Matt D

So I kind of understand what workrate is, right? It's a tool like anything else. It's a style. It can be exciting as hell in small doses. It's not my thing anymore, but I pay attention and try to listen to people and remember how I used to feel. I never want to come into an argument from a place of ignorance or closed-mindedness for what others are thinking. I was tempted to make a flowchart. I really was. If I was at work I would have. I don't quite have the tech here. Basically, it's like this. Does the match tell a story? | Is the story good/interesting/compelling? | Is the story well executed and consistently told throughout the match? If you've made it through these three steps, I'm probably going to like your match. If you make it through two, I'll probably like it but be a little frustrated. If you make it through one, I'll probably be very curious to see what went wrong and try to figure out what the hell they were thinking. The story being good/compelling is actually important. I think people tend to disregard that one with me because I do lean towards extremes. Once you hit the third step, a lot of other factors come into it if I'm starting to compare matches against each other. Also, as a caveat, this is just "Good Wrestlng" to me. You can have exciting wrestling or fun wrestling, or a "guilty pleasure." It's not that I can't enjoy things I don't think are good wrestling. I just don't think that they're good pro wrestling. As it pertains to working hard vs working smart, OBVIOUSLY both together are best. I, in general, give a lot more credence to working smart over working hard because athleticism isn't nearly as impressive to me as using your brain to accomplish a goal.

I didn't love Cesaro vs Orton. I really liked the finishing sequence, everything from the first rope-assisted DDT attempt on. A lot of the match seemed unfocused to me, though, fairly even. My favorite part was when Orton faked the injury to take over and I think I would have liked it more if they played it up as Orton being out matched (or just worn out from the gauntlet he's gone through) vs this fresher, stronger wrestling machine, and him having to pull out every dirty trick he had to stay on top. Something like that. I didn't really see a through narrative in this at all, especially compared to some of the earlier Orton matches in this series. I liked Zeb being excited about the win and as silly as the Mania pointing is, Cesaro doing it with a little wave to Orton was fun. I've seen two dozen Cesaro matches I've liked more in the last two years.

Again, I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth. My idea of workrate is tied to 1999. When I think workrate I think SAT/Red vs Quiet Storm and Brian XL. I think go-go-go. Lots of motion. Working hard. Lots of action. Lots of stiffness and headdrops and hard hitting. Suplexes. Movez. Kickouts at two. Working hard and maybe working smart, maybe not. Fan chants. Fighting spirit. Kip ups which might be called Nip ups. Chopfests. Dives. Cardio. I think Angle vs Benoit from 03. I think Escalating finisher trading. Dynamite Kid vs Tiger Mask. Big bumping. Unprotected chair shots. Stiff kicks. Working hard. That move where you put your leg on the guy's head and flipover to hit a suplex. Working hard. Hot ending stretches. Power Bombs. Sabu vs Cactus Jack. Elaborate chain wrestling followed by a hesitation while the crowd claps. Great execution. High spots. Complicated moves that involve cooperation. Unnecessary rotations. Lightning Kid vs Jerry Lynn. Superkick reversals off the top rope. Working hard. You know. Workrate. It's not just one thing, but it's maybe less than three dozen?

I think the crux of this is the word "Workrate." Giving W2DBT the benefit of the doubt would say that he means something different with the word "worker" than a lot of us do with the word "wrestler." I'm fairly certain most of us use the words interchangeably. Not to put words in his mouth, but my guess is that he does not. I think we need to make sure we're all talking about the same thing before moving forward.

Alternatively... ... man, why was the only "Wrestling" "pitchfork" image I could find Eric Young with a goalie mask on? In all seriousness, you can like whatever you want here and we'll be civil to you so long as you're civil to us, I do wonder sometimes why this guy posts here since all he seems to want to do is show his dislike of a lot of the stuff we dig and explain how niche and weird we all are. You'd think it'd get frustrating over time.

Thus the *. Stop messing with my narratives. It's all storytelling, brah.

Where else can you hear a well-published British Shakespeare Professor discuss art with a Deadhead Strip Club DJ?* *I like the other guys too, and while not entirely accurate, that's a great tagline.

