Ingredients and finished product

[Loss]

For someone to be as much of a wrestling fan as me and not have a favorite wrestler probably seems odd, but I don't. I have my personal opinions on who the best and worst wrestlers are, but my personal attachment is not to wrestlers themselves. It is to matches, angles and promos. In other words, the performance is what grabs me (the message), not the wrestler (the messenger).

 

I just wondered if anyone else sees wrestling in these terms. I'd love to participate in the Fave Five thread pinned at the top of this board, but I don't have a clue who my five favorite wrestlers are. I could list my five favorite matches easily.

 

It's the difference between rating a meal and rating a chef. I'd much rather rate a meal. I'm not comfortable rating a chef. I am the same way with music -- I don't have favorite artists as much as I have favorite songs. I don't have favorite actors, just favorite movies.

 

In some ways, I get the "You've never been in the ring" complaint. Not in the sense that it means you can't have opinions about wrestlers, but more in the sense that you really don't know who contributed the ideas that got over the most. And I don't really care about that. I recently made the math analogy. Count on your fingers, do your work on paper or put it into a calculator. I don't care. Just get the right answer.

 

Am I bonkers for looking at everything this way? Am I the only person here that looks at everything from this point of view?

[Childs]

I look at it both ways at different times. Matches are very important to me, and when I go through a yearbook, for example, I'm always comparing them in my mind. I identify more with the way you think about wrestling than with someone like MattD, who writes intelligent, enjoyable posts but doesn't seem to prize transcendent matches. I would never advocate someone as GOAT if he didn't have a long list of matches that really excited me.

 

That said, I'm very attached to certain wrestlers -- Hansen, Choshu, Tenryu, etc. -- and prone to give them the benefit of the doubt in matches that might bug me if other workers were involved.

[Ditch]

I see where you're coming from. The best ten matches, shows, angles, feuds, etc. are easier to enjoy than any ten wrestlers with their assorted highs and lows. The former has a much higher average quality. You can still break it down as "here's why it worked" without being focused on any one wrestler. Typically there's a lot more to it than one wrestler, anyway.

 

It's certainly much easier to rate something concrete like a match or show than a wrestler. It really does take a tremendous amount of viewing before one has a firm grasp on a wrestler's body of work, and even then it's hard to take all those performances and distill them into a coherent opinion. That's why I find all-time wrestler ranks to be so problematic; precious few people are qualified.

 

That said, as someone who constantly seeks out 'more', whether it be good wrestling or good music or good analysis, I can't help but need a *person* to focus on. 90-99% of everything in life is mediocre to bad, and emphasizing the best/most consistent people makes it easier to sift out the gold.

 

In the context of wrestling, I buy DVDs based on what I anticipate to be good matches. I anticipate based on two things: good reviews and wrestlers I like. With each DVD, I will either watch in full or at least skim through the parts I'm less interested in. I give the other matches/segments a chance. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised... but not often. The handful of top performers are overwhelmingly responsible for the best product.

[Gregor]

I DEFINITELY feel like that about music. I don't feel any connection to any artist or group. There are just songs that I like. With wrestling, I have my favorites, but for the most part I agree that it's a lot easier for me (and feels fairer) to judge the output than the input.

 

I've seen matches in which I've been really impressed with the heel's offensive run, but it's interspersed with a bunch of the face's signature comeback spots, or the heel is pacing everything better than usual. I have no idea who's behind what. The heel's ideas for that match could be meshing with mine, or it could be the face calling things and thus making the match enjoyable for me. It could be both of them. There's a lot less that I can get wrong by just saying, "I liked this match," than by trying to break down who did what.

 

This isn't to say that I don't ever credit wrestlers for things during matches - it's just that I can't tell with a lot of it. As for prizing transcendent matches, that strikes me as a different argument, one about opportunities.

[Loss]

I definitely agree that some matches look better on paper than others. Of course I notice when wrestlers show up in great matches repeatedly. On the subject of opportunity, at the risk of saying something contentious, I can't think of a single wrestler in history who hasn't been put in a position to have good matches. Every match has the potential to be good. I've seen great five minute matches and lousy ones that go an hour. I've seen booking tricks both help and hinder the quality of a match. Call me an optimist, but every match has the opportunity to be good. And I don't subscribe to the theory that it's not the role of some wrestlers to have good matches. Does that mean their role is to go out there and stink up the joint? Explain this, Matt D.

[Matt D]

Different matches on the card have different purposes. Generally. That's a generally minor part of my mindset though.

 

But I've got an attacking six month old here, so I am going to let other people chime in. I've said my thoughts a million times, but I can focus them here, certainly.

 

I think I'm the minority not you though, if that helps!

 

Honestly, I'm just glad you people put up with me most of the time.

[BrickHithouse]

I view wrestling from I guess a booker or promoter's view. The most interesting things to me are figuring out why a guy is over, and what steps are taken to get him there. Card structure. How to keep a guy over without him getting stale, the steps taken and progression of logical angles, different ways heat is generated in different areas. Even TV production, camera angles.

