S.L.L.

This is an interesting point. These days, would you say that the "average" fan is that teen boy who goes to RAW live and comes home and posts like this on certain, less high-brow forums ( ): OMG, CENA SUX! WTF? CENA RULZ! YOU SUCK! And the like? Hehe, I can't even fathom the idea of a wrestling fan these days who doesn't like it enough to get involved in some kind of community -- which usually means forums, unless they happen to know a bunch of friends who watch it with them. Probably. The internet is ubiquitous enough in 2009 that I don't doubt a lot of average fans talk about it online. That said, the internet is a very big place, and boards like this one represent a pretty extreme form of fandom that most people just never get to. I mean, I come from a circle of fandom where the two obvious candidates for best worker of 2008 were Yuki Ishikawa and Blue Panther. Try asking the average wrestling fan (well, the average Amercian fan at least), which of those guys were the better worker, or even who either of those guys are, and see what kind of answer you get.

:/ John Well...it's semi-logical in that it does logically follow that if you don't like the "Memphis style", and that the style comprises every form of wrestling, then you don't like any form of wrestling, and therefore, don't like wrestling. Only "semi" because that's obviously a huge oversimplification and there are way too many other factors at play here for that to possibly be true. It was really a hyperbolic statement used to fire back against other similarly hyperbolic statements about "the Memphis style", or what some people perceived it to be, anyway. Doesn't make it any more accurate (well, maybe a little ), but again, that's the internet for you. But this is really a semantic argument, I think. We're basically in agreement on this. "If you're not a fan of X, you're not a fan of pro wrestling," when stated seriously, is a clear myth, and I'd really like to think it's not in need of a proper busting, but I kinda fear it might be. While it goes without saying (or at least should go without saying) that having personal experience with something grants you certain knowledge about that thing that you wouldn't otherwise have, it doesn't make you automatically right in everything you say about that subject, or even inherently more right than someone with less experience. It introduces a whole host of biases that skew objectivity: you say things to push your friends, you say things to cut down your enemies, you say things to kiss up to your boss, you say things from the perspective of a fellow wrestler and not as a fan, and you fail to take the fans' views into account. And maybe some people have forgotten this, but the whole point of wrestling is to entertain the fans. To that end, the opinions of the fans are pretty fuckin' important, and realistically they trump the opinions of fellow wrestlers pretty easily. That shouldn't be so hard to understand. Now, I'm self-aware enough to realize that I don't represent the average wrestling fan. None of us do, I don't think. But even with that in mind, acting like the opinions of wrestlers of their fellow wrestlers is inherently better than the opinions of a fringe wrestling wingnut like me seems silly. The wrestlers are making their judgments by standards that have little to no practical application for wrestling fans, and guys like me are making judgments based on similar standards as the bulk of fans, but with a far more critical eye than they use and than was really intended to be used on the work. Both sides can see things that the other sides can't, but most of the things that wrestlers can see that we can't are really only of any value if you're a wrestler. And again, the only opinion that should really matter to you in any significant way is your own. Seriously, why is this discussion even happening? Do people really need someone else to form their opinions for them? Why is this even an issue?

I could see someone not being a fan of it, and still being a fan of pro wrestling. It would be a bit like saying that because Bahu liked FWM more than All Japan that he wasn't a fan of pro wrestling. There are a lot of different tastes in what folks like in wrestling. I don't think Memphis is for everyone anymore than All Japan 90s was for everyone. The "If you're not a fan of X, you're not a fan of pro wrestling" spot probably warrants a place on the Wrestling Mythbusters list. That's not a knock at Will, because I doubt he was being literal if he said it. John I'm pretty sure it was meant as hyperbole (at least, that's how I meant it when I used it on the same subject). Gist is, a lot of people nowadays seem to have certain preconceived notions about "the Memphis style", not realizing that it was much, much more stylistically varied than it was being given credit for, and that it actually covered enough bases that no matter what your tastes in wrestling were, you'd probably find something in there that would strike your fancy. Hence, if there was nothing in there that you liked, it would semi-logically mean that you didn't like any style of wrestling, and therefore were not a wrestling fan. Obviously, that's not strictly true, but that's the internet for you. EDIT: So, yeah, what codegreen said.

