Do "Standards change" in wrestling?

[Lee Casebolt]

 

It also shouldn't be a given that Andre is better than Show. Over time Show has become every bit as smart a worker as Andre was, plus his ability to take big bumps at his size and age is super impressive. I say Big Show is better but not by a big margin.

 

Andre's body of work easily trumps Show's body of work. I'm not trying to diss on Show, and his longevity has been impressive. But, I'd put Andre's peaks above Show's peaks, and I'd still put late Andre over prime Show because they both basically served the same function, Andre just served it better and worked a better style for getting people over.

 

 

I think it's possible to make both of these arguments - Show has more talent, Andre a better body of work. If you put each man in the other's career in terms of booking, Show could do what Andre did. I don't think Andre could do what Show did, and I love Andre. Show never got to do epic matches with his era's equivalent of Antonio Inoki and Stan Hansen. He didn't get built up as an unstoppable force for years to be matched up against his contemporary version of Hulk Hogan. (You can fill in your own Inoki, Hansen, and Hogan.) He was never protected to the degree Andre was, and so couldn't develop the aura Andre used so successfully. But if you put Andre on tv every week, have him job to the equivalent of DDP, Matt Hardy, and MVP, I don't believe he'd be looked at in the same light, either.

[BillThompson]

In terms of pure talent though, I don't think Show measures up. Andre in his prime was more athletic, and throughout his career had more of what I consider true wrestling talent, ie; selling, working the crowd, bumping, knowing when and where to place moves, comebacks, etc. Again, I don;t want this to sound like I'm slamming Show, but while he's always been a good talent I don;t think he comes close to the Mount Rushmore level of talent that Andre possessed.

[Matt D]

I think we need to define talent. To me, talent is mainly "ability to have what I think is a good wrestling match," and that's 90% savvy and 10% athleticism, maybe. Now, if we're talking about "ability to be on TV every week and still be a draw/force/pop, while not totally destroying your body," then we have to factor in things like whether or not Andre could have had Show's surgery at some point and how the WWE marketing machine would have changed things, etc.

 

Regardless, we need to break this off, but we also have to define talent and I don't think we're going to come up with a uniform answer, so we might have to break it into categories after that.

[moazzam23]

Is there really enough available footage of Andre's prime to safely say he was easily better than Show? I know there's the New Japan matches but how much 70's/early 80's stuff is out there to comfortably put him ahead? Honestly asking because I havent seen nearly as much older wrestling as most here.

 

For Big Show, these are the matches I rate highly:

 

vs Brock Lesnar Smackdown 2003 (ring collapse match)

vs Eddie Guerrero Smackdown 2004

vs Eddie Guerrero No Mercy 2003

vs Ric Flair ECW 2006

vs Mayweather Wrestlemania 24

vs Undertaker No Mercy 2008

vs Undertaker Cyber Sunday 2008

vs Cena Smackdown 2009 (sometime before Mania that year)

w/Jericho vs Batista/Rey HIAC 2009

WHC MITB match 2010 (Show was the best guy in this match)

vs Mark Henry Vengeance 2011

vs Daniel Bryan Smackdown 2012

vs Sheamus HIAC 2012

vs Sheamus TLC 2012

vs Del Rio Smackdown 2013

 

That's 15 off the top of my head. Do we actually have 15 Andre matches at this level on tape?

[Steenalized]

Not sure which of your list I'd drop off, but I love Show in his match vs. Henry at MITB 2011. Though that's more of a Henry showcase, I think Show's pretty tremendous in helping Henry look like a beast.

[concrete1992]

My favorite part apart of Joe's comments/tweets/statements is to write in "in my opinion" in my own mind. Much easier to swallow versus the certainty it is stated. And he knows that and will go back to state that but it rarely come out like that the first go around which is FINE!

 

I think Show is a rather fantastic big man. I haven't seen enough from Andre to say that he was absolutely better than Show but I feel more than comfortable saying he isn't [hyperbole] worse than Show just based off a few performances I've seen closer to his prime.

[goodhelmet]

 

There isn't one breath that Show takes in that match that's not exactly where it should be. It's not a case where one guy is great and the other sucks.

 

I don't judge matches on a wrestler's breath.

 

Also, the biggest problem I have with W2BTD's argument is the idea that modernity is progress or evolution. Sometimes it is regression or devolution.

