Do "Standards change" in wrestling?

[JerryvonKramer]

I dislike the general idea that moving forward in time necessarily indicates an improvement in standards.

 

It's just as easy to make "standards are generally declining" type arguments. For example, when was the last time a major film -- one that would be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars -- come out with a script as intelligent and witty as, say, All About Eve?

 

If we could only really judge things from our own historical contexts then why read books, watch films, listen to music or engage with ANYTHING from previous eras? It's a monumentally myopic way of viewing the world.

 

Meltzer is actually re-articulating an argument made by Jean-Paul Sartre somewhere about old literature being like dead or rotten fruit. According to Sartre, you want to eat fruit the moment it drops from the tree, and if you miss that moment, of course the fruit goes rotten. You need to try to uncover the original context in order truly to appreciate it, but all such attempts are futile because the moment, the zeitgeist, is forever lost. I've always thought that this argument is crap.

 

Despite that, it does have a grain of truth to it: yes, the zeitgeist is gone and for some things "you had to be there". But mostly I think the real great deep stuff -- the stuff you take into your heart and love -- whether it's art, literature, wrestling or anything else, doesn't happen in the zeitgeist but after the moment.

 

I used to have this argument with a buddy of mine who is into music. He's always reading Pitchfork and raving about the latest and greatest album. I accuse him continually of "being on the steam train", of being essentially a slave to fashion. All of a sudden he got into rap when Pitchfork gave My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy their 10.0 rating, or whatever. I often feel with him that he gets as much buzz from the fact that everyone else is talking about the thing at the same time as well, and that this in some way validates his listening experiences. He's a hipster.

 

I'm the complete opposite as a music fan. I want to feel like I'm the only guy in the world listening to American Gothic or John Wesley Harding or whatever. I'd get much more pleasure unearthing a lost gem from the 1960s that no one ever talks about than joining the thousands of people talking about the latest album by whatever indie band. I like to feel like I'm forging my own way through history carving my own idiosyncratic, esoteric, and wildly eclectic path. I guess with the ultimate aim of being a "connoisseur" of some sort -- at least within my own mind. And my approach is the same to film. And to most the things I deem to be important in life.

 

I think we can see much the same thing in play as wrestling fans -- the same two basic approaches. Seems to me that the majority of guys on this board tend towards that latter sensibility.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's just as easy to make "standards are generally declining" type arguments. For example, when was the last time a major film -- one that would be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars -- come out with a script as intelligent and witty as, say, All About Eve?

 

 

Is that what is meant by standards in this case, though? All About Eve is black and white, dialogue heavy and shot on set (apart from some establishing shots filmed by the Second Unit and using stand-ins.) The same script shot in 2014 would look dramatically different.

[fxnj]

Coming from a background in literature, I'm a fan of reader-response theory, the idea that the reader brings something special with them in their interpretation instead of texts simply having a set universal meaning created by the author. As was mentioned, a wrestling match definitely is a text and rthe "language" employed by it basically amounts to every conceivable aspect of a match that we talk about here. Language is by its nature an imprecise communication medium with infinite room for interpretation and no inherent "truth" to be found, which is what makes it interesting to keep analyzing the same matches for decades. Still, I'd still say it's important to understand the historical context simply because the meaning behind the "words" chosen in a text is built off the connotations behind them, and those connotations are created by the context the consumer reads them under. Looking at Huckleberry Finn with "modern eyes," you could pretty easily make the case that it's just a racist book based on its heavy usage of the word "nigger," but if you ignore the historical context you're missing out on the clever ways it actually satirized racism that allow for a far more interesting reading. To analogize it with wrestling, plenty of times I've seen people knock off points on puro matches for having fighting spirit spots without trying to understand the cultural context and the in-match psychology behind them, while conversely there are probably tons of WWE matches I could watch with quality that would be lost on me simply because I don't have the time to keep up with the storylines.

 

To tie this into the question of standards changing, when we talk about interpreting the moves in a match it would be helpful create 2 categories that the meaning behind the moves comes from. Firstly, there is the "symbolic value" that we see in a move like Hogan's leg drop that isn't going to look that deadly to someone watching cold but is treated as a big deal based off how that specific move has been built up within its wrestling context. Secondly is the "face value," which is how a move comes across with no prior attempt to build it up specifically. It basically serves as an extension of the "symbolic value" in that it relies on more general worldly knowledge than wrestling specifically. An example is Foley's first fall in his 1998 HIAC with Taker, which is one of the most famous spots in history due to popular conceptions of gravity and human limitations, even though he claims the second fall actually hurt more.

