GOTNW

I mean Misawa finished 4th in the GWE and was voted the best japanese wrestler of all time so how really big of an issue is that really since people who think that way are in the minority? I think the biggest differences in expectations come from how long someone's followed wrestling and how they consume it. An example there would be people who just start watching puro watching every match on the card, being all about the great matches, disliking old man tags etc. while someone who's watched for a little longer finds it silly to complain about Nakanishi "taking up a spot".

Someone pay my expenses and I'll even record footage of Dick Togo's Vietnamese fed It's a big deal if you're watching Ebessan matches. And obviously interacting with another culture can broaden your horizons-seeking new knowledge is hardly a bad thing. But that your perspective on japanese pro wrestling will change significantly because of that....eh. I don't see it amounting to much other than picking up a few details here and there.

I don't remember a single time 70s All Japan crowds laughed I didn't get it, probably has more to do with Parv having inferior perception than anything I also don't see much one could miss by not understanding japanese culture in pro wrestling. If anything it allows people to build huge narratives that have little basis in reality. Sometimes understanding it serves as an excuse for shitty wrestling ("fighting spirit").

I think I can simplify what I appreciate in pro wrestling pretty concisely. I like violence. That's what I want out of wrestling. If you throw a kick I want it to look like a real kick and sound like a real kick. If you flip I want it to look dangerous and nutty, not like an exhibition of someone's leg strength. If you're gonna hit someone over the head with a chair I want it to feel like you are actually hitting someond in the head with a steel chair. You only make exceptions for self-parody (i.e.comedy matches). Whenever the tricks wrestlers use to convince the audience they're hurting their opponent are exposed (thigh slapping), they stop treating the violence as important (modern puro strike exchanges, bad selling), they get too lazy to structure their matches in a way that feels like a struggle (most often end up trapped in formulaic BS like many WWE/New Japan workers, but there are formulas that work too) and so on it results in bad wrestling.

Seeking objective standards about what wrestling is supposed to be sounds like a giant waste of time. Really all you can do is familiarize yourself with as much different styles and continue being open minded about wrestlng. Wrestling isn't as diverse as other arts which probably causes a lot of redundant arguments that wouldn't exist (or wouldn't be as common) if it were. I'm not sure if it's ever going to be unless stuff like post-wrestling becomes more prominent.

I don't see the big deal in praising a 7 minute match to that extent after saying that from your experience matches generally need at least 8 minutes to reach that level. Unless you're absolute about it it's even pretty consistent. It's certainly completely different than praising a two minute match like that. Beginning/middle/end indicates a match needs at least three parts, I think you can have a great match with two control segments so I don't really look at it as splitting it that way. Beginning/middle or middle/finish can be kinda glued together I don't believe in perfection but relatively perfect/five star is commonly used and everyone knows what it means. A 45 minute AJPW tag from the 70s sounds like a nightmare. Does anyone really want to watch Abdullah The Butcher and Dory Funk Jr. for 45 minutes? Can't compare that to 80s New Japan and 90s All Japan tags that often go long and get insane praise, incomparable to an average 10 mimute brawl.

"Whatever it takes" is a useless answer in a world where there's a heavy bias towards longer matches that lives to this day. Looking at what the shortest matches you consider great/perfect are and contemplating around what time you start being comfortable calling them great is supposed to be the start of the discussion. Obviously I wasn't expecting a math equation and numbers set in stone. Anyway I find it very hard to rate matches that are under five minutes highly. Not saying you can't build a memorable and very good match in that timeframe but I rarely find myself being able to put them on the same level as the longer greats. With 5-10 minutes you can already build a great match much more easily and possibly even hit perfection.

This is probably something that's been beaten around the bush forever but is worth addressing on its own. How long does a match need to go before you're comfortable calling it great or perfect? How much work does need to be packed into that minimal amount of time? How do you want wrestlers to go about achieving greatness and perfection in the smallest amount of time you feel it can be reached?

How is Murakami/Ishikawa not a GREAT SO GREAT legit great match. Eight stars.

At first I thought I didn't have a good answer for this since I generally don't find matches I give a lower rating as memorable as those I give higher ratings(shocking I know). Choshu/Hashimoto from the 1991(?) G1 has two control segments and lasts eight minutes but the simolicity of it offers enough for me to call it a relatively perfect match. Then I thought about stuff like writing a giant review for Choshu-Ashura Hara that I didn't even give **** despite being hugely impressed with it and how much fun I have watching Masao Inoue and Yano matches, and the whole issue of rating very short and/or squash matches and my answer probablys lays somewhere in there. Choshu-Ashura Hara really does rule.

That's an argument for your writing skills not wrestling itself.

The problem here is that most wrestlers simply aren't good enough to create something that can realistically mimick the drama of real sports/fights, let alone create something really impressive artistically.

