Ridiculous quotes from WO.com columnists

[jdw]

WTF? The thread started as a showcase of the horrible columns that sometimes get posted on the observer site. Now it's degenerated into a bitchfest about remarks Dave has made. Now, I mainly read it just to see what people are making fun of. Why so sensitive?

The thread still regularly talks about columns. It's also become a catch-all for stuff that Dave and/or Bryan say. Would you rather have individual threads for each one of them? It's basically polite for people to dump it into one thread, making it easy for people to ignore it if they want.

 

I'll second the comment by Loss: many of the posters in this thread have made similar comments to Dave and/or Bryan over the years that they have made here. The boards here contain examples of conversations that some have had with Bryan or Dave. One can go over to the WO-4 boards and find plenty of examples of Bix saying pretty much what he's said here over there, and more.

 

I'll also make a pretty educated guess that the posters here bite many of their words of criticism of Dave and/or Bryan. That there is more that they don't agree with or scratch their heads over than what they toss into this thread, or other threads. This thread has been open for almost two and a half years. There are just 274 posts in it, and clearly far less than that number of items being talked about since most things tossed in here get several responses (such as this one).

 

Why?

 

Because they don't want to be seen as fanatically obsessing about every little comment Dave & Bryan make.

 

But it's a catch-22. They still get tagged with that meme even when biting their words.

 

An example?

 

The biggest story of the year was Misawa's death. Misawa is someone that a lot of the posters here have watched a great deal of over the years, and talked and written about a ton over those years. You'll find the critisicm of Bryan's Misawa piece here to be rather mild and limited compared to what it warranted. Discussion of Dave's Misawa pieces, and given his pieces some deeper thought, was pretty non-existant.

 

John

[Beast]

Alright, I guess my main criticism of these critiques is that they're both right there for you to tell your issues too. Unlike when John Madden makes a dumb comment on a NFL broadcast and you can't tell him personally what was wrong about what he said, it's easy to let them know your problem with their thoughts.

 

Also, alot of these talking points are so specific (WCW Finishing maneuvers, Shawn in 1992 being better than today's rosters) that I can't get upset about them because they were just throwaway remarks.

 

The Misawa bio is another talking point thrown around often and yes, your criticisms are totally valid. However, even if you feel the bios were lacking, is that really something to get so upset about? I don't want to sound like a dick because I guess I'd be annoyed if I was a bigger Japanese fan, but things happen and if those are the bios we get, those are the bios we get. Bryan's I don't know about, but at least with Dave I'm sure we got the best and most he could produce at that time.

 

Anyway, I know I come off as an apologist and I'll stop now. I just not a fan of all the nitpicking that seems to go on. But hey, it's still interesting to read and I'll stay out of the way.

[jdw]

Alright, I guess my main criticism of these critiques is that they're both right there for you to tell your issues too.

You seem to want to ignore that posters here *have* told Dave and/or Bryan what they think.

 

Loss indicated that talking to Bryan is like banging your head against the wall. At some point, one gives up on that. I certainly can understand that: people have thought the same things about talking to me for years.

 

Bix largely gets thrashed over on the WO-4 boards. More power to him for continuing to be a masochist.

 

For others, you're implying that WO-4 is a freebie. It's not. Are you willing to pick up the subs of all the posters on this board who don't sub to the WON so that they can head over to the WO-4 boards simply to have conversations with Dave and Bryan, and get hammered by their defenders?

 

 

Also, alot of these talking points are so specific (WCW Finishing maneuvers, Shawn in 1992 being better than today's rosters) that I can't get upset about them because they were just throwaway remarks.

Which is why people don't bother with the criticism: it gets dimissed as "nitpicking" because people don't want to address the criticism.

 

 

The Misawa bio is another talking point thrown around often and yes, your criticisms are totally valid. However, even if you feel the bios were lacking, is that really something to get so upset about? I don't want to sound like a dick because I guess I'd be annoyed if I was a bigger Japanese fan, but things happen and if those are the bios we get, those are the bios we get. Bryan's I don't know about, but at least with Dave I'm sure we got the best and most he could produce at that time.