I've listened to chunks of the show. You guys do really well together. You've meshed so well and your differences are a huge strength. Larry claims that the reason why he didn't have a longer run is that he and Bruno were making power plays together and he pushed too hard for the title with Bruno's backing and it all broke down. Larry is one of the guys i trust the least in wrestling though, even if I generally like him. I'll need to catch that match at some point. As for psychology, logic and the rest, I'll write some stuff in the next couple of days. It's going to probably need a lot of words differentiating Bret Hart's idea of "realness" and the general sense of conventional/genre consistency, tempered with some of my lessons learned from watching lucha. I'm going to also have to hack a little at the idea that logic is just a tool like blood or spots or armwork or nearfalls or what not. I think that's ultimately where the disconnect is going to come. To me, it's part of what people are using those tools to achieve. It's an end since it's so inherently tied to storytelling in a way that "Blood" or "highspots" isn't. Those are means. One interesting thing, in general, is that one of the biggest arguments I've heard against Mark Henry is that "playing your role" is a bare minimum thing and not to be rewarded. My general argument against that (and the reason why logic is more important in wrestling than in other forms of media) is that it's actually such a rare/artful thing (Both playing one's role and logic). It's special because it's uncommon. Most novels, or at least the ones that are successful enough that people actually read them, are at a bare minimum logical and consistent. Plot holes in successful fiction are relatively rare. Most wrestling has plot holes all over the place. But yeah, more to come in the next week. In the meantime, I agree that it's great that different people can find different elements to enjoy so much. And of course, here at PWO, most people are mostly self aware of why they enjoy what they enjoy which makes the conversation all the more interesting.

That reminds me. I wanted to check that match out.

They restart. They're getting the money from the people who ordered Classics on Demand. That's sort of a given.

So it's probably apparently I've been looking at some WONs from the 90s lately. It's amazing how OLD Dave feels now. The stuff he says about Bryan, like: "Foley on Live Audio Wrestling said Bryan is more over than he ever was. I mean, as far as crowd chants, he’ s as over than anyone ever was, but in reality, he’s not. Part of it was the era, but mainstream, or even among wrestling fans, Foley was far more over, selling tickets, moving ratings, PPVs, any measure you want, than Bryan. Bryan may be closer to the top because there are no Rock’s and Austin’s, but the No. 2 or 3 guy today isn’t close to even the No. 6 or No. 7 guy in 2000." It's probably accurate, but the tone would have been completely different in the mid 90s.

Here's the context for the Hamilton stuff, btw. It's more that the readers were complaining, it seemed.

Reluctantly: "Henry can be a star in limited amounts as a heel, but as a face, he’s very limited as far as how much you can do with him. But they were fine here."

Volkoff was astoundingly over.

Wait, is Goulet a face there? That's weird.

How many seats was that?

You can kind of tell from the preceding paragraph but it was a fan letter, but actually integrated into the main WON and not relegated to the readers page. He had a few paragraphs on Hamilton first too.

The JBL/Cole shows are a stupid amount of fun. It was kind of neat to see some of the video editors' desks and how there's a rockers poster and a wcw.com sign in their meeting room and what not during eps 60/61 too.

Don't encourage him. It should totally be John Nord anyway. He's got a great MN accent.

Of course he was also getting on the case of Jody Hamilton being in the WCW one. Here's a lovely poem from the June 20, 1994 WON

Wrestling Is Fun draws fairly well. 400-600. I imagine the students work for little. Wouldn't the students partially pay to work anyway?

David Cesaro.

Frankly, so long as they reply the transitions we miss, I'm generally okay with it. The flip side, after all, is not getting long matches.

What a fun little match. What a terrible crowd. No wonder Douglas hates Flair. It's kind of surreal how he'd go back and basically conquer Philly a few years later. Douglas/Steamboat were really good with their rapid fire shine offense. Tag team Specialists and all that. Sasaki and Liger just dismantle the knee. Liger popping the crowd with the figure four is kind of hilarious. Steamboat running around pumping up the crowd during the crab was great. Not even this crowd can resist buying into it. Douglas not selling his knee after the suplex before the hot tag is silly. It was a sort of dumb spot to set up the hot tag in general even if it had a snap. A neckbreaker or something would have been better, especially if he wasn't going to sell it well. I did like Sasaki and Liger kicking out the Slaughter cannon to transition into a second FIP. I wouldn't have given Steamboat a hope spot right after the spike piledriver either, but that's just me. I had a schadenfreude moment where I enjoyed Douglas missing his dropkick too much. Liger and Sasaki made one hell of a team. I could have used a bit of tightening on the selling though.