rzombie1988

To add to this, I think there is perhaps more of a reluctance among many fans these days to be a detractor of something well-loved, and less people interested in engaging those detractors. A lot of Wrestling Twitter folks are more into shared enjoyment than debating and dissecting. Those kind of fans have really always been the majority in real life, but the internet didn't lend itself to that kind of fandom until recently. This has been an issue in TV reviewing as well - many reviewers have talked about getting responses to negative reviews where the person feels reviews should be written by fans only, as if critiquing something others liked is a terrible thing to do. Having a different opinion right now sadly makes you a troll and someone who is up to no good. It's becoming almost impossible to have any non echo chamber discussion. And any system where you can rate one response over another just enforces this stuff.

I like the part about feeling safe. I've always called it "taking it to the next level" and I've described with wrestlers doing things differently than they usually do. It's what breaks the mold in wrestling matches. I still think "safe matches" can still be classics, but you have to master the basics to do this, and a lot of the current indy hype guys haven't. Okada/Omega didn't have have any mastery of the basics or even real inclusion of the basics and the current "safe style" is doing a bunch of big moves for big moves sake. I watched a shoot with Bill Eadie last night(and as we know, everything comes back to Demolition at Demolitionwrestlingonly.com) and he said like "I could do this or that but it really wouldn't fit my character, so I wouldn't do it". And since the current wrestlers have no real character to them, everyone ends up doing the same thing. I don't know a good way to put this, but sometimes the fun in wrestling is having limits. That's kind of why I enjoy RINGS, because these are a bunch of guys who only know how to do their martial art and little else. The matches a lot of times didn't work out, but it was fun to see 2 different styles clash and when it did work, it made the match a ton of fun. Victor Zangief didn't do Rings and wasn't a great worker, but he was good at wrestling like an amateur wrestler.. If Dusty could do the flips and the submissions and all that why do you need the flippy and submission guys? But if wrestler A sticks with submissions and Wrestler B only flips, you are going to get a really unique match, as opposed to the current style where everyone does every move and it all looks the same.

Just watched the match: Nothing was wrong with the early portion of it but nothing really stuck out. The biggest thing I noticed is that Omega rushes and goes at 100MPH on everything, whether it be moves or transitions. There's no struggle, there's no fight, he just does his shit and that's the way it is. He also massively overbumps for everything. Then the late middle of the match hits. Omega hits a super dragon suplex, which AFAIK, I don't believe I've ever seen, at least as a non-release version. They wait about 3 seconds and they do a 2.9 kickout. Wut? This pretty much destroyed the match. I've watched wrestling for over 20+ years and I've never seen this move done, making it quite important...and it's used a transition. Match is pretty much just 100MPH garbage from there on out. Omega does cartoony flip bumps for everything. Lots of reversals and big moves and video game style wrestling. Omega literally had to drag Okada out of selling for most of the match to do that next big move. Okada gets the win and it was about as bad as the Omega/Ibushi Sumo Hall match a few years ago. Now onto the rating. I look for these types of things when I want to judge how good a match was: How realistic it was? How effective was it at hitting the simple things right to make the bigger things more meaningful? The heat Did they take it to the next level and make it truly unique? Did they botch anything? Did it flow from start to finish? Did it have any real story to it? Did they have any particularly memorable exchanges? And suffice to say, it doesn't really hold its weight. The heat wasn't anything special. I didn't see any story except for "your move/my move". It wasn't realistic in any way. They didn't really botch anything. Flow was okay til the Dragon Suplex and there weren't any real exchanges. No one did anything much different here or worked better than they can. Kenny, while a very nice person IRL, would have worked a match at a random indy show the same exact way. I thought it was building towards a 3-4 star match up until the dragon suplex and I guess that move scrambled both guys brains because it went to indy hell right after. If this is what symbolizes wrestling in 2016, I'll just stick to old AJW and old Memphis, because this was crap. I'd give it maybe somewhere between 1-3 stars tops and I truly just want to give it a big fat flying 1 star rating. I realize I'm probably out of touch as I've never enjoyed the PWG/Indy style but if this is the best wrestling has in 2016, I think it explains why I don't watch much of it.

