Cap

Has anyone ever heard the phrase "urban narrative" outside of Bischoff's podcast? I have never once heard it. I have obviously heard of urban legends, but never this urban narrative nonsense. Am I the only one?

top marks for you, sir

As someone who did not participate in the GWE project because I didn't feel qualified, I would encourage you - if you are truly interested in the project - to participate. No one will have exhaustive knowledge of every high end match and what constitutes "qualified" will vary wildly from person to person. I think anyone who takes the project seriously and is open to watching, re-watching when needed, and discussing is perfectly qualified to submit a ballot.

Park vs Rush was an absolute blast with an all timer of an ending. Park trying to must beat Rush to death with his bare hands while security scrambles to save his life, carrying him out. What great wrestling theater. They have a lot of time between now and Sept, but as of this second, this is the hottest thing in wrestling.

Absolute blast of a match. Park basically trying to kill Fenix for the first like 7 minutes was awesome. They really were just launching each other into shit and into other human beings early on. I loved the timing of some of the stuff in the middle, especially Park's spear. Park trying for a slam on the apron and going into an almost snap suplex looked brutal. I have no idea if it was on purpose, but I loved how it seemed like Park tuckered himself out trying to beat Fenix and that gave fenix his late match openings. There was some PWG-y moments in there and I can get that as a frustration. Could have done without the no sell of the tombstone, but other than that... boy howdy this was fun.

Yep, really really good stuff here. These two could have a good match in 30 seconds or 30 minutes. Great mat based work that evolves into more of a fight. Loved the flash ko finish. All around quality stuff. ****

Glad this change is well received. Hoping to get some time this weekend to dig into some stuff and get over there for some talk.

Yep, this was just solid stuff throughout. Bryan holding the first part together was perfect, Big E looking competitive with a top guy, Joe looking great and taking a countout, them giving us another step toward Miz/Bryan without really giving us any substantive action between the two was smart, the finish was fun, and I actually thought Miz vs Rusev over delivered given what they were following... the whole thing hit on all levels. Excellent television wrestling. ****

Always loved his match. I feel like i am entering a phase of fandom where I have a greater appreciation for these high-emotion matches. I think it is because great matches in a vacuum are almost easy to come buy in 2018, but this sort of emotion is really hard to make happen. This is a great match that holds up.

Alright folks, we have come - I believe - to an amendment to the process that might free up some of the constraints people are feeling (or not, who knows). Here is what we are going to do. First, over the next week or so (hopefully) we are going to move all of the matches that have been nominated to the match discussion section and break everything into subforums for individual years. Please be patient with this because it is going to be a chore to do all at once while keeping track of everything for a single index thread. This will put all matches directly into the discussion process. There are now two ways to nominate a match. First, anyone can directly nominate a match by writing a 2-3 paragraph argument for the matches inclusion and ensuring that there is some verifiable confirmation that the match exists. That doesn't mean that you have to provide a video or a link or anything, but it can't just be some random match that only you saw that has no other record. As long as the match is recorded in a reputable database or a verifiable matchlist... basically ANYTHING, you may directly nominate it with a strong 2-3 paragraph argument for the match. If you do not want to write that argument you may rely on the match being seconded and thirded. If the match gets thirded it will be considered an official part of the project, regardless of the strength/length of the argument. Two month before the close of the project (which may be extended) we will begin to comb through nominations. Anything that has not been properly argued for by a single nominator or seconded and thirded will be removed from the project for the final vote. Two important things to note here. First, if you nominated something that hasn't gone through yet you might want to go back and add a more extensive argument for it if your original post is somewhat short/underdeveloped. Second, I think the elephant in the room might be "how much is enough" when it comes to a direct nomination. We are just going to leave this to the 2-3 paragraph outline and ask that each person who chooses to nominate in this way makes a good faith effort. Once we go back and start reviewing nominations near the end of the project we will of course try to be kind in our evaluations of anything that might be borderline, but if all three of us who started the project are in agreement that it is not a sufficient nomination we will nix it. We hope this help in a few ways. 1) I hope that having matches go directly in will let people log on and not have to think about nominations as much as they think about chiming in on matches they have been watching lately or discussing the relatively qualities of things. 2) Longer first posts might help spark some conversation. Often times I think we are talking about top tier matches and there isn't a ton to say other than "it is awesome". Maybe if we have some more to work off of it might give us more to work with discussion wise. 3) Everyone should be able to vote for just about anything they want to vote for as long as the match actually happened and that is verifiable. The solution isn't perfect, and I am sure this will not ignite conversation over night, but we all agree the project should be fun while still having some standards and rigor. Hopefully this works a little better for those of you who found the old system somewhat restraining. I think we all appreciate the feedback, particularly when it comes in a constructive manner. It will take us a minute to sort the forum (all moderators are welcome to help), but the forum won't be down at any point.