 

The changing "face value" for moves is what I think is the main source behind this argument that standards change. Unlike a book where the interpretative value comes predominately from the ideas expressed, that emotional reaction derived from that "face value" plays a pretty significant role in interpreting matches. Viewers in the 50's might have been enthralled by seeing drop kicks and leg-scissor takedowns, but now it comes across pretty flat to see matches end with those moves as the "face value" of such moves has been pretty well eroded by virtue of modern viewers seeing so many more brutal and spectacular looking things regularly. In that respect, the "zeitgeist" has definitely been irretrievably lost as even if we can go back and see "this would have been impressive to those fans," that would really only be a small part of the moment as the bulk of the interpretive value comes from the sheer emotion of viewing it as something impressive.

 

That is not to say that watching matches under historical context is the only way to do it. As has been mentioned many times, there are plenty of great 70's puro mat clinics that modern viewers can watch and mark out for all these details that historical viewers probably weren't even paying much attention to. Even the wrestlers themselves might not have been consciously intending the things we praise them for and that doesn't matter since like I said, what makes these discussions interesting is how we can construct our own strands of storytelling out of the moves performed in the ring. Because of the huge factor the viewer's interpretation of the match and attention to detail plays, I agree with what was mentioned before that matches don't have some "inherent quality" and I'm skeptical about looking looking at things "objectively" or that something can be "technically good but not entertaining." I also dislike the separation between a match's workrate and its storytelling that's become popular because like I said in explaining a move's "symbolic value" and "face value," some juniors doing flips that are supposed to excite viewers for their innovation is every bit as much of a story as some deep classic like 6/3/94, even if the junior match's might not stand the test of time as well.

 

That said, I also wouldn't say the more recent perspective is always the best way to look at things either. Someone brought up the bashing the TM/DK series got on the NJPW set and while I definitely wouldn't call those matches flawless classics, I've since grown pretty sympathetic with what Resident Evil said about the psychological value in those matches. Like he said, I think this urge to "rebel" against the old guard and (justifiably) pimp things like the Fujinami/Choshu series from the time as far better did obscure some of the finer points of matches. Even granting that the spots didn't seem as impressive in 2010 as they did in 1983, Tiger Mask still deserved a lot more credit than he got for the spontaneous quality that he executed all his spots with that really gave him an otherworldly aura, as well as for the comic book rival dynamic he created with Dynamite Kid. With how people were talking about the matches at the time and dismissing RE's comments, one would have thought the only reason behind them being highly regarded were people in the 80's fetishizing guys dressed as tigers doing flips, and I would call that view point almost as harmful as the concept that they're untouchable classics. Having participated in that project, I was scratching my head for years at why someone like Kana would do an interview calling Tiger Mask one of her favorite until I came back to his matches with a more open mind.

 

So, standards definitely do change and, just by virtue of the need to understand the "symbolic value" and the "face value" of moves, it's important to immerse yourself in the context of a match to get full enjoyment. Even granting that we're all humans watching guys fake fighting for entertainment, the language that they do that in greatly varies across time and place. It goes beyond even something like a speaker of Modern English learning to read Middle English since the language of wrestling deals primarily in creating emotions rather than conveying ideas. Lastly, to speak on what seems to be the cause behind this thread in Meltzer refusing to redo his reviews of older matches because of changing standards, I think he has a point. The guy is already way busy with current stuff but even if he did have the time to rewatch old material, I don't see what it would achieve. His star ratings are useful for viewers "in the moment" who share similar tastes but beyond that his play-by-play style doesn't led itself well to in-depth analysis and I have no idea why he seems to have gained a reputation for deciding a match's historic quality. Talking about these older matches, the main question that we should be asking is not "Are these guys doing something good," but "What are these guys doing."

[Dylan Waco]

Random side thoughts...

 

One of the most over finishers in modern wrestling is a fireman's carry. Another is a guy hitting a running knee. They are over because of context and presentation and because of how they are integrated into the matches.

 

During the 90's when the luchadores first started coming into WCW I remember being stunned by my "non-smart" friends at school who thought the offense of guys like Rey and Super Calo looked stupid, phony and weak. These were dynamic, fresh, seemingly exciting spots, and yet during a hot period for wrestling nearly every friend I had at school thought that this sort of offense was comically absurd. Why was this the case? I don't know for sure, but I suspect it had a lot to do with context and presentation.

 

On TM/DK the point can't be stressed enough that a large group of people watched the matches in context with other NJPW matches and as a group didn't like them very much. There were plenty of TM matches I preferred speaking for myself, same with DK. Hell I was talking up DK v. Fujinami over DK v. TM matches from the first time I saw any of them. But the point is those matches weren't thought fondly of compared to other matches from the exact same period in the exact same promotion.

 

The point of this thread has nothing to do with wanting Meltzer to re-do star ratings fwiw.

[W2BTD]

Many of the points I was going to make have been made already, but since i'm the one who got Dylan all worked up, and he took the time to make a bunch of cool, articulate posts, I feel obligated to post.

