F4W

[Loss]

I regret ever signing up for the F4W board and newsletter and I sort of resent Dangerous A and others saying it's a good investment. There was a thread there recently with some gem comments. Since it's a members only board, I'll copy/paste some of the exchanges.

 

There was a bit of debate over the Michaels/Angle match from RAW and another poster started a thread wanting to know why it was so great. This was Alvarez's response:

 

Wrestling is guys entertaining a bunch of spectators by having a fake fight. That match was full of action and drama that entertained all the fans in the building and the vast, vast majority of them watching on at home. If you rounded up any 100 wrestling fans you found on the street who saw that match and asked them if it was great, they would say yes. You can bitch about Michaels kicking out of finishers and Jesus'ing up and whatever, but you miss the point that the fans who watch WWE enjoy that stuff. They WANT to see Shawn kick out of Angle's big moves. They WANT to see the kip up, they WANT to see the elbow, and all the rest of it. Both Shawn and Angle understand what the fans want, and how to tease certain things and then deliver them at the perfect time. It results in the vast, vast majority of fans jumping up and down and screaming and clapping and having a great time. If you want to argue that the finish was bad for business, be my guest. But to say that these two WWE wrestlers did not have a great WWE wrestling match is ridiculous.

 

The folks that think JBL is the best worker in WWE, and also think that Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle are no good, are welcome to that opinion. But that opinion is not shared by 99.9999999% of the 5 million WWE fans who watch WWE wrestling every Monday night, and if it is your quest to "prove those fans wrong", well, your life will be full of frustration.

My response:

 

This point of view wouldn't bother me if it didn't come from a newsletter writer. Fans would enjoy a Hulk Hogan match more than anything these two could pull off, so suddenly all of his matches are better than this one because of it? John Cena was getting a louder, more passionate reaction than either guy and you and Dave constantly shit on him for how bad he is. But if you go up to the average fan on the street, again, that's not going to be the typical response you get. So what's the difference? Why, when it's brought up how someone like Cena is good is it brought up how horrible he is in the ring? Why are Angle and Michaels somehow above that criticism? If you're going to make the argument just about being over, then you're opening quite the can of worms.

 

And that's fine. But it's also inconsistent.

Alvarez's response:

 

Cena sells merchandise and such and gets cheers from little kids who think he's cool and women who think he's hot. There is a reason the major Cena backlash started when he was feuding with Kurt Angle. It was very obvious that in the ring, one man was way more gifted than the other man, and the less gifted man was the champion of the world. And as far as his matches are concerned, I have said plenty of Cena matches were good to great, as have many others, and there is something consistent about all of them.

My response:

 

Do you really think the backlash had anything to do with his wrestling ability? As you said in The Death of WCW, WCW turned around business with Kevin Nash, who's worse than almost anyone currently in WWE. Do you not think it was more of a problem with Cena's persona not appealing to everyone? If it was the match quality, then obviously, things that Bix pointed out that you said aren't really important actually are. If it wasn't the match quality, then you're holding Cena to a totally different standard than you're holding Michaels and Angle to.

Then, someone says that things like that happen in Ric Flair matches all the time and that no one cares and it hasn't damaged him at all because he's RIC FLAIR.

 

My response:

 

The point is that matches like that, where Angle is treated like Just Another Wrestler, are a large part of the reason he doesn't mean as much as he should. As for the argument that nothing has affected Flair, that's not true either. Flair is long past the time where he should be able to come in semi-annually to do dream matches on big pay-per-views, but the abuse he's taken in booking has killed that dream off. If it didn't matter, Flair would be on the same level as Hogan in today's scene, and he's not.

Another poster then chimed in and said I was "crazy" to think that Hogan's stuff from the past few years is more memorable than Michaels/Angle at Wrestlemania. He also said:

 

Bottom line, that crowd were going ape shit for that match on Raw as it reached it's peak. It was perfect, who gives a fuck if Michaels rolled out of the Ankle lock three times, will Angle lose a modicum of credibility for it, no, will he gain a ton more for having ANOTHER classic match, YES!

My response:

 

If you don't think Hogan's most memorable matches are more remembered by the casual fan than anything Shawn Michaels or Kurt Angle have ever done, I have some property I'd like to sell you. Hogan/Rock had far more crowd heat and excited fans, but you don't see people going around calling it a ***** match as a result. Hogan matches have more heat when they happen than a typical Michaels or Angle match. And according to Bryan, that's all that matters in a match -- the fans getting involved. Therefore, according to his logic, Hogan is better than Angle or Michaels.

