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If Bryan didn't have that plainspoken regular guy charisma of his, if he didn't improve on the mic, if he didn't have that amazing connection with the audience, etc., it wouldn't have mattered how good he was "as a worker." Yeah, but he had all of those things. This is more for people who got over, became great workers despite not having those things. This discussion for wrestlers who are great despite having huge glaring flaws that should stop them from being great. Bryan was successful because of all the things you listed. He was a great worker, he was a credible every man that everyone rooted for, and he did improve his mic skills. Those things are positive attributes that he used to maximize his appeal. John Cena looking and acting like a huge goof, who is pretty average at every part of wrestling is a good candidate. He's essentially the equivalent of a quarterback like Brad Johnson winning 4 Super Bowls. Nothing you could point at would tell you he should be an all time great, but it would be inarguable that he was an all time great. Those are the types of guys we're looking for in this discussion, guys who are good in ways that you can't really explain.

I don't know if Undertaker fits. Undertaker is a huge dude, has credible offense, and is ridiculously athletic for his size. That guy would have been a star in almost every single promotion. The Undertaker gimmick is essentially a handcuff on someone who probably would have been a better worker if he was a generic ass kicker.

This is just mind boggling to me. I really don't think Danielson has a major weakness. He's good at striking, matwork, structuring matches, character work etc. I'm pretty sure I saw it used for Tenryu and Choshu actually, which I would find a lot more interesting to discuss than Okada Tenryu is an outstanding choice. I recently wrote a little bit on Tenryu and this is how I described him. I don't think you can appreciate Tenryu until you understand that his lack of crisp execution is not important to what makes him great. He's essentially the Japanese Rocky. Apollo Creed has a better jab, better footwork, hits harder, has a better chin, but Rocky has the ability to connect with people that makes all that other stuff irrelevant. Tenryu pulls you into his matches like few other people, because everything he does has meaning. Getting people to buy in is so much more important than hitting your moves crisply and cleanly.

Where did you ever get this idea? I think Kazuchika Okada is the king of this. If you look at his offense, selling, finisher, psychology, etc. one by one, you won't think he is very good, but he's always in really good to great matches. Somehow when you combine all of those attributes you find that they add up to something better than what they should be based on their individual qualities. I think the WK10 match with Tanahashi was masterful. The match was based around Tanahashi destroying Okada's knee, then Okada's comeback revolved around him hitting a bunch of dropkicks. He's someone who does that kind of thing over and over again, but his matches grab me in a way that it does not matter. I think he is the poster boy for this discussion.

Shawn Michaels putting Marty Jannetty through the Barbershop window is probably #1 for me. I don't know how I didn't think about that until just now, but that traumatized me as a child.

I think the whole Three Faces of Foley story was incredibly well done. I labsolutely love everything from the sit down with J.R. to the promo when Mankind and Dude Love introduce Cactus Jack. It took Foley from solid upper midcard heel to beloved main eventer in a way that I don't think can be replicated.

The top stars are Meltzers, the bottom ones are mine. For the most part, my opinions on these matches probably aren't much different, but my perspective on the workers and their place in history is different. I said that 1989 is the best main event run any company ever had, but I think All Japan is better in 90,91, 92, and 93. 1989 could be the best main event run in American wrestling history, but even that is probably a little hyperbolic. When I started doing these, I was just saying how I felt about these matches as I wrote about them. The only real perspective I had was how I felt in that moment, but as I've wrote about more and more matches I realized calling something the best ever in 1989 is short sighted. It is 2016, and I have a list of every match Meltzer rated 4 stars or better to get through. There is no real way to know whether or not something is the best ever when there are over 20 years of matches to watch. I still really like all those WCW matches from 1989, but I think I overstated their historical value.

