Matt D

I think lucha IS hard. Not Sangre Chicana vs MS-1. That's primal. But if you were to just watch tomorrow night's show on Clarosports, it would be hard. I can think of a couple of reasons for that, some of which I've touched on before, and it is about the viewers and how they've been conditioned, not the wrestling. 1.) Everything you think you know is wrong: Or at least it's inadequate. You've been given the wrong information to help you. This is not for the younger fans but the ones approximately Parv's age. Nitro conditioned us poorly with 8 minute spotfest trios and Mike Tenay giving us the least useful information in the world. Again, i've covered this before, but coming in knowing the RULES about captain's falls and tags not being necessary if someone leaves the ring is about as useless as watching a 80s WWF match for the first time and being told about the 5 count on a rope break or if someone goes up to the top rope. They are trappings but just trappings. What's far more useful when it comes to that 80s WWF match is to learn about shine-heat-comeback, about some traditional transitions (putting the head down on a back body drop), about hope spots. That's what you would tell someone in understanding a match like that. No one starts with the RULES. It's like starting to explain the plot of Star Wars by going on about the different things Vader can do with the Force. It's not the narrative. So you end up with people thinking they're ready to understand lucha because it'll be just like what they're used to except for a few rule changes and that's not the case. There are the similarities that goc mentioned but except for in the lowest hanging fruit, you have to look for them and more importantly look for the patterns and symbols. For instance, captains getting pinned doesn't matter nearly as much as trios matches having a central feud/focus (when they do, which is often, and it's often not the captains at all). 2.) Meltzer (and thus much of the commentary that followed) focused on the wrong things. This is a guy who couldn't figure out why Mocho Cota was a big draw in 1993. This is someone who was into early AAA but only ever seemed to notice (or at least note) half of what was going on in the matches. Look, at my work we have annual performance reviews, and due to the nature of the organization, in these, your core work is generally ignored. It's one objective out of seven, even if it's 90% of your work. What you're supposed to focus on instead is all the other bonus projects you were working on, even if they're ultimately incidental compared to what you've been hired to do and what the organization needs you to do. It's like that with organization-wide awards too. They never reward the CORE work. Meltzer is like that with wrestling. Maybe it's because he grew into wrestling in the 70s when so many of the things we've gone back and discovered and lauded over the last few years were just commonplace for him. "Working" (as opposed to workrate) was taken for granted, or even outright boring, the illusion of action instead of action itself. But that "working," the emotional manipulation of the crowd through falsehood... that's what wrestling is all about. That's the CORE of wrestling. All the big spots and movez and everything else? That's just the bonus and a lot of times it comes (much like in my job) at the expense of the real day to day business, which is a lot harder than it actually looks. Good lucha is almost always about delayed gratification leading to the comeback. It's not about the dives or the flips or the tricked out matwork or the frenetic pace. Those are part of what makes things special (either by highlighting the tecnicos so that when the rudos cheat and take over, you're madder at them due to your respect and awe of the tecnicos skill or in the way that skill is again shown as part of the comeback, the tools for the favorites vanquishing their foes, but really, that could be awesome punches or tricky babyface fouls or someone like Tinieblas, Jr. or Marco Corleone or Dos Caras Jr using their size, or Maximo or Super Porky using humor any number of other things too).

It is immature to do something that you think other fans do immaturely. Just pointing that out. The whole "Two wrongs don't make a right" thing.

(case in point on NWAonDemand: looks like we have a brand new 20 minute Buzz Sawyer vs Chavo Guerrero match from 86 tonight, just like that. It adds up.)

