JvK reviews pimped matches from late 90s-10s

[Grimmas]

I'm thinking about the rating on the main and wondering if it deserves less.

 

I am fairly rare I guess in hating HBK vs Taker, both matches, and I can't remember the rating I gave them but it's less than 3.75.

 

Will have a think, but since Omega is an ersatz HBK and this felt like a homage to those matches complete with tombstone reversals, I'm thinking on principle it should be lower. Searching this thread now to see if I've reviewed either of those matches in the past couple of years.

You didn't give the main six stars????

[soup23]

Parv one upping the Terry Taylor = Jumbo Phil talking point is aces.

[Dylan Waco]

If Parv thought Omega looked fake in that match I can't even imagine what he would think of him say 18 months ago.

[shoe]

No doubt shoving a mop up Taguchi's ass.

[Childs]

I haven't watched this version of Goto-Shibata yet, but I do think their matches lose impact once you've seen more than one of them. I find Shibata frustrating in general, because he's 70 percent of an all-time great wrestler, and the other 30 percent consists of wrestling cliches that drive me up the fucking wall.

[shoe]

I haven't watched this version of Goto-Shibata yet, but I do think their matches lose impact once you've seen more than one of them. I find Shibata frustrating in general, because he's 70 percent of an all-time great wrestler, and the other 30 percent consists of wrestling cliches that drive me up the fucking wall.

That is exactly where I am on him.

[GOTNW]

This can be explained pretty easily:

 

1)As we've come to see, Parv give s a lot of matches five stars

2)He isn't familiar with the conventions of many of the modern promotions so what is standard in them impacts him more profoundly. I'm not going to go into whether being familiar with more styles can change your judgement of what you've previously thought (the obvious answer is yes) but it's clear it still hasn't happened with him.

[JerryvonKramer]

This can be explained pretty easily:

 

1)As we've come to see, Parv give s a lot of matches five stars

I don't really like this point. First because it is not exactly true, and second because I feel like you are trying to question or undermine my critical acumen.

 

Luckily we have a thread here which lists everyone's five star matches:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30977-your-34-matches/&do=findComment&comment=5669539

 

Here are the all-time numbers of 5-star matches I've given:

 

JCP / NWA:

 

4

 

WCW:

 

3

 

WWF:

 

8

 

Mid-South:

 

3

 

AWA:

 

1

 

Memphis:

 

0

 

AJPW:

 

23

 

NOAH:

 

1

 

NJPW:

 

5

 

Lucha:

 

2

 

Indies:

 

1

 

All Japan women:

 

1

 

So in all the reviews I've ever written or recorded in podcast form, I've handed out 5 stars a total of 52 times.

 

I don't know how many matches I've reviewed total, but it has to be across four figures at this stage across written reviews and podcasts.

 

I just don't take kindly to someone saying I'm handing out five stars willy nilly. I've worked hard to be as consistent as I possibly can be in all of my ratings.

[GOTNW]

Fine then. There is a disparancy between your ratings and those of most people in the modern matches you've seen that is most clearly represented in you giving five stars to several matches I haven't seen literally (literally literally) anyone else ever give five stars to. The percentage of the modern matches you give five stars too is higher than that of most people. Ie. you give a lot of matches five stars. Semantics!

[JerryvonKramer]

I did do a search on twitter earlier and it seemed there were quite a lot of people who thought Shibato vs. Goto was the stand out match of the evening.

Here are what other viewers said:

That Goto vs Shibata match was a thing of beauty . #wrestlekingdom11

But Dave! The stars only go to 5! Shut up and enjoy wrestling. (I personally liked Goto/Shibata best, so whatever.)

I liked the match. But liked Shibata and Goto more

Aside from Shibata/Goto i legit had no match at 4+. All the praise i'm hearing is making me kinda jealous.

Wrestle Kingdom Top 4 ranked for me is 1. Goto/Shibata 2. Okada/Omega 3. Takahashi/KUSHIDA 4. Naito/Tanahashi

Shibata vs Goto on rewatch gets slight a bump. Fantastic match, and the best story told at WK. Still not ***** imo.

i don't think so. i liked shibata v goto more than the other matches

Goto vs Shibata was a slept on match. That match was fucking excellent from start to end.