1/28/89 - Tenryu/Kawada/Fuyuki vs. Tsuruta/Fuchi/Yatsu (AJPW) ***** This was joined in progress and the crowd is already hot. I think I've seen everyone here at least once except Fuyuki, who is dressed just like Kawada, but has an afro. I don't know what these guys are fighting over, but apparently they are pissed about it. This is clearly about Tenryu and Jumbo, and their brief portion of this match is the best. It is obvious they know everything about each other as they run through a pretty complex sequence where they see the other's signature spots coming and try to counter them into their own signature spot. This is pretty great with the Kawada and Fuyuki being all energetic, Yatsu being a big mauler, Fuchi being the creepy old guy, and Tenryu and Tsuruta being the all-star bad ass dudes they are. This was clipped down to about 11 minutes so I can't say whether it deserves it's ***** rating, but what was here was really fucking good. 2/23/87 - Savage/Adonis/Race vs. Steamboat/Piper/JYD (WWF) **** This is elimination rules, and Gorilla and Slick are the commentators. This is a match made to set up three of the matches from Wrestlemania III and the heels are stooging it up for the faces. Adrian Adonis and the Junk Yard Dog were counted out for the first eliminations. Roddy Piper hit Adonis with a chair and as Slick brings up should have got him disqualified. Of course Gorilla doesn't agree despite it being 100% true. Slick was pretty good on commentary, and probably should have been used more in that role. Steamboat gets eliminated next after Savage comes in and reverses his small package so Race is on top. Race out next as Piper moves and Savage accidently hits Race with the top rope axe handle. Piper and Savage are the last two competitors and despite being the face all of Piper's offense is blatant cheating. Slick points this out to Gorilla, but he once again ignores him. Piper wins after moving out of the way of the elbow drop and getting a small package. This is OK, but this isn't a **** match. It is fun, especially with the Dr. of Style's commentary, but there isn't much of a match here. 12/13/89 - Flair vs. Sting (NWA) ****1/4 This is from the Ironman Tournament from Starrcade '89 so it's a 15 minute time limit. There are currently people in another thread who are saying they never liked Ric Flair so I'm going to try to wipe the tears from my eyes and power through this. I've been watching wrestling as long as I remember, and as far as I've seen no one was as consistently great as Ric Flair. He did everything, he could talk, he could wrestle, he could work face, he could work heel, and he never seemed to half ass anything. I honestly thought that he was undeniable. Now I don't know what to think any more, this is probably worse than when I found out there was no Santa Clause. This is 15 minutes of Sting vs. Flair in 1989 so it was damn good, but a 15 minute time limit took away from what it could be. 6/14/89 - Steamboat vs. Funk (NWA) ****1/4 This was so fucking fun. I don't know what was going on in 1989 between Flair, Funk, and Steamboat, but they were unbelievable. This is basically 20 minutes or so of Funk and Steamboat chopping the shit out of each other and trying to out crazy each other with their bumps to the floor. For the record, Funk's over the top bumps are crazier, but Steamboat taking a running piledriver (that's right a running piledriver)on the floor was the craziest. This was mostly a match to set up the Great American Bash, but they didn't make it seem like they were just working an angle like the six man tag above. ****1/4 is the most you could give this, but I also think it's the most you could ask for. The post-match angle with Luger is also pretty good. 9/12/89 - Luger vs. Rich (NWA) **** Tommy Rich is built like a guy who fixes cars in his front yard while smoking a cigarette with an impossibly long ash. I've seen some Tommy Rich, but it consists of 100% old, out of shape, WCW Tommy Rich. This is the very best I've ever seen him, and despite being built like a guy who lifts weights one beer at a time he has good babyface fire. As I typed that last sentence he tried to pick up Luger for a body slam but couldn't keep him up and damn near dropped Luger on his head. Luger was the worker here though, he hit the ropes like he was running a 40-yard-dash, and even goes for a tope rope splash. He bumps for all of Rich's offense and basically made this match work. If all you know about Luger is what you read about him on the internet, this match would make you think you were watching someone else. When I saw this match on the list I was ready to call Meltzer crazy, but this was deserving of its **** rating. 9/12/89 - Flair/Sting vs. Muta/Slater (NWA) ****1/4 Terry Funk was supposed to be in this match, but he suffered an injury at the Great American Bash and Dirty Dick Slater is approximately 5/16 Terry Funk so he was added as a replacement. The Great Muta was the coolest wrestler in the world to me as a kid. I was 8 years old the first time I seen him and I was probably an adult the next time I seen him, but I think I created him in every wrestling game that had allowed it in between. So I think it's safe to say he made an impression. I have to say, Dick Slater is much more fun than I remember. He sells like the bastard son of Terry Funk and Greg Valentine, and seemed like he was determined to not be the weak link in this match. Honestly Slater does most of the heavy lifting here. Muta does all his signature spots, Sting shows good fire, and Flair is in control for most of his portions of the match. The ref gets knocked out at some point and then shit gets real as Terry Funk runs in and puts a plastic bag over Flair's head. Flair is bleeding inside the bag so not only is he suffocating, you can see the bag is stained with blood. It is a really cool visual, and it being a TBS show they go to a commercial before he gets out. They come back and tell us that Flair needed to have mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and they go off the air with Flair laid out and bleeding on the ringside floor. This was great especially the closing angle with the plastic bag. ****1/4 is about right for a good match, but an all-time angle. 10/28/89 - Flair/Sting vs. Funk/Muta - Cage (NWA) **** This is the last 1989 match(There is a Rockers vs. Brainbusters match I couldn't find) and based on all of the above matches and angles I think it's fitting to end with this. The Great Muta and Terry Funk come out separately to their respective bad ass theme music, seriously two of the best themes for their respective characters of all time. Bruno Sammartino is the special referee for this Thunderdome Cage match. The cage is surrounds the ring like the Hell in the Cell except the top is slanted in and is "electrified" and the only way to win is if one of the designated terminators (Gary Hart for the heels, Ole Anderson for the faces) to throw in the towel to protect their friends. I'm sure the cage was not electrified, because that would be stupid, but they have fireworks shooting off the top to make it seem real. The fireworks start a small fire on some of the Halloween decorations and Muta puts it out with green mist. This match is…strange. The whole point of the match is that the cage is electrified so the wrestlers can't escape, but the heels constantly climb the cage which ruins the entire concept. Terry Funk and Sting spend about five minutes fighting at the top of the cage where they should supposedly be electrocuted. This is the first match that makes me think Dave Meltzer is on crack. 1989 was a great year for all of these guys, but this was just ridiculous. The crazy thing about it is I like the concept of a match in an electrified fence that can only end by submission or knockout, but if the wrestlers constantly climb the so called electric fence it doesn't make any sense at all. That last match wasn't anywhere close to ****, but there are two different Pillman vs. Luger matches that I'd rank at least **** (Great American Bash and Halloween Havoc) that you should probably seek out. Pillman and Luger have great chemistry and they work at a breakneck pace that makes their matches really fun. 1989 NWA(WCW) was probably the best single year main event run in wrestling history. Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, and Terry Funk with the occasional assist from Lex Luger and Sting were at the absolute top of their games. Flair, despite what you'll hear around here, was the best wrestler on earth and he went out to prove it every single night. This was the easiest year to watch so far since most of it was on either the WWE Network or YouTube, hopefully this continues, but if not I might need to get creative. This was written in 2014, before I watched through the 4+ star matches from 1900-92. You should understand that these were my opinions at the time that I wrote this, even though many of them have changed.

