively long first fall with a good amount of matwork leading into an extended (by modern standards) heat segment. Hechicero is on fire throughout.

Totally agree on Shibata/Goto. All their previous matches were pretty much the same match, but this one was different. They still hit all the points you expected (except, mercifully, the "let me offer up my back for you to kick me repeatedly" spot), but here the no-selling felt like it made sense within the narrative of the match, rather than doing it just for doing it's sake as it often feels in Shibata matches. Shibata also did some pretty neat mat stuff at the start, more than you usually get in his matches, and I thought his selling throughout was excellent.

https://np.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/2u73cg/tumblrbashing_why_or_why_not/co5ucsk/

I can agree with that and the tumblr/fandom/twitter guys are starting to win out. That's inevitable and frankly watching wrestling to uncritically enjoy it is probably a lot more pure and good than analysing and dissecting everything. I do sometimes find it hard to relate to such people on wrestling though, even if I like them personally. That said, plenty of those types of fans are critical, it's just they often look at very different things from us—emotional content, melodrama etc. more than stiffness or working a body part.

I think the bigger disconnect is between fans that are in the Observer, DVDVR "smart mark" tradition and a newer group of fans that have more in common with capital-f Fandom, Tumblr etc.

To me, anyone who thought that was a great match simply can't conceive of a match ever being excessive. Which is fine, just we're on different planets, I guess.

Okada/Omega felt like a landmark moment in "more is more" wrestling to me. "If one finisher counter sequence is good, why not 10?" Same goes for big spots, huge near falls, length etc. A top rope dragon suplex is hit and forgotten about like 30 seconds later. I don't know that I can really rate it but to say it was a monument to excess that offended many of my ideas about what pro wrestling should be. Which in some sense makes it a success, I suppose.

I get the appeal of the sheer violence, but for me Terry/Wotan was mostly a bunch of cooperatively taking turns hitting each other which wasn't sold all that well, plus a lot of awkward moments whenever they ventured to do anything else. I thought Terry had better brawls with Cavernario and Aero Boy this year.

Wajima vs. Magee?