El-P

Actually it's odd. The whole idea of star rating passed me by around 2001 at the latest. I haven't used this stuff in my writing in more than 15 years and wouldn't even consider it. I'm actually kinda shocked how much people still consider it of any interest to be honest.

This is the next Back to the Territories from KC, not Highspots (these guys are still active BTW ?). It sounds like it'll be a fascinating interview. Big time.

CM Punk & Daniel Bryan are the reasons why they opened their eyes to indy talent as main eventers and pushed AJ Styles straight on, not NXT. It's actually the other way around, what NXT became in the last few years is because of that change of mentality. I know people don't seem to want to give Punk any credit at all these days, but there's clearly been a before/after that guy as a WWE main-eventer.

Yes. They're both useless. And Fantano is your typical Youtube hipster jerkoff.

I like Joey Ryan's dick spot.

This is her comeback # how many already ? With Lana doing the glamour girl bit, I guess Emmalina is destined to be lost in the shuffle forever at this rate. Waste of talent.

Best summary indeed.

Of course it's figurative. Like the BILLION TRILLION STARS of old Dean Rassmussen reviews. But Meltz star ratings aren't. It's a system with a scale that has been established over the last 30 years. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it means absolutely zilch. Except when he does, as it influences the way the (hardcore, the only one that matters today for indies and such) audience see what a great match is, and then the way business works when it leans on the need of having "great" matches to draw said hardcore audience.

After 20 years of watching pro-wrestling with mostly critical eyes, I don't think I have seen ten matches I would give a 5 star ratings. I don't use the scale anymore, but I'm pretty positive about that fact. People are just praising way too much shit left and right as great for me to take any of this seriously.

It's not a matter of taking it too seriously or not, it's a matter of making sense in a given context. You can give as loony as you want of a star rating inside the scale, but when you make the whole scale useless, what's the point anyway ?

The Miz has carried the IC belt lately. He's been a good chicken shit champ with a hot valet. Very enjoyable worker. Charlotte has had some of the best WWE matches of the past few years and looked like a main event player. Easy choice.

Except now the scale is worthless. What does a ***** match even means, since you can give whatever snowflakes you want basically ? ******1/4 on what scale ? Seven ? Six and a half ? It's just stupid. And yes, Meltz officialy made his own system look like a joke (I'd say, again, but at least the 6 stars felt like, okay, this is a very special case) and himself as a complete parody as far as evaluating a match goes.

So, the last segment of TNA in 2006 was Kurt Angle snapping Samoa Joe's girlfriend ankle's to get a rematch (which would be the third match in three PPV's in a row). It's almost surreal how bad and quick Russo completely tanked my interest in the promotion which was so fun and easy to watch with for most of the Spike's era. I know if I was following this as it happened, I would have quit by this point, like I quit WWF in 99 and WCW in mid 00. 3 out of 3.

I'm telling you. He's on his way to become Robert Parker, as you get big matches in both NJ & WWE catering to his current tastes, for various reasons. Globalization of pro-wrestling is a terrible thing (like globalization in general).

Wait, again ? This is ridiculous. Never cared for the MITB gimmick it has jumped the shark a long time ago. Mostly can't stand the matches too, as it's usually a bunch of ladder stunts. That being said, with AJ and Sami involved, maybe we can get something. I have no idea what a guy like Nak can do in this setting. Corbin, I guess you can climb on him. He's about as charismatic as a ladder too. The women's match. Well, just what the division needed, someone carrying a briefcase. Why can't they just have a good solid single feud between Charlotte & Becky ? This willl probably be not too good. Lana. Wait, LANA ? Well, that's something I'm gonna watch, with morbid curiosity I guess. The two bookends matches are dull as all hell. A gimmicked sub In Your House PPV every three weeks is not the way to go.

The fact that it became mundane as opposed to shameful doesn't make it a Golden Age. During Cena's heyday, which is hardly a golden age itself, there was kids in France wearing his merch in the streets. There's none today. Except a few lucha theme stuff (even movies) that has less to do with people actually watching, knowing or caring about lucha than the designs being cool, pro-wrestling is off the radar. But we live in a more and more geeky world, where geeky stuff are more part of the ordinary. And pro-wrestling is a "geeky" hobby. For the hardcores though, yes, it is somewhat of a Golden Age, if only because of all the indies and access to footage.