So I had been meaning to watch this for some time I suppose. No real reason that I hadn't just time and it being in competition with 1000 other wrestling things to watch. Obviously, being the day we learned about Vader's passing, I felt compelled to push it to the top of my free time priorities. I had heard some hype, but I had also seen some people who were in the "good, not great" camp on this. It blew my expectations out of the damn water. This was all sorts of good, probably my favorite Vader match ever to be honest. I would echo that this is obviously a precursor to what we would ultimately get form Sting/Vader, but on first watch I actually think this is the ideal for what Sting/Vader could be. Muto is far more athletic and hard hitting with his offense and it comes off as more energetic and believable than even Sting's best performances. I also think there is more snap and stiffness to Vader's counters here. His punches always look great but you could see them from the stands on a fan cam in this, almost adds to them. I loved a lot of the counters (as mentioned before here) and the way Muto would string together his offense. For example, there is a great section that turns the corner just after the half way point I think where Muto takes a nasty clothesline, kicks out and is able to spin out of a sluplex for those big lunging elbows. Then he snaps off a backdrop driver-esque slam as Vader is trying to fire back. That is followed by a massive springboard dropkick, bridges into vader's sprawled legs and then muto gets flung across the ring on the kick out. Nothing in there is crazy, but the dynamic they pull off of is perfect. From Vader's kickouts being huge and Muto's being more like a shoulder inching off the ground to the level of control/momentum muto has feeling like its constantly in danger of being squashed, even when he is on the offense, I think they executed the story they were trying to tell to near perfection. The finish miscues knock it down just a touch, but they don't honestly bother me much. Muto no selling at the end doesn't bother me either. It didn't even read to me as odd or out of turn in context. I just thought this was a fantastic bit of wrestling. I probably need to get some distance between watching this and Vader's passing to give it a real assessment, but I am a good bit higher on this than most people seem to be.

I wrote on twitter that he absolutely fascinated me as a kid. His size, his presence, that big mask that shot smoke. He was truly larger than life, like no one else in the business. As an adult I came to really appreciate his athleticism and his talent. Vader was a unique talent. He will be greatly missed. This is indeed another sad day for wrestling.

Most people who do a lot of reviews pretty quickly find out that the ratings are the least important part of the review, hence why a lot of the most prolific reviewers here forego the ratings entirely.. Reviews give us a chance to analyse why guys would choose to work in a particular way and what makes a match great (or not so great), and they also serve as a memento of how a match made you feel on a particular viewing. Even the people who do rate everything generally do so just to help organize their thoughts rather than viewing it as some be-all-end-all. When I look at ratings it's generally to see what's worth viewing, and I generally don't care too much about how people rate stuff I've already seen recently. I don't think anyone here watches just to give ratings. I think this is an important distinction to make. I have talked a lot in this forum about rating and why I rate and it is basically this. Its a personality issue as much as anything. I need some organization and direction sometimes, particularly for my own memory and particularly when there is so much out there and so many other things vying for my time. I love wresting and want to spend time on it and explore new wrestling, but sometimes if I don't have something to structure what I have seen (or at least SOME of what I have seen) I can spin my wheels. Structure helps me track where I have been and what I may want to check out next or watch more of sometimes. For example, I was just updating my spreadsheet with some stuff I recently wrote up reviews for. I ran across two matches in my spread sheet I completely forgot about, but once I read a few lines of my write up it jogged my memory and I thought, "oh yea, that was cool" and "awesome, look how far (x-wrestler) has come since that match). Similarly, I was thinking maybe I was a little high on a match from before based on a recent match I rated (no one on earth other than me will probably ever see the rating or the review - it doesn't matter). I went back and read my review and remembered why I liked the match in question so much. Some people are great at remembering matches, dates, details, spots, etc etc... I'm not. I am better at remembering those things now that I have been keeping a spreadsheet of matches for a few years, but if nothing else its a reference point. Star ratings may not help everyone enjoy wrestling, but they help me. Maybe one day they wont, but right now they very much do. Much like some people don't need someone else's star ratings to validate their opinion, I don't need anyone else's opinion to validate that I do star ratings for matches. Now, that is different than what we are talking about with Meltzer (who is - right or wrong - somewhat of a taste maker) and it is different than how some people see star ratings in general. For a variety of reasons that have been discussed in this thread a number of times over, Dave's impact has been somewhat reduced to stars and that really isn't far to him (though he probably did it to himself), ratings more broadly, or fans that follow him... however, here we are.

I actually liked this a good bit, but I have generally been higher on their matches than most. I agree with Childs; Nakamura was a convincing and dynamic heel here and by the time they got to the bomb throwing at the end they had sort of slowly sucked me into a level of investment. They probably could have cut some time out and put some pace on the match earlier, but given the match was a Last Man Standing i think the pace really made sense. They built the pace slowly and they did it around the attempts to get the 10 count, which was smart. The ending stretch was fantastic. Nakamura threw that knee with some fucking pepper on. I do wish they weren't building SO much around the low blow, but by this point they didn't really have a choice and it didn't feel completely overdone here. Styles hitting the styles clash outside off the steps and the big elbow to the outside threw the table, those two things really brought some finality to this match. It had more intensity and urgency, something they haven't had in their previous matches really. This was the best of their feud **** from me and I might even tack on 1/4 because I honestly loved the homestretch.