This quote comes from DVDVR #3 -- I quote it not to raise any discussion about Benoit but more to emphasize the amusing line about evolving so quickly. It cracked me up. When did these reviews begin? I am guessing 1998 or so. . . Around 1996, as I recall.

Yeah, what you guys are saying. Great matches are built around great stories, and ladder matches are no different from any other type of match in that regard. But a lot of guys saw Michaels' performance at Mania X and learned the wrong lesson: that ladder matches were cool because you had something really tall to jump off of, instead of just creating a new way to tell a wrestling story that was a good way to shake things up every now and then. So we get a whole host of interchangeable and mostly forgettable ladder matches in the years that followed, but it's the originals that everyone remembers because they actually had the right idea. "Paling in comparison" to later ladder matches has nothing to do with it. Those later ladder matches being pale imitations that completely missed the point of the originals is more like it. It's like how comic fans still consider "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns" to be classics, but they roll their eyes at the generation of over-the-top anti-heroes those books inspired. Later artists latched onto the style of the originals, but completely missed the substance.

Ummmm...why the fuck would you rely on any of those guys' opinions when you could just watch the work yourself and draw your conclusions about how good a wrestler is? I mean, just from my own experience, nobody told me Kevin was better than David. Quite the opposite, really. But I watched the stuff, and this was the opinion I came away with. What am I supposed to do about that? "Well, that David Von Erich match was 20 minutes of my life that I'll never get back...an hour, actually, because the first two times I tried to sit through this, I passed out from sheer boredom...but Ric Flair said he was the best working Von Erich, so I guess I actually enjoyed it in a really subtle, imperceptible way." It doesn't work that way. That's why I - like most people - rely on my own personal opinion of something's quality, rather than being slavishly beholden to the opinions of someone else. Try it. It's fun!

C'mon, man. It's no fun when the trolling is this transparent.

Here's the tricky thing about "X-Pac heat"...if the fans don't like a face because they think he sucks, they can boo him, and it's pretty easy to get the message. If the fans don't like a heel because they think he sucks, how are they supposed to react in order to get the message across that they hate this guy on the merits of his performance, rather than because he's effectively playing a bad guy? That's expecting too much from wrestling fans. In general, we're not that on the ball. The oft-repeated story is that we know X-Pac heat exists because when the entire WWF roster was turned face in the Alliance angle, X-Pac was the one guy still getting booed. To be honest, that was probably the only conclusive way to tell. Otherwise, you kinda just have to rely on guesswork. It's like trying to figure out who was really "over" in any kind of meaningful way in in pre-Russo TNA vs. who just got cheered because TNA fans were the most indiscriminately enthusiastic people in the world at that point unless Jeff Jarrett was involved.