Alvarez then said this:

 

If you can't figure out the difference between the heat generated by Hulk Hogan returning in Toronto to face Rock in a dream match at WrestleMania, and Angle and Michaels doing what they do to tear the house down in a match with one week's build on Raw, then I don't know what to tell you.

My response, trying too hard not to ruffle feathers:

 

I know you have no desire to get in a long argument over this, and I don't either, so I'll just respond briefly. It's the same aspects at work -- the fans are popping for the personalities, not the work. It's what happened in both matches.

We then debated the thing about Cena being a bad worker leading to a backlash, which I think had ZERO to do with the backlash, and I again mentioned that Bryan Alvarez mentioned in The Death Of WCW that WCW turned around business with Kevin Nash, who's worse than almost anyone in WWE. He denied he ever said that until I quoted him, and then said that was 10 years ago and has no relevance.

 

My other response, again back to the Hogan argument:

 

So the fact that Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle are Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle doesn't play a part in the heat at all? I can't believe that, and I do not believe that Cena's in-ring ability had anything to do with the backlash on him. If anything, Angle was only the de facto hero of the situation, not genuinely over as a babyface. As for the reason Cena was getting booed, I think that can be attributed to the fact that it was easy to see through his persona. He seemed phony, a suburban guy playing a thug, and it just took some time for that to sink in.

 

And of course I would not say any Hogan match. Hogan has had lots of throwaway matches in the past few years as well, but again, Hogan/Rock is going to be more remembered than anything Shawn Michaels or Kurt Angle will ever do.

 

I remember the Cena/Jericho v Christian/Tomko match on RAW last summer that had amazing heat and was called a bad match by both Dave and Bryan. And in this case, Bix pointed out that this wasn't that good of a match, and the defense for it was that it had amazing heat and had people jumping up and down and the consensus was that it would be great. The consensus on that RAW tag from the average fan in the arena that night would have been that it was great as well, based on the reaction they were giving it. But certain people decide that crowd heat isn't important unless it involves their favorite wrestlers and cease to be rational about it. The point I'm making is that that's unfair. Truthfully, Michaels and Angle aren't that good at this stage. They're both held together by shoestrings and clarinet reeds, yet they try to work like they're Rey and Psicosis in the mid 90s, and it's sort of embarrassing, because they can't even pull off the spots they attempt properly. There's no reason they couldn't be great right now, but they'd have to make a lot of changes to do so and maybe eliminate some things they're no longer capable of doing.

 

But the fans pop for them, right? So whatever they're doing in the ring doesn't matter because they're entertaining a crowd. I call that bullshit, because there are plenty of guys that have been over in top positions that have not been as good as Michaels or Angle, even now, that get criticized for their work. Cena, even before the boos started, was one of those people. So if the logic applied to Angle and Michaels is that they must be doing something right because their matches have so much heat, what is the reason the same break wasn't given to Cena early in his reign before the backlash started? That's all I'm saying.

 

The point I'm making is that there's a double standard -- when guys who are perceived as bad workers have heated matches, they are still criticized for not knowing how to work. When guys who are perceived as good workers have heated matches, that same heat is used to call the match great. In actuality, there's little difference, if any at all.

 

And I'm truly shocked at some of the things Bryan has said in this thread. The Death Of WCW was written as a book to record history, with the side goal of hopefully getting promoters to read it and avoid repeating the same mistakes. The book is awesome and I can't give it enough praise. One of the things he mentioned in there was WWE not pushing fresh talent during the inVasion angle because in their minds, the talent couldn't work. He mentioned that WCW turned around business with far worse workers on top, so there's no reason WWE couldn't do it now. Yet when the same logic about how well Cena can work is applied to 2005-2006 WWE, it's suddenly nill because it was "ten years ago" when guys like Hogan, Nash and Piper were on top in WCW. Yet in 2001, I guess it was acceptable for Vince to look to the past and acknowledge that fresh faces who aren't necessarily the best workers have turned business around in the past, but we have crossed some magical cutoff point in 2006 where 1996 can no longer be referenced.

 

I'm not trying to sway anyone to my side or "prove" anyone wrong about anyone. I'm just trying to understand the difference in logic behind forgiving Angle and Michaels everything they do because they're over and citing that Cena is over while bashing him anyway. If it comes down to just being a bigger fan of the former two than the latter, that's fine, but just say so.