[Shining Wiz]

 

There isn't one breath that Show takes in that match that's not exactly where it should be. It's not a case where one guy is great and the other sucks.

 

I don't judge matches on a wrestler's breath.

 

Also, the biggest problem I have with W2BTD's argument is the idea that modernity is progress or evolution. Sometimes it is regression or devolution.

 

If you take progress and evolution to mean 'better', than I would agree. I presume he meant evolution in the sense that x follows y.

[goodhelmet]

I don't have that much faith in his opinions.

[Matt D]

And I figured that was the argument but he was hiding it behind semantics. If we're being perfectly frank.

[Johnny Sorrow]

If Show debuted in the late Sixties and was booked exactly like Andre was he'd be considered as legendary. And if Andre debuted in the 90's and was booked like Show he'd also have been sent to OVW. I'm being a little overly simple, but it's really apples and oranges. Both are fruit and good for you, but are totally different.

[Loss]

Who is "he" whose opinions are being shredded?

[Shining Wiz]

Well, Andre was never asked to do the things Show has been. Because, you know, changing standards and all.

[funkdoc]

so this thread got linked in a recent discussion...

 

i can honestly understand where people like Joe come from on this one. the analytics community in sports has found that the quality of play improves over time in every major team sport, with all sorts of compelling evidence backing this up. if you see wrestling as mainly or even partially an athletic activity, i actually think it's a reasonable position.

 

in case anyone was curious, this does affect people's "greatest of all time" arguments in sports, but in a rather complex manner. generally it's assumed that the best players from the 1920s would still be some of the best today, since they would have access to the modern advantages. however, it's harder to dominate any sport today like Babe Ruth did, so modern players often rate above older players with more impressive raw numbers. higher quality of play means that there's less of a gap between the best and the average, so that gap counts for more in today's game.

 

i see people like Loss talk about "grading on a curve" or "rewarding what-ifs", and wanted to bring this up at some point. statistical analysts in sports DO base their judgments off "what-ifs" in a sense, since there are scientific ways to adjust for those. it honestly boggles my mind that people don't seem to understand that concept, but i guess it's not really widespread...

[Dylan Waco]

To be fair "what if" adjustments in sports are a relatively modern practice, and they tend to be based at least in part on much more concrete core metrics (size of ballparks for example) than what anyone could go on with pro wrestling for obvious reasons.

[fxnj]

The thing with improvements in sports plays is that a lot of it is driven just by access to better doping methods so guys can train harder/more often. Not only do the drugs obviously close the age gap by letting guys keep going at a high level into their 40's, but I'd argue they also partly close the genetic gap as well, hence the tightening of competition. I can't blame guys for comparing players from the 1920's to today if your sport only runs for a few months and you need something to talk about for the rest of the year, but I've never been interested in debating fantasy match-ups like Tyson/Ali as there's far too many variables to account for.

 

I don't see how any of this applies to wrestling, though, since people don't rate matches based on how difficult they are to execute as athletic endeavors but on how entertaining they are as artistic endeavors.

[Loss]

i see people like Loss talk about "grading on a curve" or "rewarding what-ifs", and wanted to bring this up at some point. statistical analysts in sports DO base their judgments off "what-ifs" in a sense, since there are scientific ways to adjust for those. it honestly boggles my mind that people don't seem to understand that concept, but i guess it's not really widespread...

 

I am not quite sure why I'm being singled out for something many people have said, especially something I said years ago, but wrestling doesn't work as a comparison to sports analysis. It works better as a comparison to music or film analysis in my opinion. If there's a movement to demonstrate what Phil Spector could have accomplished as a producer in the 1960s had he had a Synclavier or been part of the sampling culture, to me, that comparison would work better.

[goodhelmet]

To add to Loss's point, I have always maintained that Meltzer's Hall of Fame shouldn't be compared to a random Sports Hall of Fame but to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame instead. Completely arbitrary system that has no rhyme or reason.

[funkdoc]

the difference is that a big part of what we discuss here CAN be added to through "sabermetrics". namely, stardom/drawing power. i was just listening to an older Exile where they talked about this random lucha show in Atlanta that had Hijo del Santo vs...LA Park, i think. apparently it was a total one-match show, yet it drew a crowd of 6500. given that 1000 is a strong number for US indies, i feel like there's a huge "Value Above Replacement Level" going on there with those guys, like HOF-level. in fairness, some people here do argue along those lines, e.g. Dylan & co. with JYD. but i still see a lot of this stuff being written off as "what-ifs".