 

This all started when somebody asked Meltzer if he ever goes back and changes star ratings. Meltzer made two points in response:

 

-First, he said he doesn't put a single second of thought into his star ratings after he makes them. He rates the match in the moment, and then never thinks about it again. He doesn't care enough about the ratings to think about going back to change them.

 

-His second point, was that he would never change a rating anyway, because it's not fair to look at an old match and change what you thought about it "in the moment", to what you think about it out of context years later. He used the Kerry/Flair cage match as his example, of a match he liked "in the moment", and it doesn't really matter if he goes back and doesn't like it now (or likes it more, for that matter), because it only matters if it worked for him in context in 1982. They weren't working a match for 2014 eyes in 1982.

 

I agree 1000% with the second point, because I firmly believe in the idea that standard change. In wrestling, in film, in TV, in comedy, in almost any for of entertainment. Shit moves forward and advances. That will never change.

 

We always talk about certain matches that "don't hold up". The reason some matches don't hold up, is usually because standards have changed. The basics of psychology may not ever change (I would argue this point, but it would derail the thread), but the athletic standards certainly do.

 

In the OP, Dylan asked when do the standards change, tomorrow, next week, next year, ???. The answer is we don't know. Things evolve when they evolve, usually slowly and we never really notice it happening. Holzerman brought up Starrcade '83. Almost nothing on that show holds up to a 2014 standard of athleticism, presentation, workrate, etc aside from the dog collar match. I've seen that show probably a half dozen times over the years, and it was strikingly bad when I recently watched it on the Network. I never remembered it being that bad. But it's been years since i've seen it, and it simply doesn't hold up anymore. We've evolved way past shit like the simplistic story told in the main event, or Jerry & Jack Brisco's weak looking attacks and missed splashes qualifying as devastating match altering miscues. At the same time, it isn't fair to judge any of those matches with modern eyes. I thought it was a fairly decent show in its time, and now i think it's a fairly decent show for its time. If that show takes place tomorrow, move for move, in any promotion, it would be universally panned as flat out terrible.

 

Of course, this doesn't mean that nothing holds up over time. I recently watched a Pat O'Connor vs Buddy Rogers match that I thought was really good. It qualifies as brilliant for 1962, when to me wrestling was dull as dirt and largely unwatchable beyond for historical purposes.

 

Part of the problem here, is Dylan seems to think that standards changing somehow makes analyzing old footage null & void, or minimizes the work that he does & many of you do in places like this. I don't think that's the case at all. I also don't think not believing in changing something as trivial as star ratings equates to some sort of style bias, as Dylan alluded to on Twitter. That's nonsense. It just means you don't want to unfairly change your opinion of something out of its proper context, which to me is more fair than criticizing a match that was worked for a 1978 audience because you are watching it in 2014 when your perception is going to be different no matter how much you think it won't be.

[Karl]

I think modern wrestling is easier to watch than a lot of what came before. That's not necessarily a good thing. I think we deal in broader strokes these days - there seems to me to be less nuance. Back in the day it felt like you had to really pay attention to a match to 'get' it all. Now that seem to not be the case, at least to me anyway.

 

I'm not overly convinced that the passage of time equates to evolution either. Its entirely possible I am stuck in a time warp though....

[TravJ1979]

I think styles change in about a five year cycle. That doesn't mean that my personal standards of what I deem good wrestling does. Ring psychology stands the test of time while a spot fest tends to age poorly. For instance, I recently watched Fall Brawl 1996. Konnan v. Juventud and Rey Jr v. Super Calo both received >= 3.75 stars from Meltzer, but to me, they were poorly executed move, stop, move, stop spot-a-thon matches. I much preferred the lower rated DDP v. Chavo Guerrero Jr. match.

 

Going back to my styles change comment, when I was doing my 2000's project I noticed a clear change in style from 2000-2004 to 2005-2009. That was even in ROH. If you ever get time, watch a handful of matches from WWE/WCW, etc. from say 90-94 and then 95-99. The "WWE style" evolves and changes as does the WCW style.

 

A classic match from 1984 can certainly be compared to a classic match from 1994, and fairly. The focus just shifts from good match in the context of its time, to a good match for the ages. The latter is what defines matches that are GOAT contenders. The former is still useful if your scope is a lot smaller.

[JerryvonKramer]

I agree 1000% with the second point, because I firmly believe in the idea that standard change. In wrestling, in film, in TV, in comedy, in almost any for of entertainment. Shit moves forward and advances. That will never change.

I think this is equivocation and an assumption that lies at the root of this debate.

 

Time moving forward = / = "advancement"

 

There is some weird theory of progress at stake here that I'm just not seeing. Art forms aren't like technology where you can just draw a straight graph of computing power exponentially increasing over time. Just doesn't work like that.