Then IMM, another poster there, responds with this:

 

People who analyze every single move, in a match looking for ?mistakes? annoy the fuck out of me and are exactly what I hate about wrestling on the Internet. Not to long ago a bunch of smarts decided that to show how really smart they were they would explain how the common opinion that say a Kurt Angle or a Shawn Michaels were great wrestlers was incorrect.

 

Them suggesting this and looking down their nose at all those others who weren?t ?educated? enough to think Shawn Michaels isn?t a good wrestler was a way to put themselves over. Then around this time last year you got people who started proclaiming that four minute Mark Jindrak matches on Velocity were MOTY contenders which was just another extension of that whole? ?What do you mean you don?t see what I?m taking about and don?t share my opinion? oh you just don?t get it, you aren?t as smart as I am? you think Kurt Angle is a good wrestler? what a mark? attitude that I despise.

 

If you think Kurt Angle or Shawn Michaels suck then more power to you. However going over every nagging detail in regards to their matches in an attempt to prove Rosey is a better worker then the both of them is far far far too idiotic for me to take seriously.

 

If you think that Michaels beating the Smackdown champion Kurt Angle on Raw was a bad move because it hurts the title, then that?s one thing. Personally that fact did annoy me. However the match happened, the people in the crowd loved the match. The guy who works 9-5 at the local gas station in Bumfuck, IL who enjoyed what he was watching on television doesn?t give a fuck if Shawn Michaels kicked out of the Angle Slam? at this point he doesn?t even remember that it happened. He just remembers that Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels had something he enjoyed watching last Monday. Both guys moves are over, both are over, both are bulletproof in that this isn?t 1980 and people ?know? they are awesome and respect them for that fact? looking past stupid booking and storylines the company throws at them.

 

That Johnny Casual fan who ordered Vengeance 2005 because he wanted to see batista kick triple H?s ass does care what workrate is, or what a resthold is. They only want to be entertained.

 

Overanalyzing this shit is pointless and fucking stupid. Charisma and personality are what make superstars? being a good wrestler sure as hell helps, but it is not required.

Then Alvarez said this to me:

 

Here's the deal. After watching plenty of matches for plenty of years from plenty of different guys, not to mention being in the ring myself, I think Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels are great workers. If you ask any ten wrestling journalists, I suspect they will say the same thing. If you took any 100 active wrestlers in America today and asked them, probably 98-100% would agree. In fact, if you took any 100 wrestlers worldwide today and asked them the question, you'd probably get the same percentage. If you took any 100 legendary wrestlers, 98-100% would agree. Many of them, including guys like Ricky Steamboat, have said so on the record, and others have said so privately which you'll surely hear one of these days. If you took any 5 million long-term fans that have any understanding of this business whatsoever if they think Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle are great wrestlers who have great maches virtually every time out, they would say yes.

 

So, with that said, you, "loss", have not just stated that in your opinion Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels aren't any good today, but that it is a FACT. Furthermore, this means you believe you are RIGHT, and Dave Meltzer, myself, the vast majority of this board, pretty much everyone in the WWE locker room and virtually every legendary wrestler I've ever heard of, and damn near every fan with a clue I have ever talked to in the ten years I have been following this business closely, are WRONG.

 

Therefore, the onus is on you. If you want to continue to try to prove the overwhelming majority WRONG, go for it. You won't. Sorry.

My response:

 

I love how me stating my opinion is fact, and you stating your opinion is opinion. But expecting consistency in logic from a few of you may be asking too much. I never stated my opinion as fact. You just don't seem to be able to handle someone disagreeing with you on this issue, yet you criticize others who are unable to handle people disagreeing with them. The double standards just keep on coming.

 

I'm not disputing [that Michaels and Angle are over and their matches have heat]. I never disputed that.

 

I have not [stated my opinion as fact]. I have stated my opinion and because it is different from yours, you are not tolerating it.

 

Because I disagree with you, you're taking it as me ATTACKING you and SAYING you're WRONG, which SUDDENLY causes you to capitalize random WORDS. I enjoy wrestling immensely. I can safely say that if his posts everywhere are any indication, Bix does as well. I'd dare say that I enjoy more wrestling than almost anyone who calls themselves a fan. I'd say the same for Bix as well.

