Punk vs Henry and watching wrestling "cold"

[Coffey]

I think it says a lot about the year when a free TV match, with no build-up, unannounced, that has commercial breaks and a count-out finish is being considered for Match of the Year. That is not to say that the match wasn't enjoyable, mind you, but how was this better than, as an example, Kazuchika Okada Vs. Tetsuya Naito from IWGP (which Dylan doesn't list, which surprised me). I understand that tastes vary and pro-wrestling as an art form is a pretty subjective thing but I think instances like this are why it is impossible for me to establish a definitive list, especially come December. I don't even know what I am looking for from a match that makes it stand out for me. Other than just using a cop-out, stock answer like "it makes me mark-out" or throwing around buzzwords like "psychology," "pacing," & "heat." It makes me feel bad. I don't want to say "I liked this match more" I want to be able to explain why, ya know?

 

It's really hard for me to compare wrestling from different regions, for some reason. Maybe that is just a problem for me, but when comparing matches, how do I compare a WWE main event style match (like HHH/Taker), to a Lucha match (Panther/Casas) to a NJPW main event style match (Okada/Naito) to a U.S. Indy match (Richards/Elgin)? This isn't a knock against Dylan or anyone else, mind you. I just really struggle to place the matches I enjoy in an actual pecking order.

 

A big part of the appeal for American matches to me is the build-up and story going into the match. It helps create the atmosphere. But when I go into a match cold from another country, where I do not even speak their language to get help from the commentators, it feels unfair to put them on the same scale, so to speak. I don't know if it is unfair to the American matches or the foreign matches mind you, but it seems odd. I guess a lot of it comes down to my mindset when I'm going into a match as well.

 

Am I just speaking gibberish?

[Loss]

I think it says a lot about the year when a free TV match, with no build-up, unannounced, that has commercial breaks and a count-out finish is being considered for Match of the Year. That is not to say that the match wasn't enjoyable, mind you, but how was this better than, as an example, Kazuchika Okada Vs. Tetsuya Naito from IWGP (which Dylan doesn't list, which surprised me). I understand that tastes vary and pro-wrestling as an art form is a pretty subjective thing but I think instances like this are why it is impossible for me to establish a definitive list, especially come December. I don't even know what I am looking for from a match that makes it stand out for me. Other than just using a cop-out, stock answer like "it makes me mark-out" or throwing around buzzwords like "psychology," "pacing," & "heat." It makes me feel bad. I don't want to say "I liked this match more" I want to be able to explain why, ya know?

 

It's really hard for me to compare wrestling from different regions, for some reason. Maybe that is just a problem for me, but when comparing matches, how do I compare a WWE main event style match (like HHH/Taker), to a Lucha match (Panther/Casas) to a NJPW main event style match (Okada/Naito) to a U.S. Indy match (Richards/Elgin)? This isn't a knock against Dylan or anyone else, mind you. I just really struggle to place the matches I enjoy in an actual pecking order.

 

A big part of the appeal for American matches to me is the build-up and story going into the match. It helps create the atmosphere. But when I go into a match cold from another country, where I do not even speak their language to get help from the commentators, it feels unfair to put them on the same scale, so to speak. I don't know if it is unfair to the American matches or the foreign matches mind you, but it seems odd. I guess a lot of it comes down to my mindset when I'm going into a match as well.

 

Am I just speaking gibberish?

You're not speaking gibberish. Context is important in wrestling watching for many people, myself included. It's hard for me to watch anything cold, so I get it. That said, let's split this off so this topic can remain about 2012. I'll reply more in detail later.

[Coffey]

I'm not sure how successful this will be as an individual thread, I just thought maybe I was alone in those thoughts, which I am obviously not. To stay on target though, I do want to address this:

 

As for the note above me, I think there's been a decent amount written lately about universal traits, but if you just see things like psychology and pacing as buzzwords, then that's the problem right there. They're not, not if you back them up and explain HOW the psychology was good and what worked with the pacing and what didn't.