 

I'll admit, my own view is pretty harsh on this: I see the fetishization of the new as an acute form of laziness. It's a very convenient little assumption that means:

 

1. You have a ready-made excuse never to check out stuff from the past.

 

and

 

2. (more appropriate to Meltzer), you never have to re-check conclusions you drew in the past.

 

This is just laziness in my view and nothing more.

 

-------

 

With wrestling, it may be true that the average wrestler in 2014 is more athletic and may do more MOVEZ than the average wrestler in 1983, but who knows how to work better? Who can control the crowd better? Who are the smarter workers?

 

And more to the point, what makes good wrestling? Being athletic or knowing how to work?

 

But I don't want to make any old vs. new claims. There'll be great and shitty workers in both eras.

 

The fact is that any claim for one over the other is a form of fetishization. And both can entail laziness: old guys assuming things were better in their day (so they conveniently don't have to give anything new the time of day), and other guys not wanting to looking beyond the present (and so ignoring the past).

 

Fact is, regardless of the field, there'll be X amount of great films / matches / albums / games / etc. etc. released every single year. You may sometimes get bumper years, you may get more fallow years, but on average there is X% of GREAT things produced year on year, Y% of really shitty stuff and then Z% of all the stuff in between.

 

Anyone who argues otherwise has some agenda they are pushing. And my suspicion is always that the root cause of such agendas is laziness.

 

 

---------

 

 

It's just as easy to make "standards are generally declining" type arguments. For example, when was the last time a major film -- one that would be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars -- come out with a script as intelligent and witty as, say, All About Eve?

Is that what is meant by standards in this case, though? All About Eve is black and white, dialogue heavy and shot on set (apart from some establishing shots filmed by the Second Unit and using stand-ins.) The same script shot in 2014 would look dramatically different.

 

So is the argument coming from Meltzer, W2 et al the wrestling equivalent of "better special effects = better film"? Who really believes that?

[Dylan Waco]

I"m at work so I won't be able to answer this fully until this afternoon, but I do want to reiterate that I have never once argue that Meltzer or anyone else should go back and change star ratings. I don't care about star ratings and don't use them myself. What I do care about is people having a willingness to at least consider the fact that certain accepted points of view may be missing something, that certain great workers may have been "lost" because of where they worked, lack of footage, et. I don't think it's terribly surprising that the foremost opinion maker of old (and even today albeit to a much lesser degree) would be resistant to this, just as the consensus historians and revisionist historians were never going to agree on certain things. This doesn't just extend to ring work either. Debating him on certain things related to the AWA (High Flyers relevance as a drawing act, what markets were the weakest, et) illustrated to me that a lot of what Dave was going on was based on his own biases and direct experiences living in the moment and not necessarily what the facts actually tell us. In no way do I mean that as a dig at Dave because we all do this, but he's got the loudest voice through which to trumpet this things.

[Dylan Waco]

Also note that I don't consider there to be any universal standard, which is sort of the point. More later

[ohtani's jacket]

So is the argument coming from Meltzer, W2 et al the wrestling equivalent of "better special effects = better film"? Who really believes that?

 

 

I'm not necessarily talking about special effects. Mankiewicz wasn't the most visual director. Every shot was framed for dialogue and his films were often overly long and overly wordy. He didn't make use of the visual language that existed in the 50s let alone the techniques that have been developed since. We're just about to wrap up the 50s film poll at DVDVR and I can tell you there were better directed films in 1950 alone. Which isn't to say that All About Eve isn't a great film, because it is, but it's a writer's film and an actor's film. The directing is in the performances and the DOP was there to give it a certain tone. There's a lot of people who only like to watch modern day films. There are a lot of people who are adverse to black and white films and older acting styles. I'd wager that there are only a handful of 1950s films that the average film watcher would consider classics. People who watch 50s films either grew up on them, are lovers of old movies, or obsessives like me. If you're not part of those groups, you're probably going to view them through 2014 eyes. I don't think Meltzer is wrong on that point.

 

[Dylan Waco]

Another point is who creates the concept of what is suggested by "modern eyes" bias? Who has pushed the "athleticism = quality" viewpoint? Has it arisen organically, or is it something that has been championed?

[Matt D]

 

So is the argument coming from Meltzer, W2 et al the wrestling equivalent of "better special effects = better film"? Who really believes that?

 

 

If you're not part of those groups, you're probably going to view them through 2014 eyes. I don't think Meltzer is wrong on that point.

 

This is probably very true, but if that's the case, then you probably wouldn't be viewing them in the first place, and if you were, you wouldn't be doing so to the level that you start having a discussion with someone the equivalent as Meltzer. He's right, but only about an argument that is completely irrelevant, basically, a blanket dismissal that completely misses the point.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

So is the argument coming from Meltzer, W2 et al the wrestling equivalent of "better special effects = better film"? Who really believes that?