 

God, Bryan, I have to ask if you're even reading my posts or if you're just taking it so personally when you see Michaels or Angle attacked that you think I'm somehow attacking you by proxy. I said -- explicitly -- earlier in this thread that I'm not out to convert anyone to my side. I'm not attempting to prove a single thing. The only thing I did was point out that you're biased toward your favorites, which would be fine if you would just admit it already. You like Michaels and Angle more than Cena, so you're willing to let them slide for things you take Cena to task for. Great! Continue to do it for all eternity! I have no problem with that, as long as you're not doing it under the guise of being fair. If anything, I am responding pretty diplomatically to pretty much every point made and others are flaming because they can't tolerate a divergent opinion. I don't expect anyone else to watch wrestling like I do, but in the same vein, I don't think you should expect me to watch wrestling like the VAST MAJORITY~! that you keep putting over either.

 

Drop the superiority act. When you come online to discuss wrestling, you immediately fall into the category where the vast majority do not watch wrestling like you. The vast majority of fans don't give matches snowflakes or write a weekly newsletter either. If any of you somehow think you're different from anyone else online, you've managed to fool yourselves.

Then other posters just start joining in and laughing at the fact that Alvarez is profiting from this argument because I paid to use the message board, and I'm not.

 

Then, he goes on Figure 4 Daily (his radio show) and says that the Michaels/Angle argument is so ridiculous and people won't stop bringing it up and he won't allow it to be discussed on this board anymore.

 

I'm about to cancel my subscription. The board is nauseating, the newsletter is funny at times but is news aped from Meltzer and the daily interview shows are fun until he starts telling me -- on his radio show -- that I'm no longer allowed to disagree with him.

[Strummer]

I can't believe after all that Loss, he still didn't get your point. He never answered you directly. You were saying that there is a double standard against bad workers who have heated matches. He never said why Angle's and Michael's matches should be treated differently despite Cena, Hogan and the like getting the same amount (or even more) heat despite being "bad" workers I've lost a lot of respect for Alvarez lately. And I really don't think he's as funny as everyone says.

[Loss]

Exactly. My point wasn't even that he shouldn't like Angle or Michaels, or even that I liked Cena, but rather that if you're going to say Angle and Michaels are great because of their ability to involve a crowd in their matches, then you HAVE to put Cena and Hogan at just as high or higher a level because they're good at that too.

[Strummer]

If you can't figure out the difference between the heat generated by Hulk Hogan returning in Toronto to face Rock in a dream match at WrestleMania, and Angle and Michaels doing what they do to tear the house down in a match with one week's build on Raw, then I don't know what to tell you.

I've read that line like a dozen times and I still have no idea what he means. Anyone? No really Bryan, tell me why it's different. I don't see the difference.

 

And btw, Bryan on WOL said Hogan/Rock at WM 18 was a bad match (with Dave of course agreeing). Someone should show him his write up about Michaels/Angle and tell me, by his definition of a good match (ie crowd involvement) why one is so much better than the other.

[goodhelmet]

I was wondering why you have been relatively quiet here. You have been waging battles in foreign lands.

[Loss]

No reason to wonder, when I said in the Admin folder that I'm currently working 60-hour weeks.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I want to subscribe to the L4W~! newsletter

 

Right now, guys like Alvarez see a match and on gut reaction alone say "****!" and then try to think of reasons why it was **** and sorta fill in the rest. Thing is, even when they are presented something that goes against that **** standard, they will ignore it and propt something else up to cover it. They even admit this and take pride in it. "It's a great match because it was a great match. I know what a great match looks like and that, my friends, was a great match. You want my reason why it was a great match? It was a GREAT MATCH. If it wasn't a great match, then I wouldn't think it was a great match." When I heard Dave Meltzer explain his HOF criteria of "He just feels like a HOF'er" the mans opinion lost so much credibility, at least to critically evaluate something, in my eyes. Seriously, Alvarez couldn't hang here. We tend to be somewhat objective and try to look beyond gut reaction, and that's something that seems to be frowned upon over at the F4W board.

 

I get the whole "crowd reaction" thing, and I agree with it to a point and say that Angle and Michaels are *fantastic* at getting a crowd going. But then again, like Loss said, so is Hogan. The only difference I can see between the three is that Bryan likes Angle and Michaels and hates Hogan. But to only use _that_ as an argument when you are evaluating a match or wrestlers and dismissing everything else that is presented to you on the basis of that one thing, doesn't seem very smart, especially when you don't hold that standard to everyone equally or acknowledge your own bias.