Have you contributed to the "How to write a Wrestling Review" thread? Because this right here is how you write a review.

There are two sides of the Flair-Steamboat coin. The first is that it is extremely difficult to write about something that everyone has already written about. The other side is that there is a reason that everyone has written about that subject. How do you write about a subject that is worth writing about, but has already been covered to death? I wrote about them the other day, but initially skipped over them, because I didn't have anything new to say about them. My review was trying to be some combination of a review for someone who had never watched the matches, and a review for someone who had watched them 20 times each. I don't know if I succeeded at either, but I felt like my writing would always incomplete if I didn't at least try to put those matches in perspective.

I started my own thread, because I actively try to avoid other reviews until I write my own. I generally go to those threads once I'm done to see what other people say about a particular match, but I don't want my opinion to be swayed beforehand. As time goes on, I've found myself trying to add personal anecdotes to my reviews so I don't know if it matters. I just don't know how much of my review would be my opinion and how much would be what I expect the match to be based on other's opinions if I read them first.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've been writing more and more reviews lately, and I never really know how I'm going to go about it until I'm doing it. Sometimes I find myself doing play by play, which I don't really like, but sometimes that is all that comes to me. The thing that I really find difficult is how to write the review of the 6th match between the same people. In the next couple of weeks I'm going to start posting my reviews from 1990, which will feature roughly 10,000 All Japan 6-man tags. All of those matches are really good, but by the fifth or sixth match, there is absolutely nothing new to say about them. I've gradually changed my review style to trying to find the interesting things about the wrestlers and/or the match, but I think it will always be a work in progress.