I'm not necessarily talking about special effects. Mankiewicz wasn't the most visual director. Every shot was framed for dialogue and his films were often overly long and overly wordy. He didn't make use of the visual language that existed in the 50s let alone the techniques that have been developed since. We're just about to wrap up the 50s film poll at DVDVR and I can tell you there were better directed films in 1950 alone. Which isn't to say that All About Eve isn't a great film, because it is, but it's a writer's film and an actor's film. The directing is in the performances and the DOP was there to give it a certain tone. There's a lot of people who only like to watch modern day films. There are a lot of people who are adverse to black and white films and older acting styles. I'd wager that there are only a handful of 1950s films that the average film watcher would consider classics. People who watch 50s films either grew up on them, are lovers of old movies, or obsessives like me. If you're not part of those groups, you're probably going to view them through 2014 eyes. I don't think Meltzer is wrong on that point.

 

This will get us off on a tangent, and maybe we should discuss this elsewhere OJ (I don't got to DVDR much), but I've always thought that Sight and Sound types privilege the visual way way too much in their estimation of films. Far more is made of camera angles and framing and so on among that brand of film buffs than other aspects of movies (script, performances) because they want to make it above all else the director's medium.

 

A lot of my favourite films -- not just All About Eve by Mankiewicz, but Sleuth too, Rope, Who's Afriad of Virginia Woolf, Glengarry Glen Ross -- are generally dismissed for being too dialogue heavy and "stagey". Unfairly in my view. I don't know if that's a 1950 vs. 2014 thing, but a "Sight and Sound type" vs. a "literary / drama type".

 

To try to bring this back to wrestling, I don't know if it boils down to much more than the difference between two types of fans in this way. "Athleticism and MOVEZ type" vs. "psychology and storytelling type". But perhaps that is being unfair on Meltzer and co, I dunno.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't think the difference is quite that defined, BUT I would note that every instance I ever see of "standards change" being invoked (aside from OJ's relevant points in this thread about lucha match structure) focuses almost exclusively on athleticism/flashy offensive spots.

[Matt D]

So wait, does that make SFX fans into Deathmatch fans?

[funkdoc]

here's something related i was thinking about...

 

for anyone who knows about OSW Review, one of them made comments during their WM3 video that seemed awfully facepalm-worthy to me: during Savage-Steamboat he kept going on about how standards are so much higher nowadays, this would be nowhere near a 5-star match, and "Christian vs. Orton from Over the Limit[?] is 10 times the match this was."

 

granted, these guys are far more blatant movez marks than Meltzer, but it's still interesting to see how often hardcore fans buy into this sort of thinking. i personally think that if you see changes over time as inherently positive, you aren't looking hard enough for the strengths of older styles and/or the weaknesses of current ones, or you only care about personal enjoyment and not the wider context of the work (which i can respect a lot more than the former, nothing wrong with being into something for fun and not wanting to think about it too much!).

 

also Matt D, i don't want to derail this thread but i think you misconstrue postmodernist positions a bit. from following many different social movements, the impression i get is more "you can't wholly understand the struggle if you benefit from the power structures we're struggling against." postmodernism is about recognizing that no matter how much you fetishize "rationality" you are going to carry countless subtle biases that color your fundamental view of the world. but this would be a massive conversation in itself so i'll leave it at that =)

[Matt D]

I get the mindset behind it, absolutely. I just look at it from a practical point of view, like I do most things. I generally come into these big arguments in a "Will this help us or hurt us in having a constructive, interesting conversation?" Amusingly, my personal bias was pretty strong in how I framed my comments like I did, which was probably not entirely fair or complete.

 

But yes, no need to derail!

[W2BTD]

 

I agree 1000% with the second point, because I firmly believe in the idea that standard change. In wrestling, in film, in TV, in comedy, in almost any for of entertainment. Shit moves forward and advances. That will never change.

I think this is equivocation and an assumption that lies at the root of this debate.

 

Time moving forward = / = "advancement"

 

There is some weird theory of progress at stake here that I'm just not seeing. Art forms aren't like technology where you can just draw a straight graph of computing power exponentially increasing over time. Just doesn't work like that.

 

I'll admit, my own view is pretty harsh on this: I see the fetishization of the new as an acute form of laziness. It's a very convenient little assumption that means:

 

1. You have a ready-made excuse never to check out stuff from the past.

 

and

 

2. (more appropriate to Meltzer), you never have to re-check conclusions you drew in the past.

 

This is just laziness in my view and nothing more.

 

-------

 

With wrestling, it may be true that the average wrestler in 2014 is more athletic and may do more MOVEZ than the average wrestler in 1983, but who knows how to work better? Who can control the crowd better? Who are the smarter workers?

 

And more to the point, what makes good wrestling? Being athletic or knowing how to work?

 

But I don't want to make any old vs. new claims. There'll be great and shitty workers in both eras.

