Matt D

I think it held up pretty well in 98, though. Shamrock all but beating Rocky 3 PPVs in a row doesn't help, certainly, but HHH and Rock made it seem important and the tournament for it felt fairly important as well. I don't remember Shamrock's run in the back half of 98 too well though. I think it was really with 99 and not just the attitude era in general so much as the four way feud and the bait and switch with Road Dogg replacing Gunn and vice versa leading into the Godfather run and what not.

The Russo-tastic quick title changes/short runs in 99 is probably the answer for a lot of these sort of questions, with a secondary possibility being the de-emphasizing that came with having two world titles.

You know, if we could crowdfund this, we could make this whole thing worth it somehow. Apparently a number of the shows exist, unreleased, with English commentary by Bas Rutten and Mauro Ranallo. So, back to the subtitles... I would seriously chip in money to this. I mean, not a ton of money, but money.

You know, if we could crowdfund this, we could make this whole thing worth it somehow.

I do sort of think that the people who feel strongly about this should be on the sidelines and it should be more of an analysis than an argument, but yeah, I'd listen

I actually think a DEPTH CHART: 1981 vs 2014 podcast might be interesting. You'd need someone like Dylan who's pretty well versed in both groups though. Any voice that's just versed in one or the other would end up as noise, I think.

As there are no actual reviews in that note, I'd like to officially file a motion that for Parv to nominate Mike Quakenbush, he has to review three of his matches. Preferably ones with "ants" or "bucks."

This is probably my favorite Randy Orton moment since his freak out over being stuck in Cleveland..

I find modern CMLL very interesting to watch because of the weekly necessities. It's obviously something I love we have so thoroughly documented in Portland with Buddy Rose.

I think Borne's biggest strength is his versatility. He has a number of runs filled with, if not great matches, then very good ones, and very good performances, and they're wildly different. Doink and Big Josh and his Portland babyface character, and his rat pack heel and Borne Again to some degree all feel very different. That takes a certain level of talent.

Which is also useful in examining the "less is more" mentality.

I could also see someone think that Jannetty did less bad things in the tag team and did the good things just as well, if that makes sense. That said, I think his match with Goldust in 95 is unfortunate for a debut match. He took way too much of it. That might have been Dustin's fault, though, or maybe an agent's, but I bet it was Marty trying to have the best match he could instead of one that got over the new heel better.

I'll go out of my way to see some of his TNA stuff. Him and Christian and maybe some James Storm tag stuff.

What I want to know is where the heck is Bill in all this? This note might just be an elaborate set up by him.

We were all a lot younger. Though we have some people here that were probably fairly close to the age some of us were ten years ago. On average we were all a lot younger.

I'm not arguing with your perception. I'm just trying to explain my position so that I can help bridge it and what I'm actually feeling. As for the rest, I do think one problem is that we've been around in circles on all of those guys repeatedly over the years, to the point where when someone brand new comes in, confused and surprised and therefore a bit defensive (because views that they've considered true and honestly believe) aren't only being challenged, but being somewhat dismissed, with any arguments about them feeling more than a little old hat and aggravating both to the people here who have had them a hundred times and to the new person who has no point of reference for WHY everyone is aggravated, that's frustrating. I don't know how to bridge that gap, except for maybe a pinned thread saying "This is why some people don't like Kurt Angle. No, we're not kidding. Please see it from our perspective. We do understand yours, honest. We just disagree. That's okay but it might get a bit stormy in a Greatest of All Time or WON HOF argument. Just be aware of that." that people can see when they arrive. In general, I don't think anyone here is "out of touch." We all interact with other parts of the net. A lot of us read the Observer. Most of us have been through various iterations of different boards over the last 12+ years or know other fans offline or through facebook or whatever. That's another thing I feel pretty confident talking about everyone at once with. We know what other people are saying. In general we either know why they're saying it or have people we're confident in asking about it. Just because there's a consensus elsewhere on the net, that doesn't mean we feel the need to listen to it, respect it, or validate it. Now if someone comes in with a personal opinion, that's different. I couldn't disagre more with the Fedex guy up earlier int his note, but he explained his position well and I respect it because he did so and he seems very earnest about it, but also able to agree to disagree and try to at least understand where I'm coming from. If it was just a matter that "the majority of people on the internet feel this way," well, who cares? Everyone here came to their views over time and through various means and we're all more than happy to talk at length about that.

Only point I'll argue is the Angle one, because it obviously needs to be broken out. I've been using shorthand on bit and that caused confusion. Yes, lots of people liked Angle in 2004 (five or six years after he went pro), wrestlers and fans alike. Yes, DAVE liked Angle and touted him. The specific criteria about the WON HOF is that guys rarely get in through work alone and Angle wasn't exactly a huge draw, nor did he have a lot of years TO draw. A lot of the early 00s decline happened with him close to the top of the card (I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think it's the case). There are two sorts of wrestlers who like Angle, those who are impressed he got aspects of the business so quickly and worked with him (Austin will bring up this point), and then a lot of the old guys who talk him up a lot. It had to be a near perfect storm for a guy with so few years on top and relatively unsuccessful ones at that to get in so early. There's something going on there, and I think it's pretty safe to say that one element of that thing was people focusing on Angle's real life achievements. One aspect of THAT was the way it legitimized the older guys in their own minds, which follows almost any interview you've ever heard with almost any carny old wrestler. Is it FACT? I don't know. Dave didn't break up voting back then. It's a pretty viable theory though. It's not saying that people don't like Angle and that they didn't like him. It is saying that something pretty weird and unusual was going on in 04 when he got into the very-hard-to-get-into WON HOF. That's mainly what's being said there. The Devitt stuff was its own beast and I'm pretty certain that for once I can speak for everyone (and I will try not to do that in the future save for this time) that pretty much everyone gets it, right? (IT WAS ABOUT ROVERT AND HOW HE GENERALLY PRESENTS HIMSELF TO PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET. IT HAD VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH DEVITT. It was very much an aberration on this site.) Ok. No, it's not easy to argue ANYTHING on this site except for maybe JERRY LAWLER WAS GREAT but it serves a function that nowhere else on the internet serves because of that. I spent a couple of years hesitant to say much here too. I think people are generally happy to reach a point of mutual understanding even if only rarely agreement.