Just watched the match. Nothing was wrong with the early portion of it but nothing really stuck out. The biggest thing I noticed is that Omega rushes and goes at 100MPH on everything, whether it be moves or transitions. There's no struggle, there's no fight, he just does his shit and that's the way it is. Then the late middle of the match hits. Omega hits a super dragon suplex, which AFAIK, I don't believe I've ever seen, at least as a non-release version. They wait about 3 seconds and they do a 2.9 kickout. Wut? This pretty much destroyed the match. I've watched wrestling for over 20+ years and I've never seen this move done, making it quite important...and it's used a transition. Match is pretty much just 100MPH garbage from there on out. Omega does cartoony flip bumps for everything. Lots of reversals and big moves and video game style wrestling. Omega literally had to drag Okada out of selling for most of the match to do that next big move. Okada gets the win and it was about as bad as the Omega/Ibushi Sumo Hall match a few years ago. Now onto the rating. I look for these types of things when I want to judge how good a match was: - How realistic it was? - How effective was it at hitting the simple things right to make the bigger things more meaningful? - The heat - Did they take it to the next level and make it truly unique? - Did they botch anything? - Did it flow from start to finish? - Did it have any real story to it? - Did they have any particularly memorable exchanges? And suffice to say, it doesn't really hold its weight. The heat wasn't anything special. I didn't see any story except for "your move/my move". It wasn't realistic in any way. They didn't really botch anything. Flow was okay til the Dragon Suplex and there weren't any real exchanges. No one did anything much different here or worked better than they can. Kenny, while a very nice person IRL, would have worked a match at a random indy show the same exact way. I thought it was building towards a 3-4 star match up until the dragon suplex and I guess that move scrambled both guys brains because it went to indy hell right after. If this is what symbolizes wrestling in 2016, I'll just stick to old AJW and old Memphis, because this was crap. I'd give it maybe somewhere between 1-3 stars tops and I truly just want to give it a big fat flying 1 star rating.

Almost as funny as seeing all the people lose their shit on Twitter over Dave's opinion. I unfollowed nearly all the wrestling based accounts I had been following on Twitter just after Christmas bar Meltzer and a couple of people who are involved in the business and automatically feel better for having done so. Wrestling twitter is such a weird place and I'm so glad I don't have to read the majority of that nonsense any more. People take Dave's ratings seriously. I don't think that's something to take for granted on his part. He's one of the few people that when they speak, people listen. I personally think everyone is biased including myself and do think Dave has always been a fan of the current style. I never thought of Dave as a TMZ guy who wants to troll for headlines and I hope that's not the case here. I legit hope he is really to defend his rating or he's going to lose credibility. But holy fuck is it frustrating to be a wrestling fan if that is the new crown jewel of wrestling.

I would honestly sacrifice good matches for people trying to make it look like its real and decent characters/promos.

I don't know about this. I think there are moments people will/do talk about. Pipe Bomb promo. Cena-Lesnar. Rollins cash in at mania, etc... I think our interaction with younger fans is lower, so it's difficult to see. Trust me, PWO don't want none of r/squaredcircle. The best and well thought out response in the world just dies to downvotes if it goes against the grain.

https://np.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/2u73cg/tumblrbashing_why_or_why_not/co5ucsk/ Reddit is overall bad for discussion in my opinion because of the voting system. I can literally make 5 accounts and wreck any minority opinion. Upvotes can also be bought for something like 50 cents to a dollar per upvote. It's really not conducive to good discussion. The bad thing is that it is likely going to going to outlive every other forum and is going to be seen as the norm for people 20 years down the line, while older privately owned sites likely close out due to lack of interest. There was tons of good stuff written on sites like Smarkschoice that are AFAIK gone forever. Really good topic you quoted though. I think it is a subject that a lot of people aren't aware of.

I agree. I don't think people are going to be talking about the 2010 classics because it blends together and with this generation cutting the chord, a lot of people won't even have access to it.The standout 2010's matches are likely a lot less than the 90's and 00's matches. I think wrestling is consistently better now than it ever has been before, but the truly great matches are lesser. I think when people start looking back to the 2010's, they are going to find a lot of good stuff, but little standout stuff. Zayn/Nakamura might stand the test of time along with a few others, but all of the ROH mini-classics and stuff are going to be gone. Heck, there's even a bunch of stuff with people like AJ, Joe and Homicide that is probably gone for good due to indy companies either not selling it or closing up shop and forgetting about it. We will have to hope someone like a WWE will come along and buy it up so it doesn't get lost as well.

Just hope it doesn't look like late 90's AJPW where german suplexes were about as lethal as a body slam.

I can agree with that and the tumblr/fandom/twitter guys are starting to win out.

I think the various defensive rules is what got us where we are today in the NBA, which is going through a lot of the same issues. Defenders can't do shit, leading to people sleeping their way to 40 point games.