 

I don't fit in here at all with all the analysis, couldn't analyze or rate a match or wrestler to save my life. No set preferred style (though I lean towards heated brawls over flawlessly executed cruiserweight style matches), little or no regard to match quality. I like some guys that are terrible in the ring, dislike guys that are excellent. I love terrible, embarrassingly bad matches just as much as I like 5 star classics. I love a good horrible promo as much as a great one. I like what I like and there's no predicting what that's going to be. My top 5 favorite wrestlers would vary by the minute and I could never narrow down 5 matches and rank them.

[World's Worst Man]

I feel the same way as Loss. I rarely get enthusiastic about particular wrestlers and I'm more focused on the match itself. There are only a few wrestlers that I particularly enjoy and have a high opinion of and that's usually guys who are great sellers and have realistic looking offense (hi Kawada). I think it's because those are obvious things that the individual has control over whereas the psychology and layout of a match isn't something which can easily be pinned on a specific performer. It's just one's mindset when they watch wrestling I guess.

[ohtani's jacket]

It depends on the type of wrestling. For the most part I'm interested in watching great matches from my favourite workers, but if there's a style, promotion or era I'm interested in then I'll watch everything from the point of view of the style/promotion/era.

[Ditch]

And I don't subscribe to the theory that it's not the role of some wrestlers to have good matches. Does that mean their role is to go out there and stink up the joint?

Depends on the definition of 'good'. Two WWE Divas, hired based on looks, are sent out for a 3 minute match. Their job is to entertain the heavily-straight-male fanbase and serve as a tonal difference from the rest of the product. Is the match good by the standards of 1993 joshi? Of course not. But clearly it works, because Diva segments don't cause massive rating losses, Diva products make money, and people get their bathroom break in.

 

Abdullah the Butcher was in a tiny number of 'good' matches, but he was effective in what he was doing and drew money from one corner of the globe to the other. Abby was never called on to do hold-for-hold masterpieces, but the fans who came to see him rarely left disappointed based on his performance.

 

It's entirely possible for Divas to have a reasonably good 3 minute match. And I know Abby can be in a good match because I really enjoyed two of the Funks vs Abby/Shiek matches.

 

What's frustrating is when a wrestler doesn't seem to be good from an in-ring aestetic point-of-view, AND doesn't seem to be good filling a niche for the crowd, whether it be titilation or bloodlust or nostalgia. The Brody argument comes into play here, because in theory he's an Abby-style "chaos and violence" wrestler but the matches tend to be really boring and soft. I'm sure we can all think of wrestlers who just seem to take up space without producing anything for the promotion. Nosawa Rongai comes to mind for me, because he pops up everywhere in Japan and just sucks at every level. But he's got all the right connections and is brought in over and over. That's usually the case with deadweight.

[Frankensteiner]

Personally, I have more fun watching matches with wrestlers I really like. Meaning I'd rather watch a good match between wrestlers I like than a great match between two guys I don't really care for. I'd go even further and say I'll have more fun watching an average match with guys I like because I'll have more interest in seeing how they work in certain situations.

[PeteF3]

I'm definitely more towards Loss' views on this subject. My wrestling viewing now more or less consists of the '80s sets, stuff specifically pimped out/recommended to view on Youtube or DailyMotion, and now the yearbooks. In other words, stuff that was specifically noted by somebody after the fact as, "This is something you should watch." That pretty much requires you to go into everything with an open mind. A top 150 AWA '80s match involving Big John Studd? Jimmy Valiant working in 1990? 5-10 years ago I'd groan and FF but now I have to go in thinking, "Let's see why other people thought this was important to see." Obviously I have some preferences over others when it comes to wrestlers. But my Fav Five thread would change every other week and included guys who could hardly be considered "favorites"--just the guys like Angel Azteca I was most interested in seeing more of.

 

My musical interests are nothing whatsoever like this. There are acts where I will absolutely swallow up every ounce of output I can get. Don't ask me to explain this.

[NintendoLogic]

Quite a few promoters have the mindset that guys in the undercard shouldn't work too hard and have matches that are too difficult for guys in the main event to follow. I think that's bullshit myself.

 

Anyway, I'm also in the Loss camp on this. I think mainly in terms of matches, and my favorite wrestlers are the ones who've appeared in the most matches I like. At the same time, I have a few one-hit wonders, wrestlers I couldn't care less about overall who are in a match or two I really dig.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

For someone to be as much of a wrestling fan as me and not have a favorite wrestler probably seems odd, but I don't. I have my personal opinions on who the best and worst wrestlers are, but my personal attachment is not to wrestlers themselves. It is to matches, angles and promos. In other words, the performance is what grabs me (the message), not the wrestler (the messenger).

 

I just wondered if anyone else sees wrestling in these terms. I'd love to participate in the Fave Five thread pinned at the top of this board, but I don't have a clue who my five favorite wrestlers are. I could list my five favorite matches easily.

 

It's the difference between rating a meal and rating a chef. I'd much rather rate a meal. I'm not comfortable rating a chef. I am the same way with music -- I don't have favorite artists as much as I have favorite songs. I don't have favorite actors, just favorite movies.