2/20/89 - Flair vs. Steamboat (NWA) ***** Before I started this project, I was trying to figure out how I was going to take best advantage of the WWE Network. I initially was going to watch every show on the network in order, but I got bored with that almost immediately. So, I was just watching stuff randomly until August 2014 when a poster on the DVDVR Message Board named Mokujin Scott posted a list of every match Dave Meltzer rated **** or better. That post inspired me to start this project. Since then I’ve been going through the list and writing a little about every single match I can find on the WWE Network, NJPW World, YouTube, or elsewhere on the internet. Here’s the thing though, the last few matches I watched before I started this project was the 1989 Flair vs. Steamboat series. So, when I got to this part of the list, I didn’t really feel like watching them again. So it has been well over a year, and now I think I’m ready to go back and give my thoughts about one of the best rivalries in the history of wrestling. The first match is from Chi-Town Rumble, and sets the pace for the matches to come. One of the biggest criticisms of Flair’s work is that he is too go go go. People think that he’s doing so much that nothing he does really resonates, but I think that is a bit flawed as a criticism. Flair’s matches are worked at a very fast pace, but he doesn’t waste a lot of moves in that pace. His moveset works well with the pace, because most of his moves are designed to wear you out not knock you out. If he was throwing a bunch of suplexes and slams, I’d agree that his pace would hurt his matches. He doesn’t do that, he works holds, throws chops, and drops knees. When a big move is hit they do let it breathe, and something as simple as a vertical suplex feels like a credible near fall. This match is worked at a breakneck pace, but I never felt like they wasted a single move. It felt like each guy was trying to push the other to a point where they made a mistake, and they could take advantage. The finish to this match finds both guys working at a frenetic pace trying to hit the one move that will put his opponent away. Neither of these guys really have a bomb, and that helps with the match. If one guy had a move that was a guaranteed knockout blow, this match wouldn’t resonate. Since both guys have to win with an accumulation of punishment, the small package that Steamboat wins with feels satisfying. This felt like a match where one mistake could end the match not one move, and Ric Flair made that mistake. Both guys pushed were trying to get flash pins from the very first rope running sequence, and it only feels right that the match ends on a flash pin. This is easily *****. 3/18/89 - Flair vs. Steamboat (NWA) ***** This is the least known match in the series. I’m watching a handheld version from Landover, Maryland that I found on Dailymotion. Both the Audio and video quality is pretty bad, but I’m willing to make these sacrifices for my 2 or 3 readers. One of the biggest disadvantages the current area has compared to the past is that we don’t get to see matches like this on house shows. The last house show I went to was fine, but the most memorable thing on the entire show was Big Show doing comedy shtick. There was a time when the main events on house shows were what made the company money, and matches like this were far more prevalent. I don’t know what else is in the conversation, but this very well be the best house show match ever. This is outstanding, but I’m not going to rate it. The audio cuts out for most of the ending stretch and really distracted me from what was going on. I will say that this match is readily available and worth tracking down, but is probably more supplemental viewing than prerequisite viewing. 4/2/89 - Flair vs. Steamboat (NWA) ***** This is the 2 out of 3 falls match from Clash of the Champions VI. This has a one hour time limit for Ricky Steamboat’s World Heavyweight Championship. This match starts with a different dynamic than the first, as Steamboat seems to have gained confidence when he won the championship. Flair, who is used to being the champion, tries to intimidate Steamboat. Steamboat, with the championship confidence, slaps him right in the face. Steamboat also works in a much more methodical pace. It makes sense, because he’s defending his championship. He knows that if he can just outlast Flair, he goes home with the belt. So he controls Flair with a series of headlocks. Every rope running sequence, every chain wrestling sequence, and every mistake Flair makes leads to Steamboat grabbing another headlock and slowing the pace. If the first match in the series was a sprint, this one is a marathon. When Flair takes over he picks the pace up, and it is clear that the quicker pace has taken Steamboat out of his game. In a call back to the finish of the first match, Flair goes for a Figure Four and Steamboat counters into a small package. This time, Flair is ready and shifts his weight in order to pin Steamboat’s shoulders for the first fall. The second fall starts, and Steamboat starts to show a sense of urgency. Flair takes advantage, and the roles reverse from the first fall. Flair tries to ground Steamboat and drop some knees to Steamboat’s head. Steamboat, knowing what is coming, dodges the second kneedrop and then attacks Flairs knee like an Africanized, Brazilian bee. He drops about 150 elbows to his knee and locks