I really am too. There are way worse things I could be doing with parts of my summer than watching top shelf wrestling.

Elliot, Grimmas, and I discussed the issue and are in the process of coming to some conclusions that we hope work for everyone and the integrity of the project. Hopefully we can sort a logistics that will encourage more match discussion.

Good solid stuff. They laid a match out that complimented the entire show, kept the belt where it belonged, and got their monster over even more than he was before. I am not sure what more they could have done. Sullivan's top work pretty interesting. I actually liked Black getting some control early and then working to chip away at the big man throughout, working angles and distance and having some extra tricks to throw the big man off. Lars showed improvement and I imagine this matchup could be borderline great in a year or two. I generally speaking try not to get too hung up on misses and "botches" but this one was sort of in an important spot and did take some of the wind out of the finish for me. ****

My god, Dream is so good. Taking nothing away from Ricochet here. It is actually sort of odd because I have always been a bit low on Ricochet and I feel like he took a huge step in the past year or so in terms of some of the little things that bring his matches together for me. He is easily the better wrestler here and is an absolute physical freak of nature, but he is also in with someone who just outshines everyone in terms of charisma, physicality, and presence. This was a ton of fun and both men brought something to it that brought it up. It took me a minute to get invested, but they hooked me about half way through and I really began to enjoy what they were doing. Solid **** match that is really carried by the homestretch and them building a lot of uncertainty into who would take the win.

I actually felt like this was more "bloated" on the whole, but for me the difference is execution (not technically, just in terms of timing and setup and pace and so on). While some of the spots were predictable and the theatrics might have straddled the "over the top" line, this just felt less contrived to me. They somehow felt less rigid in terms of setting stuff up while simultaneously increasing the intensity and the hatred. In that, this match did a lot of things that don't usually resonate for me in a way that I actually loved. Shenanigans in the home stretch, ref bumping, security, stretcher spots... all things that I more often than not think take away from a match, but its wrestling and everything can be done really well or really poorly and at least on first watch most of this felt like it was done well (save that stop sign thing - the staged fan thing is getting stale to me). The real pay off is their ability to tap into a visceral investment. Some of this was uncomfortable to watch (in a good way) and they were able to build and escalate not just physically, but emotionally as well. I would say that was - to a lesser extent (I think?) - the case with the first match as well, but the first match didn't capture my imagination throughout quite as well and I found it delivered diminished returns on rewatch. I am not sure about this one. I will have to check back with it later (maybe in conjunction with the first), but this feels like it will hold up a touch better for my taste. I am giving it a tentative ****3/4 right now, with a real chance it shifts up or down 1/4*.

This started rough to me. Cass took a minute to get his footing in this match I think. Once he did though they did sort of hit a stride that was very good. Bryan is still the star of the show though. I think he does a lot to help elevate the match. The story is more legible here than in their previous match (which I liked fine) and they are able to build the uncertainty a little better. This probably just hits the **** mark for me, particularly considered in context as a strong, concise opener.

Full marks from me. I talked about it elswhere. The long and short is where I though the other three matches (though I liked them all a good bit) where somewhat redundant and could lose me in the final frame, this match never lost me for a second. The 3 falls gave it some structure that carried the length and their dynamic a little bit better. Nothing much else to add. Fantastic, world class wrestling in my book. *****

Nothing really to add to what has been said so far, but i thought this was fairly incredible. I really liked the sort of sub narrative of the UE seeming to always have the two on one, keeping the distance between the partners closed. Even when Birch and Lorcan were on the offensive, that was the story of how UE would get the advantage back or save themselves. Absolutely unreal pace to start the show. One of the better tag team matches i have seen in some time. ****1/4 (maybe 1/2).

This is a good point, worth at least some serious discussion. I will bring it up to Elliot and Grimmas

Only if you use Meltzer as the standard by which all star rating systems must be measured, which admittedly most people probably do. I am happy to go on rating matches for myself and using the 5 star system and not worrying too much about it. However, Dave's influence and reach might be such that all public sharing of star systems will enter a context so convoluted that they are impossible to read except in terms of a B.O/O. (Before Omega/Okada) where we would have the 5 star system and A.D (Anno Dei - Year of The Gods) where we have 7? maybe just throw however many you want? I don't know.

I knew it! I knew this was going 7. haha. Honestly, I kind of love it, but that is because I have accepted this persona of Dave's (for better or worse). Dave's ratings are a fascinating case study in influence in the wrestling industry. Its been beaten to death, but Dave is almost overvalued and undervalued in terms of his influence and impact. Ultimately, I suspect all the star throwing he does is going to throw the balance off on the public perception of who and what he has been in wrestling over the years, at least for at time period before it is ultimately recovered that he was more than just the star-rating guy.