 

The fact is that any claim for one over the other is a form of fetishization. And both can entail laziness: old guys assuming things were better in their day (so they conveniently don't have to give anything new the time of day), and other guys not wanting to looking beyond the present (and so ignoring the past).

 

Fact is, regardless of the field, there'll be X amount of great films / matches / albums / games / etc. etc. released every single year. You may sometimes get bumper years, you may get more fallow years, but on average there is X% of GREAT things produced year on year, Y% of really shitty stuff and then Z% of all the stuff in between.

 

Anyone who argues otherwise has some agenda they are pushing. And my suspicion is always that the root cause of such agendas is laziness.

 

 

---------

 

 

It's just as easy to make "standards are generally declining" type arguments. For example, when was the last time a major film -- one that would be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars -- come out with a script as intelligent and witty as, say, All About Eve?

Is that what is meant by standards in this case, though? All About Eve is black and white, dialogue heavy and shot on set (apart from some establishing shots filmed by the Second Unit and using stand-ins.) The same script shot in 2014 would look dramatically different.

 

So is the argument coming from Meltzer, W2 et al the wrestling equivalent of "better special effects = better film"? Who really believes that?

 

 

You failed to understand any of the points I made. Maybe because I wasn't articulate enough. I don't know.

 

Nowhere in my post did I suggest people shouldn't "check stuff out from the past". You seem to have this same idea that Dylan does that believing standards change also means you believe there is no merit to watching old footage. I have no idea why the two of you are automatically so defensive about this. Never did I say standards changing meant it wasn't worth watching old footage. I watch plenty of old footage myself.

 

As far as re-checking conclusions from the past, this is the slippery slope. Meltzer said he doles out his ratings in the moment, and will not go back and check them for two reason. One, he feels it's only fair to rate the match in the moment, in context. And two, he doesn't care enough about it to do so. He seems content to let his ratings stand. I agree with his first reason, and I respect the second. Personally, I think you could go back and rewatch things and "rerate" or change your view on them, but this is the slippery slope I talked about. I'll give an example.

 

When the Malenko/Guerrero ECW match originally aired, I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw. I watched it like three times that night, then me & my friends watched it over & over again for a week. I watched it about a decade later, and it broke my heart how badly it help up through 2005 eyes or whatever year it was. A major, major part of what made it so great to me in 1995 were the cutting edge spots and sequences that I wasn't as familiar with. By 2005, those things that I was so impressed with were no longer as impressive. It was still a good match, but it didn't blow me away the way my mind's eye remembered it.

 

Does this mean I changed my opinion on the match? Not at all. I still consider it one of the best matches I ever saw, because it was. It doesn't matter that it doesn't hold up. They weren't working to impress 2005 Joe Lanza, they were working to impress 1995 Joe Lanza. The standards changed in what was cutting edge & fresh by 2005, and to me that was a large part of the appeal in 1995. Just because something doesn't hold up (and most, but not all, things will likely cease to hold up at some point) doesn't mean it isn't good anymore. It just has to be viewed in context. This is why you hear things like "That was a great match for its time", or "That was a great match, even by today's standards".

 

You can toss around the MOVEZ stuff if you want, but it's funny that you indirectly call me lazy for my argument, when to me there is nothing lazier in a pro wrestling debate than people who toss around "MOVEZ" if somebody likes an athletic match or style, as if psychology can not exist if good athleticism is displayed or state of the art moves are used. Talk about bias & laziness. God forbid wrestlers leave their feet or use advanced throws. Must automatically mean they don't know psychology. And it instantly means they can't sell, which is the the most overused, misused, unfairly applied, lazy trope around. Grab a hold, kid. Eyeroll.

 

But yes, like it or not, athleticism in wrestling is one of the things that does move forward, and yes, the advancing athletic standards are a part of what leaves some matches behind in terms of not holding up. If you want to equate advanced athleticism with MOVEZ, that's YOUR laziness, not mine.

[W2BTD]

Last night I went to an indie show, and a young wrestler by the name of Sammy Guevara (who you will all be familiar with very shortly), did a moonsault off the top of a ladder inside the ring, to the outside of the ring. This was an amazing spot, done at just the right time in the match, and not only that, it was the only ladder dive done in that 30+ minute ladder match. One of the guys who caught him sold it like he was dead and didn't move for 5 minutes. I feel the context is important, before everybody just tosses MOVEZ at me or accuses him of being an indie spot monkey.

 

Had that same exact spot been done in 1983, the tape would be part of the holy grail of wresting footage, and it would be considered a legendary spot. Do you know how I know this? Because in 1983, Jimmy Snuka doing a simple top rope splash was considered state of the art flying, and his leap off of the cage is one of the most famous spots of all time.

 

What Guevara did last night blows away anything Snuka ever did in his life. But Snuka is (rightfully) considered a legend, and the cage spot is (rightfully) considered legendary and ground breaking. Guevara's move won't cause a blip historically.