 

Anywho, good work Loss. That was pretty sad lookin stuff.

[goodhelmet]

No reason to wonder, when I said in the Admin folder that I'm currently working 60-hour weeks.

Right... working 60 hour weeks and destroying BA's argument.

[Coffey]

If you can't figure out the difference between the heat generated by Hulk Hogan returning in Toronto to face Rock in a dream match at WrestleMania, and Angle and Michaels doing what they do to tear the house down in a match with one week's build on Raw, then I don't know what to tell you.

I've read that line like a dozen times and I still have no idea what he means. Anyone? No really Bryan, tell me why it's different. I don't see the difference.

Well, I can sort of see where he's coming from. The Rock & Hollywood Hogan had a lot of build-up. The nWo came back. It was Hogan's first match in WWE in a long time. Hogan and the Rock are two of the biggest stars in the history of the business.

 

Angle and Michaels aren't. Angle and Michaels had a match on free TV with only a week build. Hogan/Rock had a match on the biggest wrestling show of the year, with at least a month build-up and the anticipation of Hogan's return and all that.

 

So, I can see why he'd say that. It was different heat. The Toronto crowd gave the "oh shit, it's Hogan" "this is a dream match" type of nostalgia heat. The Raw match was the "who's going to win/this should be a good match" heat.

 

When you look at it like that, the content of the match doesn't really matter. I guess that's what he's trying to say? Shit, I don't know.

 

EDIT: I like what Rudo is saying. It's true. A lot of people seem to have a "free pass" as it pertains to match quality. It's like, just because HBK, Angle, Benoit, etc. have had good matches in the past, that doesn't mean that every match they have is going to be good. Just because Kane, A-Train & The Undertaker have had bad matches in the past, that doesn't mean that every match they have is going to be bad. People look at a line-up and some matches are automatically good before they ever happen. People look at a line-up and some matches are automatically bad before they ever happen. It's not really fair. Hell, people are already saying this years Wrestlemania "will be one of the worst ever." What the hell is that even based on?

[Guest Mike Campbell]

We all know how much Alvarez likes his cake

[World's Worst Man]

His argument is just completely fallacious. "It was great because other people popped for it". What the hell does that prove? It proves people liked it, which has nothing to do with it actually being good. Thats the problem with Alvarez though, he doesn't have a friggen clue about in-ring work, but he likes to run his mouth off about it because he's a huge Angle mark. Actually, now that I think about it, Kurt Angle has that effect on a lot of people. It all just comes down to supporting one's opinion with tangible points. Alvarez and many others, never do that.

[Guest Mike Campbell]

"It was great because other people popped for it."

If that was true, then Akira Taue vs Takeshi Rikio from NOAH 11/5 would be 2005 MOTY. It's a pretty bad match, but the pop for Taue winning the GHC Title is unreal.

[sek69]

It's seriously subscribe to the L4W newsletter too. If chuckleheads like Alvarez can have one, why not someone who knows what the fuck he's talking about?

[goodhelmet]

"It was great because other people popped for it."

If that was true, then Akira Taue vs Takeshi Rikio from NOAH 11/5 would be 2005 MOTY. It's a pretty bad match, but the pop for Taue winning the GHC Title is unreal.

YEah, and by the same reasoning, Benoit-Malenko from Hog Wild must have absolutely sucked because the crowd did not give a shit about that match.

[Loss]

Heat is important. I hope my point didn't get misconstrued as me saying it isn't. It's just that for Alvarez to think there's a difference between the audience cheering Hogan because he's Hogan and the audience getting involved in Michaels v Angle when there's not really one at all is silly. I agree that if the crowd gets wrapped up in a match, from the promoting and booking standpoint, that really is all that "matters", but when you're someone who assigns snowflakes, you're saying you want to discuss match quality, and while heat is still important, there are other factors at play at that point as well.

 

There's also heat earned and heat given. A wrestling match that sees the fans pop because something specific happened to get that reaction is good heat in terms of quality wrestilng. A wrestling match that sees the fans pop because the Undertaker has a really awesome entrance has nothing to do with the match itself, even if it does contribute to the atmosphere.

 

Michaels and Angle are good at working a crowd, but a lot of the reaction is based on the push both guys receive. They're really not much different than the vast majority of WWE guys in that the fans sit on their hands in the time between the entrance music and the time the finishers start getting teased.

