AJPW four pillars vs NJPW cornerstones

[The Thread Killer]

3 hours ago, FMKK said:

Now, if I can admit to a sacrilege, I actually haven't watched a load of the 90s All Japan stuff. I know people who have been around longer than I have will have watched it all to death. I know I can just jump in and start watching on YouTube whenever but I'd rather watch in proper sequence or pick out the essentials in order. Is there anywhere where I could get a good list of that nature?  

Oh man, I'm actually jealous of you if you're planning on going back and seeing some of that stuff for the first time. I remember when I first started watching the King's Road era stuff before Misawa had even left All Japan and started NOAH.  It was 98-99 when I first started watching that stuff. We were in the heart of the "Attitude Era" at the time and comparing the All Japan stuff I was seeing for the first time to WWE and WCW was like night and day. It was mind-blowing.

If you want some advice, don't just jump straight into the Misawa/Kawada matches.  If you have the time and resources, I'd go back and check out some of the stuff from the late 80's featuring Jumbo's rivalry with Tenryu.  (Especially their match from 06/05/89.) A lot of people see similarities between the Jumbo/Tenryu matches and the eventual Misawa/Kawada rivalry.  Not to mention, the stuff when Misawa challenged Jumbo, which led into a great series of 6 Man Tags featuring Jumbo and Friends against Misawa and Friends.  So many of those are must-see.

But anyhow...if you want pretty much THE comprehensive list of all the best All Japan matches from the 90's, all you need to do is check out this:

http://www.otherarena.com/z_jdw/ajpwlist.htm

That list is incredibly helpful, it has all the 90's All Japan matches listed by date and even Meltzer's ratings.  I used that list to help me put together a bunch of custom comps.  (Of course, they were on VHS and now I don't even own a VCR, but it's a lot easier to find those matches online now.)

If you're looking for more of a "greatest hits" type deal, there is another option.  I don't know if you know the gentleman who posted here as "jdw" but his infamous "All Japan Pimping Post" and subsequent ballot for the DVDVR Best All Japan Matches of the 90's has also become a great resource:

jdw's All Japan Pimping Post

jdw's All Japan Ballot

[FMKK]

1 hour ago, Ricky Jackson said:

This was a podcast produced by once prolific posters around here that covered 90s AJPW in chronological order. If you want a list of the essentials, each ep has a list of the matches discussed 

https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/sets/all-japan-excite-series

 

Thanks so much. Can't wait to properly get stuck in.

[FMKK]

33 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

Oh man, I'm actually jealous of you if you're planning on going back and seeing some of that stuff for the first time. I remember when I first started watching the King's Road era stuff before Misawa had even left All Japan and started NOAH.  It was 98-99 when I first started watching that stuff. We were in the heart of the "Attitude Era" at the time and comparing the All Japan stuff I was seeing for the first time to WWE and WCW was like night and day. It was mind-blowing.

If you want some advice, don't just jump straight into the Misawa/Kawada matches.  If you have the time and resources, I'd go back and check out some of the stuff from the late 80's featuring Jumbo's rivalry with Tenryu.  (Especially their match from 06/05/89.) A lot of people see similarities between the Jumbo/Tenryu matches and the eventual Misawa/Kawada rivalry.  Not to mention, the stuff when Misawa challenged Jumbo, which led into a great series of 6 Man Tags featuring Jumbo and Friends against Misawa and Friends.  So many of those are must-see.

But anyhow...if you want pretty much THE comprehensive list of all the best All Japan matches from the 90's, all you need to do is check out this:

http://www.otherarena.com/z_jdw/ajpwlist.htm

That list is incredibly helpful, it has all the 90's All Japan matches listed by date and even Meltzer's ratings.  I used that list to help me put together a bunch of custom comps.  (Of course, they were on VHS and now I don't even own a VCR, but it's a lot easier to find those matches online now.)

If you're looking for more of a "greatest hits" type deal, there is another option.  I don't know if you know the gentleman who posted here as "jdw" but his infamous "All Japan Pimping Post" and subsequent ballot for the DVDVR Best All Japan Matches of the 90's has also become a great resource:

jdw's All Japan Pimping Post

jdw's All Japan Ballot

This is amazing. Thanks so much. I love a lot of modern New Japan so I'm excited to see the stuff you think is far superior!