in a Figure Four, but Flair gets to the ropes. Steamboat can feel the pressure of being down a fall, and is trying everything to even the score at a fall a piece. The problem is that he prepared to wrestle at a slower pace, and the fast pace leaves Steamboat prone to mistakes. Flair, is too good of a wrestler for Steamboat to get careless and he takes over. Flair trying to end this quickly and win back the title that he’s held multiple times takes Steamboat out to the floor, bodyslams him and whips him into the guardrail. Flair sees blood, and knows that he could be moments away from regaining his title. He goes to the top rope, but Steamboat cuts him off and hits a superplex. Steamboat then locks in a double chicken wing and Flair is forced to tap. The third fall starts and both men are exhausted and desperate, but both men can smell victory. Flair goes for the leg early, but Steamboat is able to cut him off. Steamboat is rolling until he tries to hit a high knee in the corner, and Flair dodges leaving Steamboat’s knee draped over the top rope. Having an injured knee in a fight with Ric Flair is like having a sexual secret in a fight with Amber Rose. He’s going to attack that injury with no regard for your life, career, or quality of life. He goes after that leg and everyone in the building believes it’s over. Flair goes to the Figure Four and locks it in. Steamboat withstands the hold for longer than anyone thought was possible, but is able to roll to the ropes. Steamboat and Flair then put on one of the best finishing sequences ever. They pull out all the stops, Flair even hits a top rope crossbody. The match ends when Flair presses his luck and goes back to the top rope, leading Steamboat to press slam him to the mat. Steamboat locks in the double chicken wing once more, but his knee gives away. Both men’s shoulders are on the mat, but Steamboat raises his just before the referee counts for three…but the referee doesn’t see Flair’s foot on the ropes. Winner and still champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. This is one of the best matches of all time and once again an easy *****. 5/7/89 - Flair vs. Steamboat (NWA) ***** If the first match was a sprint, and the Clash match was a marathon, this one is essentially both. The first two matches were two guys trying to outwrestle each other, this one feels more like a fight. The first couple matches they felt each other out with chain wrestling, but this one is chop exchanges. Both men are also taking more risks. They’ve tried to outlast each other, but this time they’re trying to take the other guy out. Steamboat has it in his mind that he was able to make Flair submit with the double chicken wing, and focuses his attack on Flair’s arms and upper back. Flair, a man desperate to regain the title, pulls out everything in his arsenal. Flair hits suplexes, knee drops, and every dirty trick he knows. Steamboat launches himself out of the ring multiple times going for high impact, running moves. Flair gets thrown off the top rope trying to hit a big move to put Steamboat away. The difference between this match and the previous matches in this trilogy is that these guys know that they can’t wait for the other guy to make a mistake. They can’t guarantee that they will be able to last that long. This is how to have a rubber match. The key to this match is that both guys doubt whether or not they have what it takes to beat the other, and they are doing everything to prove to themselves that they are the best. Flair and Steamboat take everything from the first two matches and turn it up to 11 for this one. If the first two matches taught us anything it is that Steamboat is at his best when he’s working at a more measured pace. When he gets caught up in emotions, and goes away from his gameplan that is when he makes mistakes. Steamboat gets Flair hurt, and goes to the top rope. Flair sees him and falls into the ropes causing Steamboat to fall from the top rope to the floor. The fall caused Steamboat to wrench his knee and Flair can smell the blood in the water. Flair works over the leg, and it is time for the Figure Four Leglock. Steamboat gets to the ropes, but the damage has been done. Flair continues to go for the leg, but Steamboat hits an enziguri. Steamboat goes for a bodyslam, but his leg buckles allowing Flair to pin Steamboat with an inside cradle. Once again this is an easy ***** it’s just a masterful match. This is the best series of matches in the history of American wrestling. All three matches work alone, but are even better as a series. The matches build upon each other in a way that makes the previous matches even better. I think the best of the three is the Clash of the Champion match from April 2, 1989. It kind of a microcosm of the entire series. It doesn’t really tell the entire story, but if you were stuck in some sort of ridiculous situation where you could only watch one, that is the one you should pick. I know everyone seems to have their personal favorite of these matches, but the Clash match is an hour long epic that doesn’t feel like a single second is wasted. If you are a wrestling fan and never watched these matches, do yourself a favor and dedicate an afternoon to them. If you haven’t seen them in a while, go ahead and give them another look. These matches are timeless, and like a great album or your favorite book, you find something new to like about them with every viewing.