This isn't really what I meant by buzz words. I certainly won't act like I'm on the level as a lot of other people around these parts as it pertains to pro-wrestling knowledge but I know that psychology goes beyond just doing legwork to set-up a Figure-Four. If I am trying to explain what matches I liked to a casual fan, as an example, I can't very well just throw out words like psychology or pacing and expect them to know what I'm talking about though. I want to explain why I like "Match A" more than "Match B" when both matches are great, from a rational and logical standpoint. When one match is the pits and the other is great, it is not a problem, but I do struggle when they're both good, especially if they're from different regions and I'm talking to someone only familiar with one style of wrestling. As stated in my initial post though, it is also a struggle that I deal with personally in my critical thinking, when trying to explain it to myself. Why did I like this more than that without just resorting to phrases like "I just do."

 

An example: Let's say that you have two matches that you really like. One is from Mexico and one is from Japan. You rate them both equal. Let's say, for argument's sake, that they're both, in your opinion, **** matches. You have a couple 5-star matches, you have a couple 3 1/2 star matches. But when you go to make a list, how do you determine which match is better between your two identical rated matches? And the better the matches the harder it is to me.

 

What I have seemingly done in the past is start looking for flaws. Well, they didn't do this right so the other match is better...but they didn't do that so it isn't better. Then I'm re-watching a match a few times and have a completely different outlook on it. Then I change the rating altogether because "well, if it's not as good as this other match, then it can't be rated the same." See what I mean?

 

And the match is never the same the second time around. Because the surprise element is gone.

[goodhelmet]

One thing you have to take into consideration is your emotional attachment to the wrestler involved. If I have posters of Kawada hanging on my wall and a Santo mask, it is easier for me to become more emotionally invested in their matches than someone I don't care about.

 

Personal experience also affects your judgment. Dylan saw the Taker-HHH match live last year and I saw this years match live. We both think our live match was better than the one we watched sitting on the couch. If our seats were reversed, we would probably both be arguing from different positions.

[Ricky Jackson]

I've never been one to critically analyze wrestling matches and attempt to explain why, objectively, a certain match is great (or why it isn't). That's just me. As I've written before, I'm very impressed by the level of thought a lot of you put into analyzing wrestling on this board. But that is like me, a history and art guy, praising someone for their skill at physics or mathematics: I'm impressed with your knowledge of something I have no knowledge of and never will. But at the same time, I don't have a desire to ever learn.

 

For me, a great match is a great match. I've watched enough wrestling over the years to know one when I see it, but don't expect me to explain exactly why it is great. As goodhelmet posted, emotional reaction plays a huge part in it. In the 90's I lived and died with Bret Hart, like I was cheering for my favorite team, and was heavily involved emotionally in the outcome of his matches. If I made a top 10 list of my all time favorite matches, Bret matches would likely take up about 50% of the spots (or at least they would have five years ago, before I saw a lot of other stuff). I could tell you Bret was a master psychologist and all that, but my best explanation for loving his work is pretty emotional: He opened my eyes to a style of wrestling I had never really seen before and I really embraced, he was a breath of fresh air after years of Hogan, and he was, and this is something I can't overstate, a Canadian, a Calgarian no less, and this meant A LOT to my teenage self, in a way I can never recapture or even explain properly. A lot of my love for Bret is/was based on timing and geography.

 

In fact, a lot of my love for wrestling in general is based on timing and geography. I grew up a WWF kid in 80s and 90s Canada. I've been into other wrestling over the years, like WCW, AWA, ECW, Stampede of course, and have been exploring old Japan and Memphis (and other territories) increasingly in the last few years, but I always return to my first love, like a security blanket. I emotionally receive more joy out of watching old WWF on YouTube than anything else. I have enjoyed a lot of the non-WWF stuff I have watched "cold" over the years, as like I said, a great match is a great match. But it is true that I have to be in a certain mood to stray from the WWF canon, as the emotional pull just isn't there (although I'm developing one for Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk's work, among others).