I'm pretty tuned out on WWE, but obviously NXT has been fun for most of the year even if not quite at the levels it once was (save for Revival tags). The World Warriors approach of the Cruiserweight Tournament was a lot of fun. I find indies overwhelming to the point of being unpleasant. I have seen quite a few Chris Hero matches this year and find him well worth watching. I need to see more of Callihan. I thought the title matches during the first half of CMLL's year were stronger (and more plentiful) than the second. I love how much TV we have. There were some great indy lucha matches too and some general fun stuff out of places like Crash and Elite. I'm two discs through the PR set and loving it. Really, though, the story of this year was NWAOnDemand putting out unseen and interesting matches from the 70s and 80s every week. It's hard to even cover it all, great stuff from Gino, Lothario, the best Michael Hayes singles match I've ever seen, a Wahoo vs Harley match, Curry vs Valentine, and some beautiful, beautiful Bockwinkel matches I'm very glad we have and so, so much more. I'm not saying it's the only story of the year, but it's pretty much the only one I care about. The most vibrant, vital and exciting matches in 2016 are new matches from thirty and forty years ago.

It's sort of like CVS if there was no other major national chain pharmacies and they were just competing with a few very small regional chains and ma and pa pharmacies?

More generally, then, selling is a tool, like anything else. it's a primal tool. How it's used has an impact on the possibilities for storytelling within a match. That impact is not necessarily value-driven, but it's not just taste-driven too. Utilizing differing types or degrees or consistency of selling has consequences. And occasionally costs as well. It can hamper energy, etc. You might not want a summer blockbuster where everyone's talking and developing plot and making use of character development when things should be getting blown up left and right. Same with a slasher film. A summer blockbuster or slasher film is probably not winning the academy award though.

To an extent, but not all styles are necessary equal.

Meaning is derived from selling. It's what signifies consequence.

The CMLL vs AAA (or spotty lucha Indy matches) distinction probably matters there.

If you want to cede Parv the point and eschew the cultural issues (and I'm not convinced that's the way to go yet), then the next step would be categorizing elements of each style.

There are too many god damn package piledrivers.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition. Almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring. Not something to emulate for entertainment purposes. I disagree, and judging by the fact UFC is worth more than the WWE and their public perceptions most people seem to as well. Just to muddy the waters further, I wonder sometimes how much your distinct opinions about "realism" in wrestling have to do with when you were born relative to most of the rest of us. In that you've come into watching wrestling in a world where MMA is a much more fully developed sport. It takes up a cultural space. I've likened it to how learning more about science in the 20s-60s changed Science Fiction and what was accepted and not accepted as tropes. We've learned more about fighting and it seems to color your opinions more than it does a lot of us who have been watching since the 80s or early 90s.

I'm glad Parv's doubled back to at least try to engage this. It's not something that should be dismissed out of hand. Granted, a little more maturity and a little less snark might be the adult way to go? Right now it comes off as you being defensive as much as anything else.

I wrote a lot of words on trios matches last November. I'm sure anyone interested in this has read it but I'll repost again for the heck of it:

I'm going to try to go back and watch the bull terrier match, the super libre one and the mask match (maybe some of the trios too, if I can work it all out). I cannot imagine Delta in a situation like this, so I'm curious.

Dylan's cultural rant from GWE results times is probably worthwhile to dredge up at this point. I think that should have been the basis of the discussion that followed and it was generally ignored. Personally, as it pertains to Meltzer, I'd argue that the only aspects of lucha he cares about are ones that almost completely miss the point of it. I read what he was into in the 90s, the dives and the spots and the bumps and the quick sequences and you'd never know how great a rudo someone like Psicosis was when it came to attitude and character and interacting with his opponents and partners and the fans. You'd never get a sense of the ritual and the emotional build and payoff and the delay of gratification. I've almost never seen that in Dave's coverage. I think he's aware of it. He just takes it as a given or doesn't care. One reason why I think it's so hard for people to get into lucha is that they have to unlearn much of the traditional smark rhetoric about it first.

So I'm to this BTS (I am never going to be caught up). Small note on DDP taping his matches. I e-mailed him about this years ago, because I was curious if he did, in fact, have a ton of rare footage just hanging about. What he told me is that he wished that he did, but he basically just used the same tape and just continuously taped over it.