I don't see that as a defense of criticism. It's just trying to sweep it away without even considering it.

 

I also don't think "criticism" equates to "being upset". I laughed and groaned through Bryan's piece, which is hardly being "upset". I haven't talked much about Dave's two pieces, nor really has anyone. I think I said that above.

 

Anyway, I know I come off as an apologist and I'll stop now. I just not a fan of all the nitpicking that seems to go on.

It appears to be largely why you're here: dismiss and apologize.

 

Which is fine for what it is, but a pretty limited role.

 

I think the difference is that if you look around closely, you'll find that among the criticism of Dave and say Wade, you'll also see regular posters defending them on some things, or clarifying some things. For someone who has the rep of ripping Dave, you'll find posts on here of me defending Dave, or adding some points of clarification that aren't critical.

 

John

[kjh]

If people "nitpick" everything Dave says, it's because he's by far the most influential wrestling and MMA journalist ever. He should take it as a sign of respect that we pay more attention to what he writes than all the other wrestling commentators out there put together.

 

Speaking about old school match finishes, if a German suplex can't be bought as a finisher today, maybe the next generation of workers wasn't so great or smart after all. Just a point to ponder.

[Ditch]

My take on revisiting matches is that to a large extent (especially before the IWC but still to today) the initial opinion/consensus on a match came from a handful of people and especially Meltzer himself, and thus it didn't necessarily reflect the 'real' feelings of fans at large. Especially fans with a bit of an, ah, critical eye. 'Revisiting' a match is often nothing more than trying to move beyond it being overrated by a couple people of influence. Take movies for example: for the last several decades there have been enough relevant critics that no one or two voices is enough to make a film overrated. By comparison, Meltzer tossing ****1/2 at something becomes a baseline that everyone works from. It's a testament to his success. It's also problematic because no single opinion is a reliable indicator of true consensus on quality. If there were more people involved in forming the initial consensus on matches, there would be less need to revisit them.

[Al]

There's nothing wrong with revisiting matches, you just have to recognize context.

[S.L.L.]

Al has it right.

 

Another problem with the stance is that it's applying a standard (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it) to wrestling criticism that gets applied to no other form of aesthetic criticism. Do you suppose Dave ever complains about how people today think "It's a Wonderful Life" is a great movie and overlook "Diary of a Chambermaid" because they're not watching them with 1946 eyes?

[tomk]

This is all kind of odd. So Dave and Bryan ignore the matches when they get those wrestler DVDs, like the WWE's Flair or Michaels DVDs?

 

John

A few months ago, Alvarez was talking about how he's been watching some 1989 WCW matches and while he enjoyed some of them (he said some of the basics from some workers were better than some today), he said he couldn't get into the finishes since he claimed they ruined the match for him:

 

"The one thing that I will always notice is that I would watch these matches, and I'll be 'God these guys are great, this is a really good match, it's holding up', and then the thing that kills it is always the finish. The finishes, and it's because, I guess part of the reason is because as wrestling has evolved, things that used to be finishes, aren't necessarily finishes anymore. Or guys use new things, or what used to be a finish before become a nearfall. I mean, you watch a match out of 89, and guys will be a great match or anything like that. And then somebody will hit a double arm suplex and pin the guy. And that would never happen in 2009! And you watch it and you kinda think 'What the hell was that finish?!?'. Or some guy will do a vertical suplex for the pin, and those are the things that don't hold up in 2009. But if you took a lot of those matches and added a modern finish to them, they would hold up just fine and a lot of them would hold up fine, and a lot of them would look a lot better than the matches nowadays." - Bryan Alvarez

 

I thought some of you would find this recent Meltzer/Alvarez claim very amusing and mind boggling:

 

"The Shawn Michaels of 1992 would probably be the best worker in the business." - Dave Meltzer

 

"He would undoubtedly be actually!" - Bryan Alvarez

 

"Yeah." - Dave Meltzer

 

 

The whole “modern finish” thing is weird bit of commentary.