 

I've rambled on long enough.

[ohtani's jacket]

Most people go into a match cold because they're watching something they're not familiar with or don't follow on a regular basis. Casas vs. Panther, for example, has been built to since last year (possibly even the year before.) I didn't watch all of the set-up but the guys who did were really high on that match. Speaking for myself, the Punk/Henry match would be easy to watch in isolation because I at least know those workers but with the New Japan match I'd be lost and I doubt I'd give it a fair shot.

[Victator]

I don't see the problem with a clean count out finish. Henry power slammed Punk on the floor and got in the ring at the last instant. I rather than the Jericho run in I was expecting.

[Dylan Waco]

I think it says a lot about the year when a free TV match, with no build-up, unannounced, that has commercial breaks and a count-out finish is being considered for Match of the Year. That is not to say that the match wasn't enjoyable, mind you, but how was this better than, as an example, Kazuchika Okada Vs. Tetsuya Naito from IWGP (which Dylan doesn't list, which surprised me). I understand that tastes vary and pro-wrestling as an art form is a pretty subjective thing but I think instances like this are why it is impossible for me to establish a definitive list, especially come December. I don't even know what I am looking for from a match that makes it stand out for me. Other than just using a cop-out, stock answer like "it makes me mark-out" or throwing around buzzwords like "psychology," "pacing," & "heat." It makes me feel bad. I don't want to say "I liked this match more" I want to be able to explain why, ya know?

 

It's really hard for me to compare wrestling from different regions, for some reason. Maybe that is just a problem for me, but when comparing matches, how do I compare a WWE main event style match (like HHH/Taker), to a Lucha match (Panther/Casas) to a NJPW main event style match (Okada/Naito) to a U.S. Indy match (Richards/Elgin)? This isn't a knock against Dylan or anyone else, mind you. I just really struggle to place the matches I enjoy in an actual pecking order.

 

A big part of the appeal for American matches to me is the build-up and story going into the match. It helps create the atmosphere. But when I go into a match cold from another country, where I do not even speak their language to get help from the commentators, it feels unfair to put them on the same scale, so to speak. I don't know if it is unfair to the American matches or the foreign matches mind you, but it seems odd. I guess a lot of it comes down to my mindset when I'm going into a match as well.

 

Am I just speaking gibberish?

Storyline matters, but it is not everything to me. It matters more if the story told in the match itself is compelling. If it is part of a bigger storyline that's even better but not essential (though most of my favorite matches would qualify).

 

I didn't hate Okada v. Naito. It was pretty good, despite some flaws that were really hard for me to ignore and sucked me out of the match at times. But to answer your (perhaps rhetorical) question the selling was way better in Punk v. Henry. It had a structure that I thought worked well and was very well executed. Punk is a guy I generally do not like as an underdog, but he was very good as the underdog here because Henry is a great monster. The big shots looked big and the cut off spots were excellent. They built to the tension and big spots MUCH better than the NJPW match, as the payoff of Punk knocking Henry off his feet meant more than any single spot inthe Okada v. Naito match IMO. I actually thought the match had purpose as a way of showing that Henry is still the baddest motherfucker on the block even against the theoretical king of the hill. I much preferred it for those reasons and others

[Dylan Waco]

One thing you have to take into consideration is your emotional attachment to the wrestler involved. If I have posters of Kawada hanging on my wall and a Santo mask, it is easier for me to become more emotionally invested in their matches than someone I don't care about.

 

Personal experience also affects your judgment. Dylan saw the Taker-HHH match live last year and I saw this years match live. We both think our live match was better than the one we watched sitting on the couch. If our seats were reversed, we would probably both be arguing from different positions.

I think this is absolutely true and can't be understated.

 

I mean Malenko v. Guerrero from Uncensored is a good match, but I like it WAY more than anyone else because I was there.