[joeg]

Meltzer's assertion that Tanahashi has more charisma than Kobashi is fucking ludicrous. Kobashi had the best babyface fire up outside of Hulk Hogan and was able to garner sympathy better than anybody not names Ricky Morton. Kobashi had multiple matches where the entire arena was moved to tears. I don't see any fans having the emotional connection to Tanahashi where they are moved to tears.  

[The Thread Killer]

26 minutes ago, FMKK said:

This is amazing. Thanks so much. I love a lot of modern New Japan so I'm excited to see the stuff you think is far superior!

My pleasure!  I am glad you're watching this stuff with some sort of context.  When I first went online we weren't all that far removed from the Misawa/Kawada rivalry (in fact, I was already posting at Pro Wrestling messageboards in 1998, before Misawa and Kawada had their big match at the Tokyo Dome in 1998 which pretty much signified the end of their rivalry for all intents and purposes.)  But even then, a ton of people were calling the Misawa/Kawada match from 06/03/94 "The Greatest Match of All Time" so of course I checked it out. I thought it was great - the physical style in All Japan at that time was unlike anything I'd seen up to that point - but I didn't really "get" why it was supposed to be the Greatest Match of All Time.  It was only after I saw the entire rivalry play out over time in chronological order that I appreciated a lot of the smaller nuances of the match and the Misawa/Kawada rivalry in general.  Especially the Tag Matches featuring all four guys. Having said that, there are plenty of All Japan matches from that era which really don't require any knowledge of any backstory.  As much as I love the Misawa/Kawada matches, in a lot of ways I find the Misawa/Kobashi matches more compelling. In fact, I probably think the Misawa/Kobashi match from 10/31/98 might be my favorite match of all time...moreso than the Misawa/Kawada matches.

I haven't gone back and watched any of this stuff in a long time.  Once in a while I'll rewatch my favorite Tag Team Match (Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue from 05/21/94) or something like that on YouTube.  There are two things I think that would make watching this stuff different for me today.  Firstly, at that time seeing the "Kings Road Style" was so unique and brand new to me...I'd never seen anything like it before.  The problem is now, we have a whole generation of guys who studied that stuff religiously and (respectfully in most cases) blatantly rip off a lot of those moves or that Pro Wrestling style, whereas at that time, nobody in North America was doing anything like that at all.  At the exact same time that Misawa and Kawada were having the "greatest match of all time" in Japan, Vince McMahon was bringing us TL Hopper and The Goon.  But now...seeing that style of Pro Wrestling is no longer new. I liken it to going back and watching an old action movie from the 70's or 80's.  Great for it's time, but now with CGI everybody does that stuff, so it seems less special to a degree.

Also, at that time (aside from very rare exceptions like Flair/Steamboat) I had never seen a Pro Wrestling match that lasted over 20 minutes or had more than one or two near-falls.  So some of those matches seemed so much more dramatic to me because of the tension created by the length of the match and the amount of close calls.  Now?  We're habitually seeing matches go over 30 minutes on PPV, and near-falls seem to have become mandatory to the point we've almost become desensitized.

Secondly (and worse) is the fact that the AJPW style slowly evolved from a more psychology based type of Pro Wrestling into (by around 1997) a very reckless high impact style which in many cases forwent psychology altogether and devolved into repeatedly dumping guys on the tops of their heads.  It's hard for me to watch that now sometimes, because that style of Pro Wrestling literally killed Misawa, who for my money was the greatest Pro Wrestler of all time.  It's hard to watch his matches sometimes now, knowing that he's basically killing himself by repeatedly getting dumped on his head and neck.

But still overall, I love that stuff.

[MoS]

I don't want to go back on Meltzer's motivations, but if you actually listen to him on his radio shows and read his newsletters, he is far, far from losing his mind cuz of being exposed. Eric Bischoff has about a million documented instances of contradicting what he himself used to say earlier on his podcast, so I doubt Meltzer - or anyone, really - gives a fuck about what Eric Bischoff has to say now. 

I think he is insane for thinking Tanahashi has more charisma than Kobashi. He also thinks Tanahashi is an excellent storyteller, and I find Tanahashi's matches to be underwhelming to boring precisely because I am not a fan of his storytelling. Storytelling was also Kobashi's weak point as the 90s progressed, cuz he would often still wrestle and act like a young rookie who was giving it all every time. But Kobashi had physical charisma and a tremendously expressive face, and even I, who does not understand Japanese, would get immersed as he would make a valiant comeback and try to put Stan Hansen away. I am trying to think of a single Tanahashi match that approaches any of the Kobashi-Hansen matches, and I cannot think of one. But Tanahashi is more charismatic cuz he dresses up like Jericho sometimes and pretends to be a rockstar? I don't get it. 