 

Why?

 

Because standards change.

 

Not sure why this is even debatable, or why some find this simple concept insulting.

[Dylan Waco]

All that deserves a much more detailed response, but it's worth noting the guy you have argued is the best big match wrestler of his generation uses a finish that would have been borderline cutting edge...In 1988.

[W2BTD]

All that deserves a much more detailed response, but it's worth noting the guy you have argued is the best big match wrestler of his generation uses a finish that would have been borderline cutting edge...In 1988.

 

And there is certainly an inherent skill in getting a move like that over in 2014, just as there is an inherent skill in Cena getting over a fireman's carry or Foley a sock or The Rock a weak looking elbow drop.

 

Please do not equate my argument of standards advancing to great workers being able to get by with less is more. Those things are intertwined to some extent, but not equal.

[goodhelmet]

Actually, I think I figured out the disconnect and it has nothing to do with the actual year. It actually has to do with the amount of wrestling you have been exposed to, not what year you have viewed it in. Dylan will be the first person to tell you 5 years ago that he was no lucha expert and had no business making judgments on something he had limited amount of exposure to. Now, he is going on podcasts espousing the virtues of lucha to the masses!!! The standards haven't changed because things automatically got better as time went by. They changed because the amount of wrestling we are exposed to has increased and you can't decrease the amount of wrestling you have been exposed to. Everything else... movesets, selling, characters, etc... purely a matter of taste. Somebody who has only seen 200 matches (for simplicity of argument, 1995 Joe Lanza) Eddie-Dean may be one of the best matches he has seen in his limited viewing. 1995 Joe Lanza also has no business being on a podcast and voting for Hall of Famers. Someone who has seen 10,000 matches from all over the world (2005 Joe Lanza) probably has a better grasp of why 1995 Eddie-Dean doesn't hold up. It is also why Meltzer does a disservice to people who watch older footage by dismissing them. All of us have matches we rated highly that no longer rate as high. It doesn't mean we can't acknowledge our fandom or love for those matches that evoked some sort of emotion in us. However, it also doesn't mean we have to turn a blind eye to the flaws of those matches and keep the illusion going that they hold up as great matches. They were only great in our limited viewing, not because they were actually the greatest thing that actually existed. With Tiger Mask-Dynamite Kid, we still put every single one of those matches on the New Japan 1980s set because we acknowledged what they mean historically, Aesthetically they didn't hold up even when the stuff done by their peers in the same time frame did.

 

Somebody brought up Steamboat-Savage. When the first WWF DVDVR poll went up, Steamboat-Savage still ranked #2 for the decade. That is with hundreds of guys voting. Some of those guys have probably seen more wrestling as individuals than this entire board combined. When we do the WWF re-release, Steamboat-Savage will probably drop a few places, not because the match doesn't have merit but because we have discovered other matches that may not have had the reach of a Wrestlemania 3. Now, with technology, those other matches can have the same ability to reach the masses.

[Dylan Waco]

 

 

Nowhere in my post did I suggest people shouldn't "check stuff out from the past". You seem to have this same idea that Dylan does that believing standards change also means you believe there is no merit to watching old footage. I have no idea why the two of you are automatically so defensive about this. Never did I say standards changing meant it wasn't worth watching old footage. I watch plenty of old footage myself.

 

As far as re-checking conclusions from the past, this is the slippery slope. Meltzer said he doles out his ratings in the moment, and will not go back and check them for two reason. One, he feels it's only fair to rate the match in the moment, in context. And two, he doesn't care enough about it to do so. He seems content to let his ratings stand. I agree with his first reason, and I respect the second. Personally, I think you could go back and rewatch things and "rerate" or change your view on them, but this is the slippery slope I talked about. I'll give an example.

 

When the Malenko/Guerrero ECW match originally aired, I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw. I watched it like three times that night, then me & my friends watched it over & over again for a week. I watched it about a decade later, and it broke my heart how badly it help up through 2005 eyes or whatever year it was. A major, major part of what made it so great to me in 1995 were the cutting edge spots and sequences that I wasn't as familiar with. By 2005, those things that I was so impressed with were no longer as impressive. It was still a good match, but it didn't blow me away the way my mind's eye remembered it.

 

Does this mean I changed my opinion on the match? Not at all. I still consider it one of the best matches I ever saw, because it was. It doesn't matter that it doesn't hold up. They weren't working to impress 2005 Joe Lanza, they were working to impress 1995 Joe Lanza. The standards changed in what was cutting edge & fresh by 2005, and to me that was a large part of the appeal in 1995. Just because something doesn't hold up (and most, but not all, things will likely cease to hold up at some point) doesn't mean it isn't good anymore. It just has to be viewed in context. This is why you hear things like "That was a great match for its time", or "That was a great match, even by today's standards".

