Shining Wiz

If it's just Jericho saying it, I wouldn't put too much weight in it.

Interesting. Hadn’t heard that at all. Think there’s any meat to the rumours?

Yup. Loved that show.

No Omega, Ibushi, Bullet Club, big name guests or Tanahashi this morning.....and that was probably the best NJPW show of the year.

It's pretty common in these situations to use a fake name, even if it's one created by the writer. "Jenna (not her real name)" or something. It protects the person's identity without stripping their humanity. The issue here - or at least what I was talking about - was the lack of anonymity in this case. Apparently her real first name/what she goes by actually is Mo, so even that was out there already. Just calling her Mo would have worked I assume, though I don’t think Meltzer ever uses first names only. Besides the point though...just another case of someone looking bad in a situation where everyone involved already does.

He referred to her twitter handle, then referred to her as the woman thereafter, since he either didn’t know/didn’t want to use her name. What should he have referred to her as? Not being confrontational, just an actual question. I could see calling her the alleged victim or accuser if the story was about the assault, but Elgin hasn’t been accused of any assault, so I can see trying to avoid confusion on that front.

I see the argument, but:1. It's not a regular occurrence, but you do see profiles of rape survivors that use a photo but not the real name from time to time. 2. Your argument is not Dave's Twitter argument, which was, approximately, that the lawsuit being a defamation case made it a separate issue. Or something like that. But that's not even in the same universe as the AP standard that everyone uses these days. Now, if someone is kidnapped and named in the media, only for it to come out via the criminal case after a rescue that he or she was also raped, that's considered a legitimate exception. The name goes public in the news in legitimate fashion and it becomes unavoidable to discuss plausibly. But if a woman accuses a man of sexual assault and another of covering it up, and the latter sues her for defamation, you still don't run her name without consent. This is well established journalistic ethics. Hell, in 2018 it's probably discussed more online than all but a few topics in that realm, with the mass accepted practice being well known. Meltzer’s argument may be the wrong one, but that doesn’t change my point. And this isn’t someone who happens to have a profile pic, but anonymous otherwise. This is a person who makes no attempt to be anonymous, save for the twitter handle, and openly discussed with people figuring out her real name and Facebook page (which I have not seen, but I assume discipusses these issues openly as well?), not having a problem with that at the time, AND being upset with Meltzer referring to her as “the woman” in previous ‘reports’. I’m not saying Meltzer handled this correctly at all, but it’s not like he outed a totally anonymous victim here, regardless of the whether his stated reasons are the right ones or not.

When the victim is openly discussing the issue on their personal twitter, which includes multiple pictures of themselves, albeit under an alias but with no real attempt to hide their identity, doesn't the "don't name the victim" deal go out the window. If someone were to do a televised interview, making no effort to hide their identity other than using their twitter handle, and the only legal proceedings are between the alleged victim and a 3rd party, I can't imagine too many news organizations would have a major issue in using their legal name when reporting on it. Meltzer may have many issues, and many of them involving his attitude towards women, but this specific one may be a bit overblown.

Tana is back already because the movie he was working on is done filming. It's almost like his knee wasn't that injured.........

Whole heartedly disagree on the first point, but agree to a certain extent on the second. Not so much on the crowd being dead for the early part of matches, but I do agree that expectation that the match isn't going to end before 20 minutes in does take some of the excitement out of early matches. Of course, Okada 'outlasting' opponents has kind of been the theme of his run, so it plays in to an extent, but still. Connected with that, main events need to finish with something other than finishers every once in a while. It doesn't hurt my enjoyment the way things are currently structured, but I think a few surprises are always a good thing.

Meltzer is, at best, an ok reporter. He is generally a pretty bad writer (read any Observer), but is ok when professionally edited (see MMAfighting). He's painful to listen to on the radio with his verbal ticks (listen to any radio/pod appearance ever). However, being an "ok reporter" puts you at the pinnacle of wrestling 'journalism'. He has no actual competition, and certainly had none 30-35 years ago when he started writing the Observer. So he's used to being the unquestioned 'authority', and he's a 60 year old dude who has spent his entire adult life obsessing over pro wrestling. The fact he can actually tweet is kind of amazing; the fact he tweets to troll trolls is kind of sad. As for the Elgin deal - I don't think his actual coverage has been that bad all things considered, but linking that tumblr account was just plain stupidity. As for the coverage, he's a wrestling reporter. He reported on the wrestling aspect of it, reprinted the 'press release' from the wrestler in question, and pointed out that he was dumb and handled things badly. People seem hung up on the idea that he never contacted Mo or whatever her name is, but she had put out some pretty detailed tweets, so I'm not sure what the point would be, especially when Meltzer clearly considered it a minor story considering the placement in the Observer and the parties involved. Moral of the story - a pro wrestling 'journalist' is probably not the person best equipped to do some hard hitting journalism on sexual assault issues, and expecting him to be able to do that well is kind of a silly expectation.

WK wasn’t about Naito failing, it was about Okada succeeding. The entire main event scene since his return has been all about Okada, and how everyone else serves his story.

Juice isn't quite at that level, so I can see him getting a place holder defence maybe. As for Ibushi, he's tied up in the Golden Lovers/BC issue, plus without a contract, I can't see them putting a title as big as the IC on him. Probably jinxing us by saying this, but the SG shenanigans have been limited in 2017 so far, particularly in the Tana match up. I'd prefer them be gone altogether, but as long as they are minimized that's a good thing.