 

In some ways, I get the "You've never been in the ring" complaint. Not in the sense that it means you can't have opinions about wrestlers, but more in the sense that you really don't know who contributed the ideas that got over the most. And I don't really care about that. I recently made the math analogy. Count on your fingers, do your work on paper or put it into a calculator. I don't care. Just get the right answer.

 

Am I bonkers for looking at everything this way? Am I the only person here that looks at everything from this point of view?

You're a wrestling agnostic.

 

There are sports agnostics as well, people who love a particular sport(s), but don't cheer for a specific team.

[Graham Crackers]

I don't think any fan has to have one absolute favorite wrestler but with the amount of wrestling we all watch it's hard to avoid having wrestlers we are more invested in. I mean obviously there are wrestlers that we like because we like their act but wrestling is fiction and as in any form of fiction there are characters we become emotionally attached to. Misawa for example is one of my favorites and it's partly because of his matches but I'm also emotionally involved in his "story." Watching and rewatching moments like his flash pin on Jumbo, KO'ing Hansen, or his partnership with Kawada falling apart can be kind of cathartic.

 

That's part of why I like watching older wrestling in the context of something like the DVDVR 80s projects. You get to follow all of the little stories so that something like Lawler beating Hennig for the AWA title can be a great match as well as an emotional release.

[Dylan Waco]

I have guys who are my absolute favorites that will never really change (Terry Funk, Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman are the three that are consistent across space and time), but at any given moment I might get attached to Tajiri or Blackwell or Buddy Rose or researching Ken Patera's career or wanting to know tons more about the history of Lucha or whatever. It's usually dependent on what I am watching at the time or who I'm talking to but in that sense my favorites constantly evolve.

 

Matches is about the same with me. There are a few constants (Funk v. Flair GAB 89, Savage v. Warrior, 96 tag league final), but as I watch more things I acquire new favorites and things of that nature change over time too.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I find wrestling can be quite boring when I don't have an emotional attachment to one of the guys in the match. In a lot of ways, I watch wrestling like I watch other sporting events. Just like I get upset when my football team get beat, or when Roger Federer loses, I get upset when I wrestler I like gets beat. Hell, I still don't like to rewatch matches that Bret Hart lost...

 

I guess, while I like to look at wrestling analytically, emotionally I never developed past the age of like 12 as a fan.

[Matt D]

I have a hard time getting emotional involved in any match that isn't going on in the present. I think it's some personal flaw. I'm sure if I watched 90s AJPW I'd be able to get involved since I have so little idea who wins matches and who loses matches when, so it'll all be a complete surprise to me. In general, though, even the best match can't always pull me in. Sometimes it manages it. But I'm like that with most forms of media. If I'm reading a book I might be 30% engaged and 70% looking at the mechanics of how the author is trying to pull off what he's trying to pull off. I tend to think a lot more about writing than I do things like cinematography when watching a movie, but it's rare that I'm focused on the characters more than the structure and the nuts and bolts of the storytelling.

 

So I watch for other reasons. I also don't see wrestling as sport but as art, and enjoy it as that level. There's not a ton of rooting for me. I think I mark out more for a cleverly executed spot or ... and yeah, it's embarrassing, but I get honestly excited when a guy sells exactly when i want him to. Dibiase made sure to briefly sell the arm when he got back on offense in the Taylor match I saw and I loved it. That's all little bits though. Here's the main point.

 

For me, I like watching a wrestler over time and a wrestler in context. I like watching whole shows within whole years. I like seeing all the promos leading up to a match and how match #1 can build to match #2 and match #3. I like the whole package. So that's context.

 

When it comes to a specific wrestler, I like seeing how they deal with different challenges, with different opponents with matches that are trying to tell a different emotional story. I like to see how they deal with wrestling a 5 minute TV match to set up a feud as opposed to a 20 minute arena blow off gimmick match. I like to see how they handle a transition against guy a lot bigger than them and how they make a guy a lot smaller than them look credible but not so credible that the size difference doesn't matter.

 

One thing i very rarely do is put up a candidate for GOAT. There's just to much I haven't seen. If I saw everything in the world, however, I still think I would tout "getting it" and performing better than anyone else in every situation they were put in over having a number of matches that are the greatest matches of all time.

 

Honestly, very little of what any wrestler is called upon to do is to have a MOTYC.

[WingedEagle]

Maybe this is why I was struggling to come up with my current Fave Five. I was going to post that for me it was a somewhat more stylistic answer, as I've been seeking out guys like La Fiera/Casas/Santo/Dandy as I increase my exposure to Lucha and folks like Volk Han as I'm also looking to watch more shoot style wrestling.

 

But, for example, today I've watched Daniel Bryan's promos & matches from the last couple WWE shows while flying through the rest on DVR, some end of '94 AJ and now some '80s Memphis from the DVDVR set (Hey, we've got snow and shitty weather so the wife was kind of enough to let me get away with that today while she watches some mysteries). More often than not I'll take advantage of that ability to watch a variety of styles and performers and keep it mixed up with new matches and angles while sometimes turning back to classics. Next I'll probably check out some lucha Dean's posted over at DVDVR.