 

I will say that watching 24/7 I tend to have the opposite experience. In the 80s your WWF wrestlers had a limited move palette that they were allowed to use. Two most dangerous looking moves in that palette were piledriver and top rope knee. Watching on TV I go “Holy shit that’s nasty”. But neither are really finishers. More often than not the guy who eats those moves gets up and hits the next move. I can't imagine someone whipping out either in 2009 and it not leading to a finish run.

 

I also wonder what modern wrestling Bryan is watching?

 

I remember when they added Cena to the Smackdown main event scene. There were these finishing trains where Benoit and Angle would whip out rolling German’s for pops and Cena would then come in and throw out a rolling FU which at time was essentially a modified bodyslam and get equally loud pops.

 

If you watch Lance Storm in ECW the superkick is a transition move.

 

It is 2009, Cena is wining matches with a bodyslam, Michaels is winning matches with a superkick, Muto wins matches with a knee lift and Takayama still wins matches with a German.

[Bix]

The pic of the new layout of the F4W newsletter looks exactly like the Torch looked when I subscribed (for all I know, it still looks like that).

[Ditch]

It is 2009, Cena is wining matches with a bodyslam, Michaels is winning matches with a superkick, Muto wins matches with a knee lift and Takayama still wins matches with a German.

Not to mention Samoa Joe with the sleeper and any number of wrestlers with the top rope splash. Undertaker's tombstone goes back to the '70s. There's no lack of finishers today that predate Randy Orton's birth.

 

The only time I've seen a really weak move (ie. vertical suplex) as the finish in the '80s is when a wrestler with a limited moveset wins a squash, which is the only time they'd generally have a match with a finish. Certainly wouldn't see any sort of high-end match end like that. MAYBE when a heel gets distracted and an underdog face hits something light for a flash pin, but in that case the move is a formality and the set-up is the real finish.

[jdw]

The pic of the new layout of the F4W newsletter looks exactly like the Torch looked when I subscribed (for all I know, it still looks like that).

Semi, but not exactly.

 

It's pretty much just a long, start-to-finish run on three-colum thing with either a Border around the text or a Page Border around the pages (with the cover page formatted to include the newsletter baner).

 

Wade tried (and still does) lay it out like a magazine/newspaper where the cover items flip back to pages later in the product. Certain pages in the newsletter have set content for each week: Page 2 is always something, page 3 is where he throws something, etc. Columns were always on the 3rd and 2nd to last pages (with the back cover being the last page). He's switched that up to have columns be a second item (in addition to the Lead) to start on the front page before continuing to the back.

 

Bryan's looks like a slightly prettier version of the WON layout.

 

Not passing judgement on what's most effective because I think what most of us care about in the end is Content. Dave's layout has always sucked, but when he's got good content, not of us care. Wade's layout has often been very good (some versions over the years better than others), but if the content of an issue wasn't any good, it was useless.

 

John

[Sean Liska]

So I've been reading the Observer forever but just got the online service for the first time in order to hear the Heyman interview. My question - has their board always been like it is now? Is it like that because of the Figure Four people? I always thought a board with Observer subscribers would be pretty cool.

[Bix]

It's because of the F4W people. Is the moderated area still there? That was originally supposed to be more of a "WON subscribers and Dave" area but it didn't work out.

[kjh]

Yeah, the moderated area is still there Bix. I tend to go to the board only to see what Dave is posting there.

[KrisZ]

I'm getting sick of this "UFC making stars" shit like Ben Rothwell was made a star on the Countdown special and Rua was made a star last night. No one fucking knows who is made until their next fights and if they do business or not.

[sek69]

Someone really needs to establish that one great performance =/= a star being made. You would think people who spend so much time watching pro wrestling would be aware of that.