 

This discussion can encompass a lot. Sure, the gas station attendant in Bumfuck, IL that IMM mentioned may not remember things that were kicked out of in the match, but if he doesn't, that's a reflection of the wrestlers working for cheap heat, because someone kicking out of someone else's finisher should be rare and an enormous deal when it happens. I'm not attempting to sound like a "puro elitist", but if in All Japan, Kawada's knee gets attacked in a match, he is still selling the injury in the next match. It matters. If a new move works in putting a guy away, the next time they face each other, they're going to tease that move.

 

How does that relate to Angle/Michaels? Simple. If Angle doing the top-rope Angle slam after working over Shawn's back for nearly a half hour at Wrestlemania XXI didn't get the job done, why would it get the job done later and why would he ever try it again? If the wrestlers make these things matter instead of just running through the same spots over and over every time they face each other, then those types of things will get over.

 

Anyway, this is probably the type of issue I enjoy discussing most anymore as it relates to wrestling, so I'll stop here for now.

[Loss]

"It was great because other people popped for it."

If that was true, then Akira Taue vs Takeshi Rikio from NOAH 11/5 would be 2005 MOTY. It's a pretty bad match, but the pop for Taue winning the GHC Title is unreal.

YEah, and by the same reasoning, Benoit-Malenko from Hog Wild must have absolutely sucked because the crowd did not give a shit about that match.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but those biker shows happened in front of non-wrestling fans who didn't even buy tickets. Benoit and Malenko have had other matches that have been just as good in front of ticket-paying fans that have gotten way more heat. That's almost like criticizing Motorhead for not getting a great reaction from the crowd at Wrestlemania X-7.

 

I was trying to think of a better example, but I'm struggling to think of a good match with no heat. I can only think of some of Mariko Yoshida's early ARSION stuff, but I don't know if that's an accurate comparison or not.

[Guest Dangerous A]

and I sort of resent Dangerous A and others saying it's a good investment.

 

Hey, that's on you. Me personally, I use F4W for the podcasts because most of the guests are pretty good and I have a 40 minute one way to work train ride every day and want to listen to something.

 

The message board at F4W isn't much for actual discussion of wrestling. It's actually on par with TSM as far as someone posts something semi-newsworthy or a news bite that is funny, and then the posters come with the hilarity. The difference is F4W's posters are funnier and have better photoshops than TSM. I don't post there much and when I want to discuss wrestling in depth, I come here and on occasion recently, TSM.

 

His newsletters pretty much are a week or so behind the Observer and Torch, so if you are getting it for news, bad move. I think he's funny with his tv recaps, but that's just me.

 

Alvarez also plays favorites and doesn't hide them as well as Meltzer. He can't get over himself enough to criticize Flair, Angle, or HBK. Never. That's just one of the things about Alvarez that sticks out as a huge negative. Even if in BA's heart he knows one of those 3 blew it in the ring, he can't bring himself to say they sucked and just goes with the obligatory "it was great because Flair-Angle-Michaels was there sharing oxygen with such and such" comment.

 

I can understand if you don't feel F4W is worth your money since you are looking for a better whole package, but I pretty much get it for the podcasts.

[Coffey]

Personally, I don't know why y'all paid for the site to begin with. I didn't think Alvarez was all that e-popular. Most people just care what Meltz says nowadays.

 

If this forum had more activity, like, more posters like what we have, I could see this site charging a fee. I think it'd be worth it. Hell, it'd be worth it just to upgrade to a "real" forum so we can use the search feature and shit.

[Loss]

Hell, it'd be worth it just to upgrade to a "real" forum so we can use the search feature and shit.

This will be happening soon.

[Coffey]

Good to hear. How soon is soon? Maybe we should hold off on the whole columns thing until the move?

[Ray]

I'll gladly jump on that Loss bandwagon. You've been killing 'em lately and I don't think there is any reviewer I enjoy reading more.

 

 

You might want to check out the latest F4W radio show:

 

http://www.f4wonline.com/free/012006daily.mp3

 

Alvarez and his wonderful guest, Mo Chatra, essentially tell us that if you disagree with the majority, you are either a troll, a devil's advocate, or a contrarian, and the discussion should be banned.