He looks like a tall oompa loompa.

Yeah, but those things can still be untrue. How many times have you heard someone say, "there aren't any black people in this movie, because there weren't any black people in this historical place." For this argument let's say there is a movie based on a Roman Legion, and it is starring 56 white dudes(I've never seen a black person portraying a Roman in a movie). I was watching some show where they excavated burial grounds after some huge Roman battle, did DNA testing, and found out that one in four of the Roman soldiers was sub Saharan African. Is it possible for that movie to be good with that information, or is it automatically bad? We know that it doesn't reflect reality, but what if it turns out that everything else about it is perfect?

Pam Grier in 1974.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true. I'm pretty much in Jingus' boat. The example I tend to use over the years is Donnie Brasco, Book vs Movie. If you happened to be a crime reader in the 80s, you probably came across the book Donnie Brasco. It's an easy read and one of the early strong "cop undercover in the Mafia" books. In turn, the movie is an easy, accessible film. You got Depp, you got Pacino in the mob... easy movie. Well received, Oscar nominations. But... If you read the book, one of the overwhelming points that Pistone made was that he never forgot for a moment that he was a Cop, that these were Bad Guys he was dealing with, and when push came to shove, he was taking them down. He got across some of the funny wacky elements of the mob, including a lot of the basic jobber work they do to make money rather than the high end crime. But he got across over and over and over again that he wasn't tempted by the life, and that he was always thinking as a Cop. With Hollywood, reality isn't good enough. We need to have "Donnie" tempted by the life, and have a moral dilemma near the end, almost fall into the wrong decision, tension, etc. If you read the book, if you liked it, if you actually *got* that point that Pistone was making about *himself*, that big moment of temption late in the movie impacts what you think about the movie. Why? Because they're both "Pistone", and you kind of would like a movie where "Pistone" is the lead character (as opposed to a supporting cliched head coach) actually be True To Pistone. So I've always thought Brasco is a decently well made Hollywood Movie that either doesn't get Pistone or didn't give a shit enough about the real Pistone to portray him accurately. There are plenty of cops that were tempted, and plenty of cops that crossed the line with the mob. Black Mass deal (frankly poorly) with several. I'm not going to give major props to the movie Donnie Brasco for Hollywooding it up: if they don't give a shit enough about their main character, why should I. I think all sorts of movies, if no all movies, can be looked at in the same way... and in fact are: what *we* bring to the table as much as what the movie does. I think the difference is that I don't think my personal feelings about the content is as important as the content. What you are saying is not invalid, it is just that I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not what made it to the screen was good or not. The biggest strength and weaknesses with visual mediums like TV and movies is there isn't much room for nuance. I've never seen a single adaptation of a book that could be considered good if you base your criticism on the book. There is just so much more subtle detail you can put on a page than you can on a screen. My sister and I had a conversation recently about how she will either see the movie or read the book, but never both. She says no matter what one of them will end up disappointing her. I'm the exact opposite. If I watch a movie and find out it was based on a book, I immediately add it to my Amazon Wishlist. I know they will be different, and I don't mind that they're different. One is a movie and one is a book and they should be judged for what they are, not what I want them to be.