Wouldn't China make more sense anyway?

Christmas is great. Foley is creepy.

Yeah, Johnny. That's all nick was implying. You're preaching to the choir. We all want matches up and down the cards too.

Is Show vs Shaq actually happening?

Well Jericho and Revival were feuding up and down on twitter today, so there's that.

Chris Hero: I'm not tuned into Indy Wrestling much right now. I kind of resent it, actually. That said, I go out of my way to see Chris Hero matches. I've seen somewhere around 10 this year, maybe? Last night I watched the CODY match and the Kimber Lee match, the latter of which is really not the sort of thing I'd normally watch. I thought Hero was great in both. I'm excited for him coming into WWE because I'd like to have a reason to be more excited about that product. The elephant in the room is his current look, though. It is an elephant. Why? Because WWE and Vince, because of a mostly conditioned audience, because of a casual audience that is even further conditioned. You ask me, though? Elephants are kind of awesome. They can be at least. They stand out. They're noticed. In a company where they have Aries and Biff and Zayn and Rollins and just signed Strong. Where they have increasingly more and more indy darlings and cruiserweights and where the super indy style is the main event style, more or less, anything that makes you stand out is good. Right now Hero has the body type he has. Apparently there are health reasons for that. Time in FL would help to some degree, but when you're on the road, you're on the road. Personally, considering his general level of match quality this year, I think it's actually a plus. He's an amazing heel. He should be cast as a heel. As such, the whole KO King gimmick would only take him so far. How different is it from Owens (especially given their similar heel tendencies and ways to get under people's skin)? They should cast him as the modern day Buddy Rose. A guy like Miz is effective because the crowd resents him. They resent him because he's a cocky little bastard that they all think they could beat up. Buddy Rose was hugely resented. He was resented because he was a loudmouth braggart whose physique didn't match what he was saying, but who could also be dangerous and back it up. He won, often times legitimately, sometimes through hook or crook. Most of all, though, he was athletic. Hero could be a guy with a gut like a big chunk of the people in the crowd, but who is very athletic, who's living his dream when everyone in the crowd isn't, but who earned it, who is just that good, who reminds the crowd that they're not despite the fact that they may have physical similarities with him. For someone as talented as Hero, for someone who understands his audience as well as he does, and can perform to rile them up, that's a perfect heat engine, and it's one that works in the WWE format (because it's not that far from the Miz gimmick, just a different shade). I imagine people want him to come out as the straightforward asskicking jerk that he is, or whatever, but I'm not sure that'll stand out the way it has to except for as just another guy who has good matches. I think he could be a successful upper mid-card heel act for a few years running a Buddy Rose-esque gimmick. And that's not an insult based on his current body type. If someone's tall, use the height as a strength. How is this different? This is me likening him to the #3 wrestler on my GWE list and saying he could manage a similar act almost as well in an environment where almost nothing feels successful.

My simple, unasked for, answer is that they need to stop booking week to week and insert more mysteries and surprises and payoffs. Where does that fall on "overused talking points" bingo?

Two different things here: 1.) I think matches like the Spoiler and Chavo ones are really important because we don't have a lot of footage of the Spoiler at all or a lot of quasi-Squash matches with Chavo. You can learn a lot from those historically. 2.) I'm less keen on the studio squashes sent in, but it's better to post them than nothing, and more than that, if you're going to post squashes, you could do worse than Bockwinkel ones. In other news, I came across this while looking for something else. Hopefully it links correctly (scroll up two pages to the start of the article). It's a May 1976 Texas Monthly article on Houston wrestling, and it's actually pretty great. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=wrestling+last+ten+minutes+in+the+ring&source=bl&ots=uXaZQtFxmx&sig=X-ud8yyjKD-P8VetIyeJphP1N1k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq1YzVr_HQAhXqqlQKHZdyAUgQ6AEINTAF#v=onepage&q&f=false