I don't disagree at all, though I think the transition from the 70's to the 80's and the 90's to the 2000's was a lot smoother. Hate to see what it's gonna be like in the 2020's though. The way it is going tells me it is going to have even more big spots, big moves and more video game style wrestling. Smoother, or just less people had a platform? I really don't think the jump from the 70's to 80's was that bad. Mostly the same stuff, just they gave you a bit more and WWF had some pretty awful gimmicks at times, though the knockoff Batman's of the 70's weren't much better. 90's to the 2000's is mostly the same wrestling wise. Early 90's saw Liger show us what the future was going to be in like, followed by Lighting Kid and Lynn, then jumped over to people like Rey/Michaels/Eddy/Benoit/Jericho guiding us to the 2000's. Most people didn't see Japanese wrestling so I don't really consider it since it was the 1% of American fans. Presentation wise, obviously the 90's were a total mess as you had people hanging on to the old style followed by Austin and ECW breaking all conventional rules of wrestling.

I don't disagree at all, though I think the transition from the 70's to the 80's and the 90's to the 2000's was a lot smoother. Hate to see what it's gonna be like in the 2020's though. The way it is going tells me it is going to have even more big spots, big moves and more video game style wrestling.

Didn't see it, but thought Omega shouldn't have won and after seeing that Okada took a top rope dragon suplex and still fought on, I doubt it's for me.

I'm finding myself falling out further and further from modern day wrestling and its fans. I don't like the current style at all. I think there's some positives to it like people trying to give the fans their moneys worth and not being lazy, but those things are being sacrificed for good booking, good character development, believable wrestling and good mic skills. I'd even go so far as to say that matches are consistently better now than they used to be, but the best matches of this generation doesn't touch the best of previous generations. While I haven't seen the match yet, I already am seeing people blow their loads all over Omega/Okada and have seen multiple people call it the best match ever and Match of the Decade. While I'm sure it was good, I highly doubt its at that level. I feel really left out as someone who lived through the beginning of the indy era to today. Most of the people losing their minds seem like people who are newer to the scene and more general fans are starting to see indy/Japanese stuff. These people haven't been watching it for many years, so of course it's amazing stuff to them. While there's nothing wrong with that, they are overcoming the people who have been around a while and have years of watching a lot of the people the IWC loves today. And a lot of the people who were around back in the day are now gone. Even worse, like a lot of other things this year, it is insanely hard to not be downvoted or rallied against for being neutral, objective or just plain negative to the majority opinion but still get any respect from it. Anyone else feeling the same way? I'm starting to totally get why a lot of older guys that we write off are like "hey this stuff sucks compared to before" while the present day fans think they are nuts.

You can book Nia Jax any way you want, but there's only one Aja Kong and she's still just as awesome as she used to be in 2016.

The first real American Kandori superfan speaking in. Really love Kandori. How could you not love a legit badass who knew how to bring the hate and the stiffness? She's pretty much what I wish all wrestlers could be. Never got a rep online because no one watched LLPW unfortunately and it wasn't very easy to get. I actually helped Mike Lorefice at www.quebrada.net track down some LLPW from a Japanese store online from the 90's that no one else had. LLPW tapes suck though as they are always clipped. Really underrated wrestler and she could have easily took up Hotta's role in AJW and did a better job with it. Wish she would have had the roster to work with too and I'm really sad AJW missed out on the obvious Kandori/Kong match. Love her Big Egg tag match against Yamada, love her match vs Toyota, the Hokuto match and from 11/9/93 - Bull Nakano & Takako Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori & Utako Hozumi. I marked out so hard when I met her in person and seeing LLPW live was a personal highlight.

Thought it was eh. Compare it to Lawler/Dundee or even switch them and you can tell the quality wasn't there. It felt rushed, likely because of the match after it, the crowd wasn't there and the work wasn't anything special.Sawyer sold well though.

The crowd was dead the whole show. It wasn't the wrestlers faults. They popped for nothing all night. Might have been a sound issue.