When I started watching the footage for the Texas set, one of the first things that jumped out at me was how good Kevin was, and specifically, how he was one of those wrestlers who just seemed to have mastered all the tools. Yes, he was an awesome brawler, though I never really got a 3/4 legit vibe from his brawling, and wouldn't really say he was any more of reckless stiff than the vast majority of your great brawlers. Not really a Vader/Hansen type in that regard. I mean, just in World Class, Iceman King Parsons was way stiffer than Kevin was. Parsons was a fucking beast. But in any case, that was just one part of what Kevin did. Like Bill Dundee on the Memphis set, Kevin is a guy who almost immediately took me by surprise with his matwork. In the super-secret 80's forum (shhhhh, it's a secret), shoe referred to him as a "redneck Regal", and I'm inclined to agree. He had a lot of really cool athletic flourishes to his stuff that he could mix in effectively to both his brawling and his technical work, and while his flying certainly isn't high-tech by modern standards, it still looks really good today, and his turning top-rope crossbody is probably the best looking crossbody I've ever seen. Guy who was great at working a lot of different roles. Great as an underdog babyface against larger opponents like Gordy, Bundy, and Khan. Saw him wrestle Bundy in a match where he convincingly played the underdog even though he was booked to control most of the match's offense. I didn't even realize that was possible. Great at working evenly with other guys more his size. Great at working face-in-peril in tag matches, and may be one of the best I've ever seen working on the apron. Really, the only thing I haven't seen him do is work heel. Seriously, it's not like he was New Jack. If wasn't smart to the business, then pretty much everyone else who's ever been in it was fuckin' retarded to the business. I'll grant you that David was probably the best promo of the big three Von Erich siblings, and certainly the most coherent. That said, I wouldn't say that Kerry or Kevin were particularly bad on the mic. Their words weren't very eloquently formed, to say the least, but they definitely communicated their ideas effectively and with a kind of sincerity that connected with the viewer. And I certainly wouldn't say he had "loads more charisma" than Kerry. Probably wouldn't even say he had more charisma than Kerry in the first place, though they're close enough that the argument could probably be made. I really need to kill off the rest of the Texas footage I have so I can push this thing forward. The sooner the DVDVR Texas set hits, the sooner we can put this myth to rest for good. Not that that sketch wasn't awesome, but I wouldn't even argue it's the most entertaining thing that a Von Erich did with Jimmy Garvin. Myth, because it's not lost. Well, I don't see how any modern day WWE PPV main event could ever get lost, but I'd certainly say it was under appreciated and forgotten about by certain segments of the wrestling fan community. Sure it was well liked at the time, but it's not the sort of match that Dave Meltzer or Bryan Alvarez or Wade Keller would ever point to as a classic, so in that sense you could call it lost. Serious question (myth?): are these guys still the major smark tastemakers at this point? I mean, I know their opinions are still considered important by some people (well, I know Dave's opinions are), but are they still on such a high level that they'd be considered the major judges of what is and isn't considered good wrestling these days? Because it kinda feels like they're just some other name guys with opinions at this point, as opposed to being the name guys with opinions.

Cool idea. Let's see what we can do with it. I'm knee deep in World Class from working on the Texas set. This was always what I had heard, but it definitely seems like a myth to me. What I wrote elsewhere.... Depends on how you define "revitalized". True, it was a lot more vital then than it was before they showed up, but it didn't sustain itself for very long. Myth, because it's not lost.

Yes, but you forget: -Work has largely been ignored/under-appreciated until the last few years. I remember right around the time Fujiwara was getting rediscovered, Bix shot Meltzer an e-mail asking about his HOF candidacy (I don't think he's ever even been on the ballot). I don't remember exactly what his response was, but it was pretty dismissive.

Well, I will float out the theory that this has something to do with the hardness of head scale that all wrestling fans of course know. ;-) (Unnoficial rankings from the World Wrestling Council) 1- Samoans 2- Giants 3- Fat people 4- Black guys 5- Non-fat heavyweights 6- Non-heavyweights Ooooh, good point. But...where does Road Warrior Hawk fit into that? And why they seem to hurt Americans more than the Japanese, particularly in certain parts of the south and current WWE. Hmmm....

Well, when we're talking about wrestling, we're talking about an entire genre of fiction that stretches out over a very long period of time and across the globe, but still seems to all belong to the same fictional universe, more or less. Not sure there's any other genre of fiction that you can say that for. So I think with wrestling, one of the rules of the universe you have to accept is that the rules themselves are fluid, and that they're prone to changing due to time, location, and promotion. Like, selling exists in all forms of wrestling, but the way it's presented is fluid, and the specific expectations for what qualifies as "good" selling differ from time to time and place to place. Or piledrivers hurt like a mother, but they hurt Mexicans more than they hurt the Japanese. I'm hard-pressed to think of a good, logical in-universe explanation for that sort of thing, but it's something you kind of have to accept if you're not just going to restrict yourself to one sub-genre of wrestling.

He's talking about Rob Feinstein.

Honestly, just the fact that we got the HitC the next month makes up for the shitty finish as far a I'm concerned. And the first match was actually pretty good until said finish, as I recall. Those two had pretty good chemistry together. I was pretty down on Taker during that period, but those matches made me realize he actually still had something left in the tank, even if he had to "not feel it" in order to get the full effect out of it.