 

Loss: i mentioned you because i try to name names with stuff like this, and you were the first that popped to mind. in particular, i think of your use of the "what-if" line with regard to Flair getting main-event opportunities. i absolutely would adjust for that if i were doing something like a top 100 list, because i don't believe much of anything is a meritocracy; there's always going to be reasons beyond skill that earn someone those chances. the difference is likely in our vantage point for that kind of project, and this is actually something you see in sports as well.

 

most people think from the perspective of the fan, i.e. "will i be telling my grandkids how awesome this guy was?" i suspect the majority of GWE participants fit this category. it's always been more natural for me to put myself in the shoes of the general manager or booker, and the question i ask is more like "if i were the one bringing in talent, would i be begging to have this guy?" that leads me to try and strip all surrounding context for evaluations, as well as one can anyway. this seems to be a rare approach for wrestling criticism, but maybe i'm missing something.

[GOTNW]

I haven't said anything on this because I didn't really have anything to add to the discussion but I do have now!

Standards in how matches are worked change all the time. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better depending on what you're discussing and whom you're asking. But what I think is important is to look at exactly what kind of changes happen.

Simultaneously we also have to consider our perception of wrestling criticism, the primary of Meltzer-ism and the workrate dogma that ruled for so long. Because wrestling is what it is it took a while before platforms where people could seriously deconstruct it were created.

There is more of a general awareness of what works in a real fight now thanks to the popularity of MMA. The influence of this seems to be vastly overstated. Most of the changes actually stem from the UWF and other major japanese promotions adjusting their work to keep with the dives. I can't tell whether Blue Panther, Lizmark and US Indy workers saw the same tapes, but they saw the same workers and the same matches. We know how real submissions work. This doesn't really matter in pro wrestling. Pro wrestling continues to use chinlocks and arm wingers. This is why I don't really accept someone saying "well, we know about MMA now" when saying, say someone's armwork isn't interesting in a 2016 match. You can have interesting armwork using 1973 All Japan psychology that defies MMA logic in 2016 too. It just doesn't happen a lot.

Probably the biggest change in how matches are worked in how they are paced. Matches are much faster today with significantly more action. This might simply reflect the changes in our surrounding (and, among other things, why many people will long for wrestling from their days when it was "better"). It is a different world out there and matches are worked with different goals then they were fifteen, thiry or fifty years ago. It makes sense that you'd work one way when your target audience is the live crowd, another when your target audience is still the live crowd but television is becoming relevant for your promotion and another when television audience is your main goal and, well, people that enjoy your TV show up for the tapings. In that sense I find it somewhat pretentious to think that you can watch a match from 1963 and expect to have the same experience as a wrestling nerd that was in the crowd that night. The best you can do is understand why that style was worked the way it was, learn what to expect and appreciate and it and decide whether you like it or not.

Standards change in criticism. This is true from both a wider perspective with new ideas and theories constantly being added before eventually cycling eternally once all of them are on the table and in your personal experience as a fan/critic.

I liked the idea of "standard in wrestling don't change" because I liked its original intention (debunking the idea that the rise of athleticism, which isn't really athleticism but wrestlers doing more flips and whatnot-I highly doubt the Ricochets and Will Ospreays off the world would have the cardio to do a Billy Robinson-Inoki hour long match). But the more I think about it-there are things in wrestling I think are important. There absolutely are. But they vary so much from one style I like to another I can't just nod my head and say "yeah, good selling is important" when what good selling means changes so much depending on what we're talking about. And sometimes one value matters more than the other.

Sometimes things in wrestling get dropped as a conscious decision, sometimes they are simply forgotten. You as a fan can of course argue that retiring something from use was a mistake. You like it so it has to be good!

Even if you construct some insane chart or whatever depicting how much things in wrestling matter and how they effect each other at the end of the day you're simply presenting your vision of what makes good wrestling. It's not really a yes/no thing but If I have to pick I'm leaning slightly towards yes because there are many other things at play too, including efficiency vs personal satisfaction as an artist, wrestlers thinking of their work as "just a job" vs. thinking it's their drug (look this may sound a little awkward but there's a video where Matt Sydal explains what wrestling means to him and you can imagine how that looked). How deep can we go?