My thoughts on it: Ito got the win when she escaped the cage. This wasn't a match. This was a war. There was no "wrestling" here. This was a fight to the death from start to finish. Absolutely incredible match. They just let them fight, and they fought. No irish whips, none of the flippy stuff, just 4 people trying to destroy each other. They didn't do one move for the first 15 minutes or so and it was great. All brawling here with people getting rammed into the cage and pummeled with chairs and chains. The match ran two stories. The first was Watanabe's shoulder injury. She put on football pads to protect and had it worked over all match. They solely focused on it and it made a ton of sense. The second story was Ito working Shimoda's arm, which led to the finish. Everyone was really strong here. Watanabe might be one of the best sellers ever. She just looks sympathetic and really can sell. She screamed and bled and cried the whole match and was easily the star. Mita and Shimoda were completely nasty heels and were so blooded up by the end of this that I didn't even know who was who. Mita took some awful intentional and unintentional bumps landing on her head 3 times easy. I'm fairly sure either her or Shimoda were knocked out legit for a second. Ito was good here working Shimoda's bad arm all match and hitting the big one - the footstomp off the cage, right on Shimoda's bad shoulder, working the story of the match to the finish. Excellent work all around. The match was even good before it started with Shimoda and Ito slapping each other. This took the cage match to a new level and showed what a real feud and what real hatred looked like. Yes, other cage matches had bigger bumps and more of a wrestling match feel, but this is what a cage match should be - bloody, physical and downright sadistic. Best cage match of all time? Quite possibly. Best match of 1997? Very likely. Rating: *****. Check this out. Perfect match, great storytelling and wrestling 101. From: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2016/05/all-japan-womens-kawasaki-kanaami.html

My thoughts on this: From: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/ajpw-1201997-triple-crown-kenta-kobashi.html Mitsuharu Misawa beat Kenta Kobashi at 42:05 with a running forearm smash. I honestly didn't like this. Neither guy knew whether they wanted to do a technical match or an AJPW head dropping bonanza, so they just combined the two. They match was most focused on Kobashi working Misawa's arm before it became the usual head drop fest. Kobashi worked it for the entire middle portion of the match but the arm work ended up meaning nothing anyway as Misawa ended up winning with the same injured arm, like I knew he would. The kicking out of the Tiger Driver '91 infuriated me. Following it up with Kobashi getting up from a dragon suplex didn't help matters either. I honestly was starting to think that a Tiger Driver off the building wouldn't have mattered at that point. I also didn't like the length of this match. It went 42 minutes and could have used about 10 minutes or so less. These two didn't need the extra time and all the extra time did was allow things to escalate more than they needed to. It felt like it could have went all night with the way things were going. I'm going to hold off a rating on this one. I used to think it was a great match back in the day but this viewing totally soured me on it. There were some good things and the story was good up until the end, but they just had to blow it. At least the crowd was hot and ate all of it up, while I was here throwing it up.

I've got to know what made you guys pick Misawa/Kobashi as the top match for the year. This is what I wrote on it: Mitsuharu Misawa beat Kenta Kobashi at 42:05 with a running forearm smash. I honestly didn't like this. Neither guy knew whether they wanted to do a technical match or an AJPW head dropping bonanza, so they just combined the two. They match was most focused on Kobashi working Misawa's arm before it became the usual head drop fest. Kobashi worked it for the entire middle portion of the match but the arm work ended up meaning nothing anyway as Misawa ended up winning with the same injured arm, like I knew he would. The kicking out of the Tiger Driver '91 infuriated me. Following it up with Kobashi getting up from a dragon suplex didn't help matters either. I honestly was starting to think that a Tiger Driver off the building wouldn't have mattered at that point. I also didn't like the length of this match. It went 42 minutes and could have used about 10 minutes or so less. These two didn't need the extra time and all the extra time did was allow things to escalate more than they needed to. It felt like it could have went all night with the way things were going. I'm going to hold off a rating on this one. I used to think it was a great match back in the day but this viewing totally soured me on it. There were some good things and the story was good up until the end, but they just had to blow it. At least the crowd was hot and ate all of it up, while I was here throwing it up. From: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/ajpw-1201997-triple-crown-kenta-kobashi.html

I worked with a wrestling promoter at an internship. I was pretty excited about that. I offered multiple times to do anything for free, even setting up chairs or whatever. He showed no interest in it and made it clear that I'm not welcome into "da bizness". I also tried to get trained in wrestling. A local promotion put an ad in their paper for their training school and naturally, no one ever responded. Yeah, I gave up.

Here is a clip from an All Japan Women's "training" session. Torture is the correct word: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqVmDUZEIq8 Japan was always way worse about it compared to USA, since it is institutionalized and expected. Sumo training is even worse. I think every All Japan Womens trainee ran away at some point and the process of being slaves to older wrestlers doesn't sound very fun. It happens because: - It's allowed and expected - It's some symbol of showing how tough you are to deal it out and to take it - Wrestlers are extremely immature - Wrestlers are trying to protect spots - Wrestling don't want "outsiders" in