Don't be sorry. That was actually pretty informative. I always just assumed that Meltzer talking up Graham as a guy that could've been a huge star as a Hogan-esque babyface was just another extension of Dave's irrational hate boner for Backlund. I guess it still is, technically speaking, but that does throw a bit more light onto the situation. Personally, I always just thought it was funny how Dave, because he hated Backlund's work so much, wanted to see him replaced with a charismatic, roided-up dude with a flamboyant personality and questionable in-ring skills...which is exactly what Vince Jr. eventually did, and Dave hated that guy just as much as he hated Backlund. And while my viewing of Graham's work is pretty limited, always got the impression that he was less skilled than Hogan. I guess the grass is always greener in the NWA.

This is the part I was referring to. What makes what he is writing have any value if he readily admits that he is missing possibly important parts of a match? And why the emphasis on making sure he gets his jokes in? Because where would we be without the brisk witticisms of Scott Keith? But yeah, that's true. I did some live play-by-play style pieces for Segunda Caida once. Personally, I found it to be unsatisfying as both a wrestling viewer and a wrestling reviewer, and I never returned to the style. In fairness I'm not a fast typist, and I like to be able to puzzle out my thoughts for a while sometimes to find the best wording for them. But still, you need to have really good jokes about Kronik's hair to justify this.

That's....actually not terrible advice. Of course, it hasn't delivered actual quality reviews for Scooter, but the message itself is pretty solid.

Not to bog this down by stating the obvious, but we're not going to know whether or not this card is a disaster until it happens. WrestleMania 23 felt like it was going to be the biggest thing ever...and it was. WrestleMania 24 felt like it was going to be a pale shadow of 23...and it was almost as good, maybe even as good, maybe even better. Starrcade '97 felt like it was going to be the biggest thing ever...and it was a shit card that was the beginning of WCW's downward spiral. WrestleMania 4 looked like a terrible idea on paper...and it was a terrible idea in execution. I'm not saying one shouldn't have certain expectations based on available evidence, and certainly the build to Mania 25 feels more like the build to Mania 4 or 24 than it does Mania 23 or Starrcade '97. But I agree with Will that the card itself, while it probably could be better (much rather have a Cena/Edge singles match, much rather have Jericho/Lawler, much rather have Show try to get his revenge on Money Mayweather, etc.), doesn't actually look bad. Fuck, I buy WrestleMania pretty much every year unless the card looks like total shit. I'm probably not going to stop now. As for the financial end of it...yeah, they're probably gonna suffer. And yeah, that's partially the economy's fault, and yeah, it's also because of the anemic build to the show. But it's WrestleMania, man. I may be a jaded, overanalytical smark douchebag, but I'm still a wrestling fan. When the day comes that I can no longer get behind 'Mania, I think it's time that I pack it in.

Just following the path of the conversation. Your last post was about my thoughts on Vince's insanity. What did you think I was going to write about? The DVD? We left that a long time ago. Not my problem. So we agree? The very, very short version of my argument is "Vince McMahon's observable behavior suggests antisocial personality disorder". Stripped of hyperbole, do you agree with this? They're not equivalent, strictly speaking. That said, the price of fame is that everyone knows what you're doing, and thus will naturally make certain assumptions about you. They don't see everything that you're doing, so they don't have the complete, fully nuanced picture. But they see enough to get ideas, and if your behavior reinforces those ideas enough, there's usually something to it. Vince's observable behavior suggests he's crazy, and he's given us enough of that behavior to reinforce the idea to the point that most people who aren't hyper-defensive about the biz are inclined to think there's something to it. There's a shadow of a doubt, as there always is when you're talking about someone you've had no first-hand experience with, but you can say that about 99% of things in the world and practically all of human history, yet I don't see you saying "Hey! How do you know the Roman Empire conquered Egypt in 31 BC? You weren't there, man!" Yeah, our beliefs about history and public figures and a whole bunch of other stuff turn out to be wrong sometimes, but when all the evidence points towards something, people tend to believe that it's true until it's proven otherwise. If you hate wild speculation so much, what are you even doing on the internet?