[GSR]

Just now, MoS said:

I don't want to go back on Meltzer's motivations, but if you actually listen to him on his radio shows and read his newsletters, he is far, far from losing his mind cuz of being exposed. Eric Bischoff has about a million documented instances of contradicting what he himself used to say earlier on his podcast, so I doubt Meltzer - or anyone, really - gives a fuck about what Eric Bischoff has to say now. 

Yeah, there is a huge difference to actually reading what Dave writes or listening to him on audio as opposed to what people post on Twitter or conveniently cut out sound bytes to frame arguments against him. 

Sure people will believe Bischoff "because he was there" but as has been said numerous times, the guy is a walking contradiction with a terrible memory.  Even Conrad has said about Bruce that he's nothing more than an entertainer.  Cornette always used to back up Dave in the debates against Bruce, saying how Bruce would always be talking to him back in the day.  There are thousands of fans who don't like Dave, for whatever reason, and the Prichard, Russo, Bischoff podcasts used them as their target audience.

On a final note, the Awards issue came out this past week and Dave noted they had the biggest response in the 40 year history of them.  I think it's safe to say that Dave is doing very well financially and hasn't really been "exposed" as people like to think.

[kas]

I think you guys are selling Tanahashi a bit short. He might not have the fan connection that Kobashi has, but he's consistently ranked as the number 1 or number 2 most popular wrestler in Japan. Plus there's that anecdote from AJ that mentions he saw fans crying when he put Tanahashi in the calf-killer.

[FMKK]

You could really see his crowd connection last year after he main evented a G1 show vs Evil. He did the air guitar and then went around the entire front row shaking hands with fans and wiping his sweat off on their towels. It really was something.

[The Thread Killer]

5 hours ago, GSR said:

Yeah, there is a huge difference to actually reading what Dave writes or listening to him on audio as opposed to what people post on Twitter or conveniently cut out sound bytes to frame arguments against him. 

Sure people will believe Bischoff "because he was there" but as has been said numerous times, the guy is a walking contradiction with a terrible memory.  Even Conrad has said about Bruce that he's nothing more than an entertainer.  Cornette always used to back up Dave in the debates against Bruce, saying how Bruce would always be talking to him back in the day.  There are thousands of fans who don't like Dave, for whatever reason, and the Prichard, Russo, Bischoff podcasts used them as their target audience.

On a final note, the Awards issue came out this past week and Dave noted they had the biggest response in the 40 year history of them.  I think it's safe to say that Dave is doing very well financially and hasn't really been "exposed" as people like to think.

There was a time when if Dave Meltzer reported something, I automatically believed it for the most part and assumed it was true and factual.  I have lost some respect for him, and there are a couple of reasons.

Firstly, much of the time on Twitter he basically acts like a glorified troll.  He's rude a lot of the time and makes provocative statements for reasons I can't even guess.  I've seen Meltzer supporters actually refer to this as "Meltzer working his Twitter gimmick."  Even some of his defenders have questioned why he acts like this, and what he's trying to accomplish. I don't know what the hell he's doing on Twitter, but it sure isn't reporting. In his defense, he absolutely does get provoked and antagonized by fans of Vince Russo or supporters of some of Conrad Thompson's podcasts.  And now, even Cornette fans.  But just because people are baiting him it doesn't mean he has to respond. But he seems more than happy to sink to their level and that makes him hard to take seriously. I don't think people who want to be accepted as legitimate journalists should act like that, I don't care if "it's just Twitter."  If you make a living reporting facts and offering your editorial opinion, then I think you forfeit your right to compartmentalize your writing and assume people should think you're serious on your website and newsletter, but what you Tweet doesn't count.