The Golden Age for hardcores maybe (and mostly if you're into indie style which has permeated WWE and NJ), but as far as being a thing in pop culture, pro-wrestling is as irrelevant as ever. As far as match quality goes, I'd absolutely argue that the bar has been lowered during the last 10 years, because of both workratism and post-Benoit workrate guilt, which is why now everything is *great* and *MOTYC*, on both sides of the spectrum. This is why I'm told today that Will Ospreay or Roman Reigns (the two opposite sides) are great wrestlers. And I agree with neither of these statements.

Has Meltz finally become the Robert Parker of pro-wrestling ?

Thanks. One hour draw ? Fuck that. I want to watch good 15-20 minutes stuff now.

And there goes my interest to even watch that match out of curiosity. I though the Dome match as an overblown spotfest, so… not spending the time for a match I feel I *have to* watch just to react to it. How long was that match ? The idea of Okada vs Cody fucking Rhodes and Tanahashi vs Billy fucking Gunn makes this whole NJ in USA deal a no-no to me.

Nakamura was not nearly as over or special after one year in NXT. He peaked with the Sami Zayn match. He was never as over and that was his best match by far. Maybe he'll get back to that level. Probably not. Cf that Ziggler match. Add to that fact, he's a main eventer in NXT. He's being featured as a star. He knows that the chances of him getting that same kind of treatment in the main roster are very slim (and honestly, I never bought Roode as a main eventer to begin with, so more power to him). The fact he learned stuff doesn't change the fact he's a 15 years veteran who showed up and was over because of his name and reputation from his TNA work (which kinda put in perspective the idea of TNA being a totally irrelevant company). I never said NXT was useless or had no purpose. But guys like Joe, Nak, Roode are not produced by the WWE system at all. They are stars from different territories thrown in the mix with their name and look being the same. Better production ? You'd hope for, that has been the thing of the WWE since Vince took over. That being said, the whole WWE machinery can also be a detriment to those guys to me (like I said, I find the Glorious bit god awful, cool to know Nak refused it). Especially the way they teach all the guys they sign to move like animatronics during their intros.

I never said I was fair. I dunno. Bobby Rhode is basically himself from TNA, the gimmick he's been doing for 10 years now. With that godawful and annoying Glorious bit. Nakamura's aura was arguably reduced by working a year in NXT (although nothing compared to that awful match with Ziggler). Samoa Joe came in a star from years in TNA & ROH. At this point, OVW still wins the award for turning up stars from scratch.

In the grand scheme of things, no. But as far as debunking WWE's ridiculous storytelling, yes.

NXT is a fantasy world so HHH get stroke his dick and show he can "manage a promotion" while getting lip service from smart marks because he's doing "old-school wrestling " with IndyDarlings™. It develops zilch. WWE is now buying talent all over the place, to the point of putting small women japanese promotions in difficult situations and trying to screw with the active UK indy scene. Of course, we get some damn cool stuff and cards out of it. But let's not be naive. It's a smoke screen for WWE's agressive expension strategy, much like the cruiser show (a huge failure) and the UK show (and a women show to come ?). The Main Brand is what matters. And whoever Vince wants to see succeed in it will be pushed. Others will get god awful bookings and get lost quickly. Cf the idiotic and useless booking of Bayley (and let's not even talk about American Alpha nor Sami Zayn).

Holy shit. By December of 2006, iMPACT was unwatchable. It's like they tried to cram a hundred sequences in a 40 minutes show. Insane. It's like the whole show is on speed. 20 seconds backstage angles, 2 minutes matches, tons of truthfully unfunny comedy, nonsensical drama, no replay no time to breath NEXT SEQUENCE NOW !!! Impressive. It's even worse than the weekly PPV era because there's no time for anything good to eventually happen and take place. Everything, even some stuff with potential interest, has to be done on fast forward. Insane.