[silverwidow]

I was trying to think of a better example, but I'm struggling to think of a good match with no heat. I can only think of some of Mariko Yoshida's early ARSION stuff, but I don't know if that's an accurate comparison or not.

Please, please, please watch Yoshida/Fukawa, Loss. The crowd's rocking like it's 1999 towards the end there.

[goodhelmet]

"It was great because other people popped for it."

If that was true, then Akira Taue vs Takeshi Rikio from NOAH 11/5 would be 2005 MOTY. It's a pretty bad match, but the pop for Taue winning the GHC Title is unreal.

YEah, and by the same reasoning, Benoit-Malenko from Hog Wild must have absolutely sucked because the crowd did not give a shit about that match.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but those biker shows happened in front of non-wrestling fans who didn't even buy tickets. Benoit and Malenko have had other matches that have been just as good in front of ticket-paying fans that have gotten way more heat. That's almost like criticizing Motorhead for not getting a great reaction from the crowd at Wrestlemania X-7.

 

I was trying to think of a better example, but I'm struggling to think of a good match with no heat. I can only think of some of Mariko Yoshida's early ARSION stuff, but I don't know if that's an accurate comparison or not.

Just to clarify, I am on your side of the argument. I was using that as an example of how using Alvarez's logic, a match with no heat or bad heat would not be any good.

[Loss]

I was trying to think of a better example, but I'm struggling to think of a good match with no heat. I can only think of some of Mariko Yoshida's early ARSION stuff, but I don't know if that's an accurate comparison or not.

Please, please, please watch Yoshida/Fukawa, Loss. The crowd's rocking like it's 1999 towards the end there.

Definitely watching soon. It seems like the more wrestling I watch, the more I have left to watch. I'd love to get to a point where I've seen everything I want to see from the past so I can just watch new stuff as it comes out. Maybe by the end of '06, but I doubt it.

[Guest DylanWaco]

I'd be embarrased for Alvarez if this wasn't so typical of the kind of shit that guys like him, Meltzer, Keller, Mitchell and Martin shit out on a consistent basis (to be fair, I sort of like Todd as a person based on my limited interactions with him). Because they are hipster insiders they see themselves as intellectually surperior to anyone who challenges them on anything. This allows them to totally ignore any actual argument in favor of just saying "everyone disagrees with you" the irony of course being that since they control the print wrestling media, they basically manufacture consent for their views.

 

The truth is that Meltzer has always been good for general news, but has never been good at match analysis. Alvarez is a mildly amusing Meltzer-bottom, who is really worthless for any kind of anaylsis since you can get the exact same shit from Dave. Mitchell is like Bobby Heenan was in WCW..occasionally he'll do or say something hilarious, but he's really just a tired version of his old self. Keller blows and Martin just doesn't appear to know that much about wrestling (that sounds WAY more elitist than I mean it to sound, but there are any number of people on this board who have more knowledge of the sport he covers than he does). Still these guys run the newsletters, so they set the tone and what they report about match quality gets treated as fact by alot of people.

 

Of course there is a deeper irony here in that the syncophants that frequent Figure Fours board are basically a self selecting audience that are going to tend to fit into Alvarez' equation anyhow. I'd love to hear Alvarez' explain why it is that my viewing comrades think Michaels sucks now (I still sorta like Shawn FWIW) because he "does the same old shit" and "acts to much like Hogan when he wrestles". Somehow I doubt the Death Valley Driver or tOA board have an influence on these guys, since not a one of them is a hardcore fan and none has ever visited a wrestling website.

 

The truth is that if you want match analysis or critique of wrestlers you are a fool to go the Observer, Torch, Figure Four or any "news site". They all suck for this and have been pretty bad, with no redeeming qualities in this category since Zavisa and JDW left the Torch in the late 90's (incidentially even ECW lapdog Dave Scherer was always better at match critique than Alvarez or Keller). They tend to pick favorite workers and shamelessly applaud them no matter what the flaws or inconsistencies in ways that are far, far worse than that of the average "mark" (I hate that term) or casual fan.

 

If you want critique give me Loss, Bix, goodhelmet, Ty from a1, JDW and Frank from tOA and tomK from DVDVR. I may not always agree with them but they at least bring arguments to the table and try and leave the fanboy shit at home. It shouldn't be surprising that sites like this one, smarkschoice, dvdvr, a1 and tOA are far better places to discuss the fundamentals of wrestling than are sites hosted by proffessional wrestling "elites" like Alvarez.