Secondly, I am sorry but I do believe that his reporting techniques have been exposed over the past few years.  I am not saying that I agree with idiots like JBL or Bruce Prichard who claim that Meltzer makes stories up or invents lies to promote his newsletter.  I do not believe that Dave Meltzer has ever deliberately fabricated a story.  I don't think he has ever knowingly written something untrue. I think he believes what he reports, but I don't think he's anywhere near as infallible as I used to. When you're talking about the Conrad Thompson podcasts, you also can't lump them all together when it comes to their position on Dave Meltzer. On one end of the spectrum you have Bruce Prichard who is (and always has been) a lying carny and I don't believe a damn thing he says. On the other end, you have Jim Ross who frequently agrees with what Dave Meltzer reports and openly admits that he has talked with him in the past, and basically been one of Dave Meltzer's sources. Then you have Arn Anderson, who seems to have no axe to grind with Meltzer one way or the other. Let's throw out everything Bruce Prichard has ever said about Meltzer.  On their podcasts, both Jim Ross and Arn Anderson have been quoted something Meltzer reported and they've calmly and rationally stated that he was incorrect.  He got the story wrong. These are not guys who hate Meltzer, these are not guys who are trying to make him look bad. Both guys will freely admit when Meltzer is right about something, and even agree with his editorials and match reviews.

For example, one the episode of Arn's podcast that dealt with Arn's career ending injury and retirement, Conrad was using the Observer as the basis for his research, which he frequently does. Conrad was listing off the dates that Arn was off work and the supposed surgeries he had, when Arn stopped him and pointed out that one of the injuries that Meltzer reported had never happened, and he had no idea what Dave was talking about. I suppose it's possible that Meltzer was right and Arn is forgetting one of his own injuries, but I doubt it. But at the time, if I had read that story in the Observer I wouldn't have questioned it for a second. In my opinion, Dave Meltzer incorrectly reports things at times because he doesn't always bother to confirm his facts.

People love to blame the apparent end of the Dave Meltzer/Jim Cornette relationship on Cornette going insane over Meltzer's AEW fandom. And that is certainly part of it, but I don't think it is the whole story.  Jim Cornette has said that he considered Dave Meltzer a personal friend, but when Cornette quit the NWA over his infamous "fried chicken" joke Meltzer made that one of his major stories in the Observer, and that was fair.  It was news. Cornette had no issue with Meltzer reporting it, but the problem was that even though they were friends Meltzer never called Cornette to get his side of the story or even ask for a quote. How can you be friends with a person, report on something involving them but not bother to get their side of the story or check your facts?  Cornette has also confirmed that some of the things Meltzer has reported about the goings on behind the scenes in the NWA were factually incorrect...especially when it came to the nature of the financial end of Cornette's agreement with the NWA.  These are facts that Cornette would have been happy to share with Meltzer if Meltzer had actually bothered to ask him before reporting it in the Observer. (Especially since Cornette has since gone on to openly disclose the financial details of his agreement with the NWA on his podcast.)

The deal with Eric Bischoff and Dave Meltzer is a whole other situation.  Eric Bischoff absolutely does hate Dave Meltzer and will never let an opportunity pass to slag off Meltzer and the Observer.  Bischoff has been totally upfront about the fact that at one point he had a relationship with Meltzer, that Bischoff himself initiated. Bischoff has claimed that one of the main problems when he took over WCW was that Turner executives were reading the Observer and making management decisions based on what they were reading, which was leading guys like Gary Juster to leak info to Meltzer in order to further their own political agenda.  Bischoff openly admits that he hoped by working with Meltzer he'd be able to promote WCW in a positive light (and himself as well, I would assume) while at the same time stop the leaks. Bischoff claims that he wanted Meltzer to come to him directly before printing unflattering stories about WCW, so he could get Bischoff's side of the story. (I have no doubt that Bischoff was also hoping to exert some influence over Meltzer to get him to kill stories which made him and/or WCW look bad as well.) Either way, Bischoff claims that despite the fact that he made himself available to Meltzer, Meltzer continued to run stories about WCW without bothering to check with Bischoff and get his side of the story first.