I also dislike Ian, but it has nothing to do with him being out of shape or unathletic. I've seen a ton of his matches, but I honestly don't get the appeal. A guy I really dislike is Tommy Dreamer. Sure he fit his roll perfectly in ECW and all, but he just never appealed to me. His matches were pretty meh and very repetitive. His post ECW stuff was even more unappealing to me than his ECW stuff. I can honestly say this is something I felt with a ton of ECW guys like Sandman, Balls Mahoney, etc. Guys I felt were very limited, but based mostly around the characters Paul E. created for them. I guess you can highly credit Heyman for making something out of a bunch of very limited guys. I completely understand why they were appealing to the Philly crowd and why they got over, but they were just never appealing to me and it has nothing to do with disliking garbage wrestling as I'm a big fan of FMW, IWA Japan, BJW, etc. but I honestly prefer watching someone like Onita or Hayabusa than Dreamer or Sandman. I'll cosign Dreamer, because I've never understood his appeal. I get Sandman and Balls was a guy who wasn't good, but I always found myself surprised that he wasn't that bad if that makes sense. He very well could have went to the ring every time and hit people dangerously hard with a chair, but occasionally he'd have a competent wrestling match. For a guy who wasn't ever really pushed as a serious contender, I had no problem with him. Dreamer was just a generic looking, pedestrian, uninteresting character and worker, but was pushed as the face of the company. You could have literally put any decent babyface worker in his role, and been better off.

OK, so I'm going through and watching all of Meltzer's **** matches in order, and I'm about to shit on my own argument for a second. I think All Japan matches stand on their own and can be criticized as individual matches, but they are improved through watching them with the context of everything that has come before them. I just watched 2/25/93 - Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Patriot/Eagle and the match is good, but the way it plays out takes advantage of your expectations in a way that improves the match in my mind. Watching countless All Japan tags, you understand the structure of the matches, the hierarchy of the workers, and can't help but to expect certain things based on who is in the match. The question that comes up though is whether or not these matches should be looked at individually or like chapters in the All Japan book. I probably have as many conversations about music as I do about wrestling, and one of the things that I've always believed is that a great album is always better than a great song. If you can put together a series songs in a way that feels complete and coherent, it is more satisfying than any singular song can possibly be. I think the struggle comes when discussing something like wrestling matches that can be viewed as individual matches or a continuous storyline that all ties together in the end. How do we properly evaluate context? I think everyone here can watch Misawa vs. Kawada from 6/3/94 and enjoy it as a ingular piece of art, but what about a match like Tanahashi vs. Okada from 1/4/16? Can you properly evaluate that match without context? Is it better because of how it works with the other matches in their series or is it worse because it doesn't work without that context? These are the questions that come up when I think about how I'm thinking.