Holy shit...#Goto vs #Shibata was one of the best matches I've seen. Incredible story told throughout the match. #WrestleKingdom11

Shibata v. Goto was one of the most grueling matches I've ever seen. You can call wrestling fake. That wasn't fake. #WK11 @njpw


I don't need to go on. The fact is, you are taking potshots at me here, when there are plenty of other people who thought it was MOTN or a classic. I've been watching wrestling for 27 years, I am perfectly happy to say when I think a match is an all-timer or not.

[GOTNW]

 

The fact is, you are taking potshots at me here,

It wasn't taking shots at you. It's just an obeservation that was misunderstood (and could've been explained more clearly on my part and was later) that you read in too much. I do find it amusing you get so triggered that you're presenting other people's opinions as some kind of evidence along with the dreaded "I've been doing this for x years!". No matter how many quotes you bring it won't change the match not being the main (or second even) one people taked after the show, though I don't really see why that would be relevant to your opinion of how good it is anyway. I see none of those quotes utter the five star phrase btw. I'd expect thicker from someone who comes into threads with "x sucks/it's because x sucks" but I guess it's only an issue when it's you who's attacked?

[JerryvonKramer]

I was just trying to demonstrate how it's not some lunatic view, but one that was represented by a number of people who watched the same show. Others preferred the main, others still preferred the semi-main. Meltzer gave the main 6 stars so naturally there was going to be a lot of attention on that.

 

Anyway, you are coming across like someone intent to stir trouble in this thread, and I have no idea why.

 

I will be watching more Shibata matches soon and reviewing them here. He's probably the stiffest worker I've ever seen.

[Loss]

I'm having flashbacks to 2000s-era wrestling criticism when quite a few people were proud to have only given three or four matches in wrestling history five stars, and Smarkschoice actually had a thread pondering if a five star match had ever even occurred outside of AJW or AJPW. Keep in mind these were people who had watched a ton of stuff even by 2017 standards. 52 is a lot going by that I guess, when honestly I think people were overly critical to a point that quite a bit of good wrestling was dismissed, but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that excessive when you consider that more matches occur on most calendar days than that. For at least the last quarter century, we've probably had a good 10-15 matches per day on average making tape 300-350 days out of the year.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm having flashbacks to 2000s-era wrestling criticism when quite a few people were proud to have only given three or four matches in wrestling history five stars, and Smarkschoice actually had a thread pondering if a five star match had ever even occurred outside of AJW or AJPW. Keep in mind these were people who had watched a ton of stuff even by 2017 standards. 52 is a lot going by that I guess, when honestly I think people were overly critical to a point that quite a bit of good wrestling was dismissed, but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that excessive when you consider that more matches occur on most calendar days than that. For at least the last quarter century, we've probably had a good 10-15 matches per day on average making tape 300-350 days out of the year.

One thing I've always been kinda interested in is the spearation of stuff "within 5-star".

 

Like in the world of film ratings, there's 5 star and then there's ... top top end pantheon.

 

I have a big reference book, a Halliwell's guide that will give a film zero stars, and then 1 to 4 stars. But the films that get 1 star are films that would typically get 5 stars in most publications.

 

For example, in there The Deer Hunter gets just the one star.

 

That's clearly one of the best films of 1978, but it's not really like ALL TIME Citizen Kane, Vertigo level, it's just one of the best films from 78. It gets 1 star in Halliwells.

 

The VAST majority of films in there get zero stars.

 

The stars are really filtering all 5-star films.

 

When Chad and I were doing the top 100 rankings in 2015, we sort of did a version of this.

 

For example, I have Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Duggan at 5 stars but that was ALWAYS going to be one of the matches closest to the ****3/4 mark whereas something like Clash 6 was always going to be top 3.

 

In Halliwell's terms Ted vs. Duggan is like 1 or 2 stars, Clash 6 is 4 stars.

 

That's a different scale. You are measuring the absolute elite stuff against itself. But that's only useful for all-time sort of stuff.

 

For the day-to-day you don't really want Halliwells telling you virtually every film ever made apart from a handful are 0 stars, you want your radiotimes telling you that Skyfall is a four-star movie and probably worth a watch on a Sunday night.

 

Hope this makes sense. For day-to-day, the 5-star scale is the one we have to use.