I think there's an argument to be made that there was a shift, it was a backlash to Benoit(and later Misawa), and that MAYBE shift went too far, but I think it's only happened in relatively small circles. I'm an extreme outlier. I do think you heavily underplay the footage that became more easily available and the effort that went into the 80s projects, as well as a lot of the excess that started to show up on the US Indy scene. Things developed organically over a span of years, and a lot of people came to a similar conclusion in different ways and to different extents. To me, it was sort of like seeing a magic eye. Once you start seeing wrestling this way and valuing other aspects, you kind of can't unsee it. You start looking for it everywhere. I think something comparable is post-modernism in academia, where you have a lot of old texts looked at using different methods. Older wrestlers and matches were examined using different criteria.

The issue isn't the difference of opinion. It's how you present yourself. I think Alan usually comes off as a gentleman and as someone who is very enthusiastic about the things he likes. His honest love for the wrestling he cares for is actually a joy when it comes to reading his posts and hearing his podcasts. I haven't had many interactions with him but I'm always willing to read his opinion and I find it very useful even if I have to take it with a grain of salt. You come off like a combative jerk, generally.

Indeed. But to me this has nothing to do with workrate. This is the definition of a spotfest. And a spotfest can also have terrible workrate, meaning sloppy execution, useless stiffness, bad selling, contrived spots, bad setups etc… That's the problem I have with this whole question, I feel like we're confusing spotfest and workrate a bit here (and that is my issue with a lot of exemples you gave in your first post when you refered to what the word "workrate" makes you think about, Matt). I think the issue there is whether workrate can actually mean "to work slower if it is appropriate to work slower," a balance. If that's the case, then I don't think it's generally used that way. "Proper and balanced workrate." Workrate isn't used as "to work at the appropriate speed for a match." Maybe it should be used that way but I don't think it's generally used that way. I don't think it was used that way in the statement I was countering. The confusion in semantics is part of the reason for the note, but I'm pretty certain my statement holds on the idea I was countering that "bad workrate" is "lazy," not "ill-paced."

1.) Maybe I should have put it that "We've moved away from workrate as the #1 component in judging matches." Which is a huge leap and it took many years to get there, I think. 2.) Good workrate can absolutely be a negative if it takes away from a smart match. If they're so focused on working hard and hitting their shit that they aren't selling or letting things breathe or making sure that they matter. I'm not sure I want to have this discussion with you to be honest, because you are so vehement about it and so exasperated, that I'm not sure you're a guy I really want to talk to about this. Sorry. Take a breath. Slow down. Try to look at a bigger picture. I think you hang around here sometimes just to get into these arguments and go back to the rest of the internet and tell like-minded people how crazy everyone is here, like you're earning some sort of forest exploration badge or like it's some burden you carry for the sake of the greater good. I'm not particularly interested in that. Bill asked questions. He singled me out in asking for an answer. I'm happy to oblige. I'm not happy to have this discussion with you right now when you're expressing yourself in such a petty, immature, and small-minded manner. Look at the difference between how Jerome presented himself and how you did.

Some of the problem is that it takes a long time to watch a lot of Ric Flair matches. I put him at the top of my priorities, but even in what I've been able to watch in the last week, I ended up with clipped versions of long matches and I've only made it through even four of those, because I have so much else to watch, so I've got a ways to go. The argument ought to be more interesting in two years after everyone's revisited the things on the list that Loss has posted. Right now mostly everyone just has incomplete notions to work off of.

That's why Bill put "you" in every question but one. I feel strongly about my views, but they're my views, and they weren't always my views, so I can appreciate your views as well and your right to have them. There's nothing objective here. I do personally feel like I get more out of pro wrestling than someone who cares more about execution. I probably also have to put in more to get more out, though. I'm kind of curious though. If that's what you want out of wrestling, why the heck did you spend so much time going through late era WCW instead of a different time/place/territory/etc where you might have found a lot more to enjoy? Because from reading your posts, I don't think you got a whole lot of what you enjoyed from that project, especially relative to the copious amount of time you put into it.

I'm increasingly tempted to just make Volk Han my #1 because then I can watch a lot of short matches. I'm kidding but great wrestlers sure like broadways and it's tough to find an hour at a time to watch wrestling.

And that's a useful statement, and it probably speaks to the "sports" side of things. I first encountered it in 98/99, and what I listed above was the sense of I had of it. I think that's the sense a lot of other people had of it as well. A couple of generations of people. I know we've mined a lot over the years (and I saw some definite frustration in the standards notes, for instance), but I think there's actually more to mine when it comes to the relationship between wrestling, sports, and fiction.