[Strummer]

--Mick Foley on his myspace page talks about the roast for Terry Funk held on Saturday night. He talked about meeting Billy Robinson for the first time at the convention, and said it was the first time he'd been at a roast but may also be the last time, as he wasn't happy with some of the meanness involved. He said he didn't find jokes about J.R.'s Bell's Palsy, Magnum T.A.'s paralysis or the death of Patrick Swayze all that funny, plus felt the mean spirited nature of the jokes about Missy Hyatt ended up as overkill. I'm just glad I wasn't there, because I can't even imagine finding a joke about Magnum T.A's paralysis funny at any point, let alone any jokes or Ross or Swayze this week.

Come on it's a Roast!

[kjh]

Mick must have skipped Dave's recap of the Iron Sheik's roast where a drunk Scott Hall went crazy over an Owen Hart joke.

[Grimmas]

--Mick Foley on his myspace page talks about the roast for Terry Funk held on Saturday night. He talked about meeting Billy Robinson for the first time at the convention, and said it was the first time he'd been at a roast but may also be the last time, as he wasn't happy with some of the meanness involved. He said he didn't find jokes about J.R.'s Bell's Palsy, Magnum T.A.'s paralysis or the death of Patrick Swayze all that funny, plus felt the mean spirited nature of the jokes about Missy Hyatt ended up as overkill. I'm just glad I wasn't there, because I can't even imagine finding a joke about Magnum T.A's paralysis funny at any point, let alone any jokes or Ross or Swayze this week.

Come on it's a Roast!

 

That isn't a stupid thing to write. I've never been to a roast, but if it is making fun of things like people's diseases then I wouldn't find it funny either.

[Bix]

It also depends on if the jokes are any good.

[KrisZ]

My god the overanalysis of last night's RAW on WOL was irritating as shit. Nitpicking over phantom pinfalls and how Show's momentum was killed which it surely wasn't because it took the whole roster to beat him.

[Al]

--Mick Foley on his myspace page talks about the roast for Terry Funk held on Saturday night. He talked about meeting Billy Robinson for the first time at the convention, and said it was the first time he'd been at a roast but may also be the last time, as he wasn't happy with some of the meanness involved. He said he didn't find jokes about J.R.'s Bell's Palsy, Magnum T.A.'s paralysis or the death of Patrick Swayze all that funny, plus felt the mean spirited nature of the jokes about Missy Hyatt ended up as overkill. I'm just glad I wasn't there, because I can't even imagine finding a joke about Magnum T.A's paralysis funny at any point, let alone any jokes or Ross or Swayze this week.

Come on it's a Roast!

 

That isn't a stupid thing to write. I've never been to a roast, but if it is making fun of things like people's diseases then I wouldn't find it funny either.

 

Comedy Central airs them from time to time. The intent is to make fun of EVERYTHING. Sexual orientation, bodily functions, dick jokes, whatever's an easy target. Your mileage may vary significantly.

[Cox]

Jimmy Kimmell once made a joke to Flavor Flav something along the lines of "Chris Benoit was a better father than you!" at a roast, so clearly all bets are off. If you don't like tasteless jokes and unwarranted cheap shots, why even go to a roast?

 

That said, the best roast performance I ever saw was Norm Macdonald at the Bob Saget roast, which is six minutes of genius.

[Johnny Sorrow]

My god the overanalysis of last night's RAW on WOL was irritating as shit. Nitpicking over phantom pinfalls and how Show's momentum was killed which it surely wasn't because it took the whole roster to beat him.

I had to turn it off as I wanted to scream into my mic hoping they'd magically hear me bellowing "YOU'RE WRONG! SO FUCKING WRONG!"

[S.L.L.]

Jimmy Kimmell once made a joke to Flavor Flav something along the lines of "Chris Benoit was a better father than you!" at a roast, so clearly all bets are off. If you don't like tasteless jokes and unwarranted cheap shots, why even go to a roast?

 

That said, the best roast performance I ever saw was Norm Macdonald at the Bob Saget roast, which is six minutes of genius.

Like the Friar's Club says, "we only roast the ones we love". I've seen enough roasts to know that people will say some really offensive shit to people they actually like with no hard feelings behind it. It's one thing if the "mean-spirited" jokes were actually meant to be hurtful, but in the context of a roast, I'm guessing that's not the case.