 

You can toss around the MOVEZ stuff if you want, but it's funny that you indirectly call me lazy for my argument, when to me there is nothing lazier in a pro wrestling debate than people who toss around "MOVEZ" if somebody likes an athletic match or style, as if psychology can not exist if good athleticism is displayed or state of the art moves are used. Talk about bias & laziness. God forbid wrestlers leave their feet or use advanced throws. Must automatically mean they don't know psychology. And it instantly means they can't sell, which is the the most overused, misused, unfairly applied, lazy trope around. Grab a hold, kid. Eyeroll.

 

But yes, like it or not, athleticism in wrestling is one of the things that does move forward, and yes, the advancing athletic standards are a part of what leaves some matches behind in terms of not holding up. If you want to equate advanced athleticism with MOVEZ, that's YOUR laziness, not mine.

 

 

This new board is nightmarish for breaking up things and responding in quotes or I'm an idiot. Possibly both. Anyhow, taking this point by point where relevant:

 

Firstly I would note that if I'm being defensive it's only because I'm taking Dave's argument seriously. Dave believes that it's unfair to judge old wrestling through modern eyes. He doesn't believe that this can be done fairly because people have seen too much, "standards have changed," and new biases have formed in favor of certain elements that aren't present in older matches. This is not an argument about Dave's star ratings, Dave going back and watching old footage, Dave responding to criticism by admitting that perhaps he overrated something, et. Really this argument has little to do with Dave's particular tastes, but rather Dave's view - and a view that I THINK is shared by you Joe (hard to tell to be honest) - that there is extremely limited value at best in exploring old footage. For Dave it doesn't matter if you try and learn the context, if you watch everything in one grouping and compare it directly to other stuff from the same promotion and/or period. It's all tainted by "modern eyes" so there is only so much you can take away from it. While I certainly think one can make the argument that you can't precisely replicate the feeling or context of certain matches, feuds, et, I think it is bizarre to argue that there is no real value in reevaluating old stuff or even watching newly found footage. The idea that it is hopelessly compromised, or historically shaky because of "changing standards" is a viewpoint that I think this mighty convenient, hopelessly flawed, and not consistently applied.

 

The most obvious problem I see with Dave's argument is that it assumes that everyone shares his biases. This simply isn't true. Do the majority of wrestling fans share Dave's biases? Impossible to say, and largely dependent on how you measure fans. In my view it's completely irrelevant one way or the other. The fact is that some of us don't care about athletic offensive spots to nearly the degree Dave or Joe Lanza do. Do they hurt a match? No. Are there matches that have been enhanced by them? Yes. Do I think 630 splashes and Ricochet dives are suggestive of a higher standard (or even a changed standard in terms of what I want to see) in wrestling? No way in hell. Hell, I like Richochet fine, but I've never seen a Ricochet match that would have finished in my top thirty on the AWA 80's set. I imagine I could find a whole lot of people who would agree with me on that point. While the standards for what is a more visually impressive spot may have changed (even that is debatable and dependent on preference), I don't see how the standard for what is good and bad has changed much if at all.

 

I also think it's interesting there is an allegation of defensiveness being made here, and yet you (Joe) have been extremely dismissive of the notion that Dave might have anything to be defensive about. I think we are all defensive to one degree or another, but it's Dave's sacred cows and opinions that have been challenged regarding stuff like TM/DK, Brody, et in recent years. The idea that his position might not at least in part be defensive strikes me as remarkably naive at best. I know I'd be at least somewhat defensive if I was in Dave's shoes, and I can't imagine who wouldn't.

 

I also don't thing Dave applies his argument consistently, because if he did he wouldn't do history pieces. Ever.

 

On the moves thing, I could care less if people prefer modern wrestling to old wrestling because they like more athletic offense. But that's reflective of a personal bias, not reflective of a universal standard. That strikes me as a completely uncontroversial point, which is why it's so mind boggling to me that you are resistant to it. Why are you so defensive about that?

 

Also Jimmy Snuka's dive is remembered for two reasons. One is that it was a huge spot for the time. The other - and equally important - is that it was treated as a huge moment, and it is a moment which has been treated as such for years and years. There were other huge spots and moments that occurred during roughly the same frame that aren't remembered nearly as well - even in matches that are regarded more highly (Final Conflict for example) - because they haven't been replayed, promoted, et. to death.

 

Context, promotion, presentation, et. All these things are huge and central to wrestling. Tanahashi's splash isn't over huge as a finish because Tanahashi is uniquely talented, it's over huge as a finish because it was protected and treated as a huge finish. People yawned through a twisting plancha on the last indie show I went to not because it was an unimpressive spot, because it was meaningless filler.

[goodhelmet]

So, in short, when it fits Dave's worldview, history is important. When it doesn't, it's not?