[KrisZ]

I was at last year's Mania like Dylan and I thought the series was identical to the HBK/Taker series in that the 1st match was the workrate match and the 2nd match was the storytelling match. Both matches were awesome in their own ways.

[Johnny Sorrow]

What I have seemingly done in the past is start looking for flaws. Well, they didn't do this right so the other match is better...but they didn't do that so it isn't better. Then I'm re-watching a match a few times and have a completely different outlook on it. Then I change the rating altogether because "well, if it's not as good as this other match, then it can't be rated the same." See what I mean?

 

And the match is never the same the second time around. Because the surprise element is gone.

Simple answer is, "Stop doing that."

 

Or just run an endless loop of Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard "I Quit" in the cage from Starrcade 85 so you have nothing but perfection on your TV at all times.

[Loss]

Coming back to this, yeah, a big part of watching wrestling for me is being in the moment as much as possible, which probably seems hypocritical considering that I'm always behind other people on what I'm watching and rarely watch anything current. But I do try to watch lead-ins as much as possible so that I'm seeing things in the order that they were intended to be seen. As much as I'm sure I'll love, say, Jumbo/Tenryu from 6/5/89 when I re-watch it for the first time in several years, I don't know that I'd love if it if I just put in the DVD and watched it right at this moment. Context isn't going to make something that's bad good most of the time, but it can make decent good, good great, and great classic.

 

As far as explaining why you like what you like, it's nice to be able to do so, but I don't know that it's absolutely necessary. If you don't want to be a critic, don't beat yourself up over it. I'm a pretty firm believer that everything is explainable, but I know sometimes it's difficult.

 

For example, HHH/Taker wasn't my thing this year because there wasn't much wrestling. Even as a "story", some things like Shawn getting caught in the gogoplata weren't as clearly defined as they could have been, since some interpreted it as Undertaker doing it accidentally because he thought Shawn was Hunter, and some interpreted it as Undertaker attacking him on purpose to make sure he didn't prematurely stop the match. To me, in a match like that, there isn't room for ambiguity and that a key spot like that gets debated shows that the audience didn't get something. There were also other issues (All of the "End it or I will" talk felt like a pointless time killer because I don't think anyone in the building really thought Shawn was going to stop the match.) And Shawn sitting in the corner and crying? At the same time, some may not care so much about all of that because to them, it worked. It's perfectly possible to admit something worked and still not like it, or even to admit that something didn't work but still enjoy it. This was the former for me.

 

Maybe this is wrong, but I also have a standard for what all wrestling should be and hold everything to it, instead of saying "Well, WWE doesn't care about and it's not something that has really been important in the style in a long time, so I'm not going to complain about that is missing it."

 

The perfect example there is a Cena/Ziggler match from Raw that Dylan recommended to me a while back when I was bitching about WWE. The context was the difference in liking the match, because it has a direct relationship with how protected titles are. It was a world champ vs IC champ match. What does the IC title mean in December 2010? If it's a main event-level title for one of the key guys the company is building around, the match was really good because Cena gave Ziggler so much of the match and sold a lot for him. If the IC title is a midcard title that's more about keeping people away from main events than a springboard, Cena is the top guy that's several rungs ahead of Ziggler and sold way too much for him.

 

I like wrestling to have consequences. Did Ziggler getting all that offense lead to a big main event climb for him? If not, did Cena benefit from overcoming the odds when faced with a formidable challenger in a way that people remembered for weeks or months (or even days) after? Watching cold left me with all of those questions. Because that stuff matters to me personally, I think it's one reason I'll always have a bias to non-current stuff -- there's more time to look at those things. It's also why the yearbook project is perfect for me at this stage, as I probably wouldn't be watching or caring about wrestling at all if not for that.