 

For all time, it shifts to something grander.

[GOTNW]

I don't think many people would say having 52 matches at **** is "a lot" ( I certainly don't see anything controversial with it). But that between the Chono-Hase match, the Akiyama-Kobashi august 2000 match, the Evolve tag and now this match (maybe there are some other examples) that there is a trend of hyping matches that were agreed on as good/great as something more in this thread. That and what seemed like a pretty fast growth in the number of **** matches given here are what made me come to that conclusion, not any agenda or "trying to stir something up".

[Loss]

Oh, I don't think you're trying to stir something up. I was just thinking about the number and how our views have changed on how many is a lot through the years. That's all.

[JerryvonKramer]

Another example would be Funks vs. Sheik and Abby from 78, whereas history talks up 77 or 79. I'm happy to challenge existing consensus and always have been. Sometimes others agree with me, sometimes they don't. That's all cool it's why we write reviews. Also why I'm happier talking matches than workers.

[JerryvonKramer]

I mean, GOTNW, you could also probably find lots of matches that are consensus five stars that I've reviewed where I've given a lower rating, sometimes a lot lower. Look at Rey vs. Eddie. I just rate matches as I see them and try to be as honest as I possibly can be.

[Grimmas]

Don't worry everybody I am working on a new six star scale, just hashing out the details before I post it.

[elliott]

This last page has had me dying laughing. I'm currently in the middle of a rewatch project trying to figure out my 5 star and 4 3/4 star matches so I can add to that thread. I'm watching stuff that placed well on dvdvr 80s sets, stuff from loss' top 500 of the 90s list, old dvdvr "best of 90s" lists, the bowdren 80s list, matches already named in the 5 star thread, shit that I already knew I really really liked. Etc.

 

I'm nowhere closed to finished and I have 111 matches rated at 5 stars.

 

This is yall's hobby. You should like it more.

[JerryvonKramer]

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Chris Hero (11/11/16)

 

I probably should have been at this show. I live in London proper now so maybe I'll make more towns.

 

Loved Hero in this match busting out an array of different piledrivers. This was a sprint really. Good for a quick bombfest. Was interesting to see Shibata work more from underneath here almost as a classic Ricky Steamboat type.

 

***

 

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii (8/4/13)

 

This style is fucking mental and I love it! This right here is some real fight club shit. I mean holy fuck.

 

There is a moment in this match in which Shibata is elbowing Ishii so hard in the corner, it looks like a murder attempt and the ref HAS to step in. It's ... AMAZINGLY brutal. And then he follows it up with the patented floating drop kick. Pretty sure Ishii has a legitimate hardway shiner after that.

 

I don't really know what to say this Shibata dude is just instantly one of my fave guys. This style is all about hyper masculinity but ramped up to ridiculous levels. I can see some people not liking the "I'm going to kneel and take it like a man" stuff. But for some reason I get it, it makes sense to me.

 

Absolutely fucking mental. And a masterpiece of dumb fuckery of the dumb fuckingest fuckery. Awesome stuff. Like snorting pure adrenaline through a straw up your nose.

 

*****

[Dylan Waco]

Parv being a huge fan of this style is absolutely amazing to me. Would be very interested to hear what you think of someone like Shuji Ishikawa.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I marked out for Parvs review of Shibata/Ishii

[Superstar Sleeze]

This last page has had me dying laughing. I'm currently in the middle of a rewatch project trying to figure out my 5 star and 4 3/4 star matches so I can add to that thread. I'm watching stuff that placed well on dvdvr 80s sets, stuff from loss' top 500 of the 90s list, old dvdvr "best of 90s" lists, the bowdren 80s list, matches already named in the 5 star thread, shit that I already knew I really really liked. Etc.

 

I'm nowhere closed to finished and I have 111 matches rated at 5 stars.

 

This is yall's hobby. You should like it more.

I've been doing that for two years now. I'm never going to finish which is great

[WingedEagle]

YES! PARV IS ALL IN! Absolutely love that you love it. Would never have predicted it but you need to go deep on it. You also have to dive into the BJW crew -- Shuji Ishikawa, Yuji Okabayashi, etc. Its similar but I think with more depth on most occasions even if it doesn't quite reach the same heights of insanity.