You seriously believe than in a literal sense? Well, this time I was sensible enough to preface it with... ...but I would still say that there is a fair chance that it's true. Except possibly for the drug use (the only visibly obvious sign of which we've seen is his muscular body suggesting steroids), absolutely none of that would hold water in any sort of legal dealings actually relating to factual definitions of insanity. Perhaps no one individual trait listed - or even any one of the mountains of unconfirmed traits - would be enough to put him away on it's own. That said, actual psychologists don't usually treat individual traits of a patient as being somehow unconnected to one another, but rather look at them altogether as a whole. Lots of people have a few traits commonly associated with certain types of mental illness and are not actually mentally ill, but when you have a whole lot of those traits, it tends to raise some red flags. Let's crack open our DSM-IV handbooks and see what we can find.... I initially "diagnosed" Vince with antisocial personality disorder and hypomania. For those who didn't pick up on the hip psych lingo, antisocial personality disorder is defined as "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood". Most of the time, when you see people talking about "psychopaths" or "sociopaths", this is what they're talking about, although they're not really the same thing, strictly speaking. Hypomania is, according to our friends at Wikipedia, "a mood state characterized by persistent and pervasive elevated or irritable mood, and thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with such a mood state". It's honestly not the worst thing in the world. As the name itself states, it's "below mania" in terms of severity, basically the heightened mood and energy of mania, but without the psychosis, though sometimes it might lead to irritability or poor judgement. It tends to be associated with bipolar disorder, but since we only ever see the manic elements of Vince's behavior, I don't want to speculate further on that. Let's start by looking at the hypomania, because that's probably the more agreeable one to a Vince sanity defender. The DSM-IV gives the following criteria for a hypomanic episode: Obviously, I have no way at all to prove "A", so right off the bat, I don't have enough to deliver a legitimate diagnosis, but this is all just meant to be speculation, anyway. Every single one of the "B" symptoms can be attributed to Vince, and only one relies on corroboration through anecdotal evidence (POWER NAPS~!). "C" is hard to confirm because he seems to be this way 24/7, so I'll just err on the side of caution and say "no". I can observe the hell out of "D". We all seem to agree on "E". "F" actually stands a good chance of proving my hypothesis wrong, but while Vince is certainly an addict, I can't claim to know his drug use inside out. Honestly, this feels more like a "maybe" than it did when I first wrote that up. I think I put too much emphasis on "B" since it had all the observable symptoms. Sloppy work on my part, but that's why I'm not a real psychologist, just a dude who's interested in the subject. Now, antisocial personality disorder.... We have him dead to rights on six of the "A" symptoms: he's flouted the law, he's a chronic liar, he's impulsive as all hell, he's irritable and aggressive as all hell, he has absolutely no regard for the safety of anyone, and he has shown no remorse for any of his behavior. "B" is kinda obvious. The whole "crushed leaves" thing - amongst a whole lot of other stuff - gives us "C". The only thing needed to sew this up is to confirm that he's not schizophrenic and that his whole life isn't one big long manic episode. Considering this is already way deep into TL;DR territory, I'll just say that I can't disprove schizophrenia, but it strikes me as unlikely, and mania, like hypomania, is a "maybe", but leaning more towards "no". True enough, but.... ....usually "the best of us" don't reward their abusers for their behavior. They also wouldn't even think about suggesting to their pregnant daughter that they should run an angle where they would turn out to be the father of her baby. Not everyone who is abused in their youth grows up to be a monster, but Vince's observable behavior seems to be sending the message that the abuse he suffered - at least the sexual abuse - was A-OK. That's not a healthy outlook on life. Typical corporations don't have the body count that professional wrestling does. There's being cutthroat, and then there's being indifferent to an epidemic of deaths that you are partially to blame for. The former can certainly be morally questionable. With the latter, there is no question. No one is making him out to be a drooling nutjob. A nutjob, sure, but not all nutjobs drool. Mental illness comes in many forms, and just because Vince McMahon isn't living in a cardboard box and wearing a pirate hat while ranting about how Jesus told him Randy Savage conceived the new messiah with his daughter doesn't preclude him from being crazy. That's not how this shit works. Ted Bundy appeared to all the world to be a clean-cut law student. Ted Kaczynski was an assistant professor at Berkeley who had a PhD in mathematics who moved to a remote cabin Montana ostensibly to learn how to be self-sufficient - an eccentric move, but not insane in and of itself, and his prior reputation kept him from suspicion until his brother read the Unabomber Manifesto and saw the similarities between it and Ted's earlier writings. Elizabeth Bathory was a countess of Hungary who handled her husband's business affairs and defended his estates while he was off fighting in the Long War, was well-educated, was considered to be a loving mother, and who was the most prolific female serial killer in human history. Harold Shipman had a brief stint in rehab near the beginning of his criminal career, but bounced back to become a successful general practitioner and was a generally respected figure until people started to pick up on the notion that he was killing a shit ton of people. Gilles de Rais was a commander in the French Royal Army and later became a theater promoter. And there's all those dictators over the years who "got the trains to run on time" - which, as anyone living anywhere near New York City can tell you, is a hell of a feat - while crushing countless innocents under their heels. And there was that Benoit guy, who seemed to be doing his job just as well as he ever had right before he offed his family. I mean, I could just go on and on and on, and I guess I already have, but long story slightly less long, you just don't know what you're talking about. Is he not taking crazy people and making them crazier through methods that include (more or less) company-mandated drug use? I mean, I doubt this is his intention, but it's certainly a side effect of his methods, and one that he is pretty indifferent to. I don't think I ever said "legitimately insane". I definitely said "insane" or "crazy" or something like that. Might have even thrown in a qualifier ("you have to be kinda insane", "you have to be at least a little crazy", etc.). "You have to be at least a little crazy" is probably closest to the truth, and if what I said wasn't that or didn't come off that way, my bad. I should also impress on people that there's nothing wrong with being a little bit crazy. Personally, I find it makes life more interesting. But there are limits. I'm still a wrestling fan. How seriously can I possibly be taking it? I've made some silly hyperbolic comments here and there, and I have dipped into purple prose more than once, but I don't see how I've actually exaggerated the severity of what's going on. And you sound like the opposing party's spin doctor telling us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Thankfully, the points tend to stand on their own.