I was underwhelmed with Suzuki as a title challenger coming off a loss, and even though the Goto match was fantastic, his 2017 NEVER run was bad enough that I thought he might be toast as a top level performer. After that match though, I'm very curious to see how this run goes. Presumably Tana returns from injury and avenges the loss, but it's not impossible that Suzuki drops the title to someone in the meantime. All in all, the New Beginnings so far have been an interesting reshuffling of the decks in the upper card.

If Rey is part time and able to avoid testing, he should be able to look that good - aesthetically and athletically - for a good while. I parachuted into WWE watching just for the Rumble and thought he was a highlight, along with Baylor being more Devitt than Demon, and Nakamura looking like he was interested in making a big impression. I thought the women’s Rumble was fun, if pretty sloppy in places, but if they’re going to do them every year, they need to up the size of the active roster as the 50% nostalgia/legend component will only play well for so long.

Hard to say it’s not excessive, but the two shows in Sapporo were both fun with great main events, so not out of line with typical shows. Add in the faction structure changes that are happening, and new angles being moved to the forefront, and they used the extra show to its full extent. And the Osaka show looks phenomenal with so many straight up singles matches, that I have a hard time complaining.

I popped in to say how much I enjoyed the respectful debate on episode 5, and see I have some substantial reading to do in this thread. I may pop back in later with more thoughts, but I did want to mention about the Flair formula. Flair was the travelling champion at the advent of the vcr. The travelling champion had to go in to a new town constantly, look good, draw the fans in, and make the local guy look good. Those requirements don't leave you a lot of room for bad chemistry. A couple of bad opponents and you might find a promoter lobbying for a new champ. It behooved Flair to have a go to formula he knew worked in order to avoid bad matches, and if he found someone hood, then build off of that formula. But if he had to wrestle Bulldog Bob Brown, better to have a formula to avoid disaster. Combine the formula with the vcr, and we get so much of the formula that it takes away from the enjoyment. But Flair didn't work most of the 80's worrying about being recorded. He worried about the promoters wanting to book him as champion. By the time he stopped travelling, he was in his late 30's and fix what ain't broke. I'd be very curious to see what Flair matches would be like if he started his career 15 years later with more of an awareness that more than just the local eyes would see his match. As a footnote, on the new Sting documentary, he talks a bit about asking Flair yo do different things in their matches since they always did the same match, and Flair not wanting to budge off of what was working for them.

I thought that was the best night of the G1 so far. All the tournament matches were at least good, with three being really good to cap the show off. It's clear the purpose of this tournament is get Naito and Goto into the main event mix....be interesting to see if one of them can win, or if Nakamura is still the odds on choice. I've seen some complaints of staleness, but just as many "Blah.....not THAT guy!" comments floating around. They're trying hard to get at least Goto and Naito moved up, put Ibushi in position for the IWGP title within the next year, and they look finally ready to get behind Shibata more than they have been. Add in Tanak and Komatsu ready to step up, Omega moving into the heavyweights and the eventual break up of AJ and the Bullet Club, and cards should be pretty interesting and 'fresh'.

It's entirely possible Joe didn't know about this.

WWE hasn't 'created' a new top level star they're willing to really get behind since John Cena. You can say that's because with Cena around, there's no room at the top, but the fact remains. In 2002, when Cena proper debuted, we were on the tail end of the boom where there were 3 legit 'big leagues' and booming indy scene that gave a lot of people room to grow and improve before WWE could pick and choose who they wanted. Over the past 10 years, the only guys to have really stepped up and broken out of the pack in WWE have been former indy darlings like Punk and Danielson. They knew instinctively how to get over and did so to an extent that they couldn't be ignored no matter how much some may have wanted to. Now, you've got NXT. WWE's attempt to capitalize on indy wrestling and grab the income there from. And one of the constants of indy wrestling has almost always been the 'non-exclusive' nature of it, and by that nature, the cross promotion. Some promotions have drawn the ire of fans by not allowing their performers to work with certain groups. We just want to see the best wrestlers have the best matches, and whatever gets in the way of that sucks. So, now you have a guy like Joe. WWE proper has no plans for him immediately. But he's an immediate headliner in NXT. But NXT has a certain budget and cost structure which, to make Joe really happy, they'd have to break. So, they lock Joe up for all their own shows, but let him travel and work whereever as long as it doesn't conflict, just like a real indy. Joe makes more money, NXT keeps it budget structure intact and gets promoted every time Joe shows up, and keeps the good will of the hardcore fanbase they're cultivating. On top of all that, the Joe-style contract has to look pretty attractive to a lot of indy workers who don't want to take the big paycut.

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." When you guys say "jingoism", you mean stereotypical and/or racist, no?

This show will be my first live show since WM weekend shows in Orlando. Not overly enthused about the main event, but Nakamura/ACH more than makes up for it. I'm hoping Dylan is wrong about Lethal/Naito, but I can see it going badly. Same can be said for Elgin/Tanahashi, but I think Tanahashi can keep me interested.

He's dealing with nerve issues which sound to be more severe than others who have had disk issues. It only makes sense for WWE to hold back on him since his return, and it looks like they were right. The thing I don't get is why he didn't modify his style at all. Hopefully he gets healed up and keeps wrestling as he is, hands down, the best wrestler of the past 15 years.

+1. Top three or four heel of the last decade easy. I also think he's a decent wrestler. I also find Flair overrated, based predominantly on NWA matches. The Young Bucks aren't the worst thing I've ever seen, but they sure aren't good. Kevin Owens is 100 times better than Kevin Steen. I don't mind Kane. Stale? Yes. Horrible? No.

Invasion Attack didn't look amazing on paper either, and that delivered. Of course, Invasion Attack didn't have Maria and Amber in matches either......