Maeda vs. Fujinami is the perfect example for how important finishes are. If not that, then Hansen vs. Funk from 4/14/83. I can't get a match five stars with a flat finish, or no finish, or I finish that I don't enjoy. That's the last thing I see. It's the climax. It's all supposedly building up to one spot, and although in the case of Maeda vs. Fujinami, the finish makes total sense, I can't give it five because it's missing the dramatic 1...2...3 or a submission attempt that has me on the edge of my seat. Maeda vs. Fujinami is one of my favorite matches, I have it at ****3/4, and I'm sure if Maeda kicked Fujinami's lights out and pinned him, or Fujinami suplexed him for a three count, it'd be five stars. The actual finish is a let down. It's not five stars. If five stars is supposedly a "perfect match", although I think that talking point is overblown, then how can a disappointing finish lead to the illusive five stars? I have both matches at five. Excitement can be generated by means other than nearfalls. Hansen nearly killing Terry Funk by choking him over the ropes was an awesome dramatic visual and Dory saving him was the awesome payback and culmination. It was executed so well I didn't want a clean finish. It was so unique that having a clean finish would probably detract from it because a 2.9 count or a submission escape most likely couldn't encapsulate what they were going for as efficiently and dramatically.

Skippable match that was more about putting the heat on the manager than anything either wrestler did which was illustrated perfectly by the camera zooming out so much and someone doing a promo over it in the first minute. Barbarian did hit a nice Dropkick but there was too much generic stomping/biting for me to care. Diving Headbutt continues the trend of questionable low impact finishers.

Oooops just realised my mind autocorrects Worldwide to Wildside like it sometimes does MM/DD/YY to DD/MM/YY. I wonder if the complaint about fans in the 80s were that they were too plastic and predictable, kinda like NBA fans are now. Face gets some quasi-shine early on so the crowd buys into the match and then Koloff takes over and goes over. Koloff's offence looked good (him throwing Jeffer's head into the ropes looked particularly nasty) except his finisher which looked lame. Fun if you decide to watch it but not fun enough to make yourself watch it. Almost above average?

A squash match that was fun enough, highlights were a a nice Forearm and a Clothesline, other than that it was pretty much spamming basic unmemorable sequences. Moving on.

These days it's pretty much taken for granted a *good* finish is clean and decisive. I believe this is obviously false. In terms of how important a finish is.......it's very important. The last minute of a match is probably more important than one in the middle of it. I don't think a "perfect" match can have that minute of coasting in the middle, but a lot of people aren't as rigid as I am and throw out more stars more easily. It's human nature that the end holds more value to us, I believe it could even be easily proven if we were to conduct an experiment/poll, so no, a match coming as close to perfection as is possibe can't have an outright bad finish. Many of my favourite matches of all time (including my favourite) have a finish that isn't clean or decisive but they are all memorable and make sense in the context of the match. Except Maeda-Fujinami. That one just has enough blood that I don't really care whether it makes sense or not.

If this is in response to my rating that's 3 I gave it

Enjoyed this way more than the 40 minute Flair "classics" where I wonder what I'm doing with my life twenty minutes in. Simple story of Flair not taking whatever goof Mack Jeffers is and easily taking care of business. Not a fan of his Kneedrop missing and it was funny to see him lose Jeffer's leg on the Figure 4 but other than that I quite enjoyed his performance here. Post match brawl was exciting, wrestlers logically interfered into it and it made me want to see next week's show. **3/4

Nuclear heat for this because of the angle that took place earlier on the show. This match ruled. Brillinat performance by Tully, there was a lot of armwork on this show but Tully was the first one who made it look good, really cranking the arm but also working it into the match and feeding Brown a counter with it. Tully also did a great job of obstracting the referee's vision to land cheapshots and looked like an intelligent competitor-i.e. he would hit Brown in the head with an elbow when he'd attempt a Back Body Drop, Knee him whe he'd get on top of him etc. There was a sense of struggle that really made this, as there was a feel both men were constantly looking for ways to maintain or get back into control, they never just stood there and let the other guy hit them twenty times. ***-***1/4

First match from the show I'd describe as worth watching on its own, the previous matches being so one-sided made it this one being worked a little more evenly a bigger deal. Mostly it's about these two throwing quality punches, Bass also hit a mean back elbow. Not really a fan of people other than Fritz Von Erich using the Claw as it never looks good but I won't lose sleep over that. **3/4

I doubt anyone was punching an arm in matches in 1955. Really all I see is using a lazy shortcut becase the heel isn't very imaginative when there are other, more logical and more efficient ways to achieve the goal, whether the goal be filling time in a match engagingly or even the armwork itself. I won't say it's absolutely impossible I could like punching an arm in wrestling, but generally it's bad and I don't remember ever seeing anyone do it right.

One thing I can definitely get behind is the victor(s) taking pretty much the entire match. Nothing special here, RNR only breifly lost control of the match when Cornette showed up so they could get a comeback in. Post-match angle with Midnights attacking Morton got a nice amount of heat. Average.

You don't want a five minute match to drag. This was boring, ok when Bart was sloppily throwing Tanaka around in the beginning but then he started doing armwork, and, let me tell you, few things in wrestling make me question spending my time watching it as much as seeing one man punch another one in the arm. I could've at least understood it as a set-up for a face comeback, but as the body of a squash match? Advances in understanding of how actual fighting works only make matches like this look even more stupid. Fast forward material here.

Solid squash match with Magnum T.A. spamming a couple of throws before scoring the pin on a belly to belly. Not as good as the recent Braun Strowman/Nia Jax squashes but certainly better than pointless five minute matches that only last so long because Vince has TV time to fill.