Yeah, it's not like a shoot punch from, say, Lioness Asuka or Aja Kong would ever run the risk of hurting someone. C'mon, take it, bitch!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have outright said this in the past.... No, I am not a trained psychologist, I do not personally know Vince McMahon, and none of the above should be treated as serious psychological analysis. It's the views of a layman who knows a thing or two about psychology and applied that knowledge to a guy based on second and third-hand accounts of his behavior. It is, in and of itself, bunk, and I wouldn't want to send Vince off to the funny farm based only on what I know now without examining the man personally. But all of the man's observable behavior - including all of the glimpses we've had into the "real" Vince, the one who had an awful childhood loaded with sexual abuse, the one who was chill enough with said sexual abuse that he bought his mother a tennis court later in life, the one who saw nothing wrong with running an angle where he would be the father of his daughter's child, the one who is observably a rampant drug abuser, the one who has taken a decidedly callous approach to dealing (or rather, refusing to deal) with the mounting body count in his profession for which he is at least partially responsible for - as well as the mountains of anecdotal evidence suggest that the man is nuttier than a Stucky's log, and to ignore that seems naive at best and delusional at worst.

Riiiiiiiight. I guess that was thrown in there because Meltzer mentioned in his story that he was given that name because it was short for testosterone. Not to mention that it contradicts the explanation for the name they already established way back when he first showed up (he was Motley Crue's bodyguard, so in order to get to them, you had to "pass the Test"). Not that I expect the vast majority of people to remember that or anything, just that it's sloppy work. Since when does "personal security" do sound checks, anyway?

Given Vince's mental state in recent years, this is the only plausible scenario. Yeah, my understanding of it in recent times - for whatever that's worth - was that it wasn't true, and Vince knew it not to be true, but it got repeated so many times that Vince just kinda started believing it because he's an insane old man who's lost all connection to reality. Meltzer believes it, but Meltzer also believes that MMA is "real" wrestling and Kurt Angle is an all-time great worker and has otherwise proven he can be really, really gullible if you give him a chance. Personally, I wouldn't look too hard at this. I don't think there's much there to see.