Parv, your post is really informative. It wasn't a film criticism class, it was a rhetorical criticism class for people in school to be journalists. We looked at a wide variety of art, politcal speeches, literature, advertising, and news reports. The entire point of the class was to train us to be objective with how we look at the world. It really was an invaluable class for me and has guided the way I think about things ever since. I can see why it isn't for everyone, but in my eyes everything should stand on its own merits. In my eyes comparing everything to everything else minimizes the strengths and weaknesses of the piece of art I'm criticizing. Everything you ever write is all about YOU. It always is. It can't not be. Every opinion we ever hold, every reaction we have to any given situation, it all involves some level of subjectivity. This idea that we should come in as a perfect tabula rasa to experience any particular piece of art is absolute horseshit. There's no way to be completely objective in our response to anything ever. We all bring our own baggage to the experience, our own biases and foreknowledge. Like, I've seen a lot of horror movies. When I saw the shockingly fucking terrible remake of Prom Night, I went: "whoa, in all my years watching crappy slasher flicks, that's one of the absolute worst that I've ever seen". A nominally "scary movie" didn't scare me at all, it inflicted an unintended combination of depression and outrage, based heavily upon my previous knowledge of other works in the same genre and how much better 99% of them were than this garbage. Now, if we take some blushing virgin who's never ever seen a horror film before and show them this: they might actually find it scary. And, in that one case: hooray, the filmmakers completely achieved their goals. That doesn't change the fact that it didn't work for ME at all, and it doesn't make it my fault that their movie failed in part because I've seen so many other movies that did the exact same thing but did it in such an infinitely superior manner. We cannot look at art or entertainment objectively. Ever. Period. Every single time, even if we're trying to keep the most open of spotless minds, we're still subconsciously comparing it to an entire checklist of prior knowledge. I agree that we can't ever be totally objective, but my goal is to be as objective as possible. I couldn't possibly remove all previous knowledge from my brain, but I can disregard it and try not to let it color my analysis. I honestly thought people were going to agree when I typed that original post, but I guess people have strong opinions on methods of criticism.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true. Like, if someone happens to make a movie which is set in your hometown and then they proceed to completely fuck up the geography and have characters teleporting from one side of town to the other, that's not your fault for knowing that Alpha Street is nowhere near Omega Avenue when the protagonist steps from one to the other in the blink of an edit. That's on the filmmakers for assuming everyone in their audience is completely ignorant, especially since everyone who was on the set knows that those two streets don't touch. Or if a character whips out a revolver with a silencer on it and the gunshots proceed to make that cat-sneeze "thewp" sound effect, it's on the filmmakers for assuming that the audience knows so little about guns that they aren't aware that this is impossible (especially since on set they would've heard the loud BANG that the gun still makes). No film exists in a vacuum. Every viewer brings their own baggage. And if something in the film is so factually inaccurate that it sets off a viewer's bullshit alarm, that's the film's fault, not the audience's. Choosing to ignore the real facts of any situation is a voluntary creative choice on the part of the artists, and EVERY creative choice should be fair game for criticism. So every movie based in and around Washington D.C. should have an extended traffic scene? Or is it OK for an FBI agent to go from Quantico to Langley like it's right around the corner? I know that isn't real, but I also know it doesn't make any real difference in the movie. So if a movie is perfect in every way except that the characters aren't true to their real life counterparts, you think you should judge the movie negatively because of it? For clarity my paper was based on this exact notion, and I fully understand why I had to rewrite it. In Invincible the main character went to Eagles camp and his coach Dick Vermeil was a hard ass. Dick Vermeil is essentially the least hard ass football coach of all time, and it took me out of the movie. Here's the thing, if Vermeil would have been the loving, blubbering, sensitive coach that he was in real life, that movie wouldn't have been any better than what it was. It was something I noticed, but wouldn't have really improved the movie in any meaningful way. It still would have been an overwhelmingly average movie. It is 100% irrelevant to the quality of the movie. The fact that it they wrote the coach as a hard ass when I know he wasn't has more to do with me than the movie. I wasn't supposed to be writing about me, I was supposed to be writing about the movie. Bringing up something that really doesn't matter to anyone but me is not what I was assigned to do.

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant. Matt, so in your opinion the only way a movie can be bad is if there is a good movie you can compare it to? There is a value in being groundbreaking, but there are plenty of things that are groundbreaking but not necessarily good. If Transformers was the first movie ever made, it would still be a bad piece of art. It would still have all the same issues whether or not other movies exist. Comparing it to other things makes it easier to see those flaws, but those flaws exist with or without those other movies.

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match. What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s? There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather. EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does. You are kind of saying the same thing I'm saying. Transformers isn't good at being a big, dumb, summer blockbuster, but the last few Fast and the Furious movies are great at it. You can watch a Fast and Furious movie and understand why they are doing every single ridiculous thing that they are doing. You can see all of the absurd car stunts. You can believe that all of those outrageous characters love each other and would go on international crime sprees to help their "family." The jokes are funny, and you end up rooting for the heroes despite the fact that they have to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. What I'm saying is that Transformers isn't bad because the Fast and Furious movies exist. Transformers is bad all by itself. There really isn't a reason to bring up any other movie when discussing why it is bad.

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match.

*Sunny gives a blowjob* J.R.: This is going to be a slobberknocker! *Sunny takes it up the ass* J.R.: It might be bowling shoes ugly but it is effective! I really wished that Like button worked.