[Matt D]

The perfect example there is a Cena/Ziggler match from Raw that Dylan recommended to me a while back when I was bitching about WWE. The context was the difference in liking the match, because it has a direct relationship with how protected titles are. It was a world champ vs IC champ match. What does the IC title mean in December 2010? If it's a main event-level title for one of the key guys the company is building around, the match was really good because Cena gave Ziggler so much of the match and sold a lot for him. If the IC title is a midcard title that's more about keeping people away from main events than a springboard, Cena is the top guy that's several rungs ahead of Ziggler and sold way too much for him.

 

I like wrestling to have consequences. Did Ziggler getting all that offense lead to a big main event climb for him? If not, did Cena benefit from overcoming the odds when faced with a formidable challenger in a way that people remembered for weeks or months (or even days) after? Watching cold left me with all of those questions. Because that stuff matters to me personally, I think it's one reason I'll always have a bias to non-current stuff -- there's more time to look at those things. It's also why the yearbook project is perfect for me at this stage, as I probably wouldn't be watching or caring about wrestling at all if not for that.

This is interesting. I know there was one point where a lot of us were more interested in the business side of things than the actual wrestling content. You even see that here. There are a lot of people who say they followed the sheets or a message board but didn't watch the product itself. You're saying consequence, but it's not a kayfabe sort of consequence (or if it is, it's only very very loosely, I think).

[Loss]

It is a kayfabe consequence. To me, it doesn't make sense for a midcarder to be on even footing with a headliner because the headliners are supposed to be better.

[Matt D]

It's not though. It doesn't matter if Ziggler beats Cena, even clearly, unless they follow up on that from a booking perspective. WWE's start-stop pushing strategy (to keep egos down or whatever) sort of makes following a match on those logical kayfabe guidelines maddening. At the end of the day it comes down to the pushes.

[Loss]

I guess I see that as a booking flaw that hurts the matches, more than "Oh, there goes their chance to make Ziggler a draw".

 

I see what you're saying to an extent. I guess there was a time when these things weren't just isolated or there for people who were paying attention. Matches were worked in a certain way with certain themes/points being hit hard bell-to-bell because it was good for business. That's not wrestling now.

 

And yes, it is maddening.

[El-P]

I like wrestling to have consequences.

I feel your pain.

[Dylan Waco]

It is a kayfabe consequence. To me, it doesn't make sense for a midcarder to be on even footing with a headliner because the headliners are supposed to be better.

And yet you are an advocate of Ric "stumbled into a win over George South" Flair.

[Loss]

Not really.

[Dylan Waco]

You aren't? When did you turn against Flair as GOAT?

 

I don't want this to be read as a troll either.

 

My point is that hierarchical structure in wrestling is something I also really like in practice to...except when I like guys who aren't really that sort of guy. Exceptions abound

[Loss]

Well, I love Flair and consider him GOAT, but the George South match is more of a case against him than it is something that contributes to that.

 

Flair's not that kind of guy. It's my least favorite thing about him. He's still great.

[Loss]

I realize you're trying to give me an out here, so I'll just take it and let that be that. There are exceptions to every rule.

 

I'm laughing because I must give off quite the absolutist vibe, considering how often people try to get me with you-said-this-but-you-also-once-said-this stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

Maybe this is wrong, but I also have a standard for what all wrestling should be and hold everything to it, instead of saying "Well, WWE doesn't care about and it's not something that has really been important in the style in a long time, so I'm not going to complain about that is missing it."

Aren't you expecting a bit too much from wrestling? How many examples were there on each yearbook of wrestling reaching the standard you've set?

[Loss]

Plenty. I've enjoyed tons of stuff from those. It's not a standard I've set. It's a standard I agree with. Anyone who has ever voted in a Match of the Year poll follows the same standard. I'm not the only person on the Internet who compares matches across styles, eras and promotions featuring vastly different types of wrestlers. In order to do that, doesn't everyone have to decide what they value in good wrestling and then try to apply it universally?

[Coffey]

you-said-this-but-you-also-once-said-this stuff.

You missed your calling as a politician.