You can like Eric Bischoff, or you can hate him.  He absolutely does have a problem with Dave Meltzer. But that doesn't change the fact that history has proven that a lot of the things Dave Meltzer reported about the inner workings of WCW were absolutely untrue. A lot of the facts Meltzer reported at the time about WCW were accepted as gospel at the time, and are still believed to this day. One glaring example is Dave Meltzer's claim that one of the the main reasons Eric Bischoff was able to turn a profit in WCW and get them out of the red, is because Hulk Hogan was not being paid by WCW so that money never came out of their budget.  Meltzer has claimed (and still does as far as I know) that Hulk Hogan had a separate contract with Turner Home Entertainment which wasn't part of the WCW operating budget.  Bischoff, Hogan and even some people who worked for Turner have since claimed that is absolutely not true...that if somebody worked for WCW their contract was part of the WCW budget...but that didn't stop Meltzer from reporting it.  And from arguing with anybody who claimed it wasn't true.  It's apparently true that after the merger, all major talents were signed to contracts with AOL/Time Warner that were separate from WCW, but that still doesn't mean the funds didn't come out of WCW's operating budget. I'm not going to bother to bring up stupid stuff like "Mabel being the third man in the NWO" and crap like that, but there have been many examples of Meltzer reporting stuff that happened behind the scenes in WCW - especially when it comes to reports about certain talents coming in, going out, or the details of contracts - which have since been proven to be wrong.  Bischoff claims (and I believe this) that guys like Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan would frequently tell Meltzer things that were either partially or totally untrue, and Meltzer would turn around and print it as a fact.

The book "The Death of WCW" by RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez was considered by many to be the source of information behind the collapse of WCW. I thought it was.  I own a copy of that book.  And Dave Meltzer's reporting was one of the main sources of information for that book (which isn't surprising when you consider Alvarez is one of the authors) and Meltzer even wrote the foreword.  When I read that book, I assumed that it was pretty much accurate.  The problem is...a lot of that book is speculation and a great deal of it is factually untrue.  And that has been proven.  That's why Bischoff is constantly promoting the book "Nitro - The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans. Trust me, that book does not always paint Eric Bischoff in a flattering light but at least Guy Evans bothered to speak to Bischoff and more importantly he talked to high ranking executives at Time Warner to get the complete story about the real death of WCW.

There are a lot of people who will believe what Dave Meltzer reports, or agree with his editorial opinion, just because it's Meltzer that said it. For as many people there are out there that disagree with everything he says and jump all over him when he reports things, there are an equal number of people who blindly believe everything he says.  Maybe it's unfair of me to expect the guy to not have an opinion. I can see that. But because he has long been considered the leading source of information when it comes to Professional Wrestling, when he says something people will listen to him and give his opinion a lot of weight.  So when he offers up an opinion about something stupid, I just find it annoying.  I find that his opinions and his editorializing seem to intermingle a lot of the time.  I've had disagreements with people about AEW, (not here at PWO, granted) who have turned around and quoted Meltzer.  That annoys me, because Meltzer doesn't always report just facts about AEW.  I don't think he's objective. He likes those guys, he's friends with a lot of them and he clearly has a bias when it comes to promoting them.  Conversely, I think when he doesn't like somebody, he can be equally as guilty of using his newsletter as a platform to bury them. He's allowed to have friends and he's allowed to have a bias (both positive and negative) but when your voice carries as much weight as his does, I think you should take some consideration when passing your opinion.

In the end, I really don't buy the argument that Dave Meltzer and his newsletter are popular, so that some how validates him or his opinion.  I'm sure he's more popular now than he ever has been. So what?  Jim Cornette has one of one of the most popular Pro Wrestling podcasts around right now, and his audience is growing every week.  That doesn't make his editorial opinions any more valid.  Fox News is the #1 news channel on cable, that doesn't make everything they report true or justify every opinion they express.  My main point was that I don't believe Dave Meltzer as much as I used to, and I know there are other people who feel the same.  I was speculating that maybe the fact that people are now questioning his factual validity was the motivation behind some of his more proactive editorializing, and I stand behind that.  I respect the reasoning of those who don't agree with my position on this issue, but it doesn't change my opinion.

[Mrzfn]

Regarding Okada vs. Misawa, or era vs. era, I'm sure I couldn't say which is "better".

But I know personally I'd much rather be watching 90s All Japan, because I overwhelming prefer that style.

[ragemaster]

3 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

There was a time when if Dave Meltzer reported something, I automatically believed it for the most part and assumed it was true and factual.  I have lost some respect for him, and there are a couple of reasons.

Firstly, much of the time on Twitter he basically acts like a glorified troll.  He's rude a lot of the time and makes provocative statements for reasons I can't even guess.  I've seen Meltzer supporters actually refer to this as "Meltzer working his Twitter gimmick."  Even some of his defenders have questioned why he acts like this, and what he's trying to accomplish. I don't know what the hell he's doing on Twitter, but it sure isn't reporting. In his defense, he absolutely does get provoked and antagonized by fans of Vince Russo or supporters of some of Conrad Thompson's podcasts.  And now, even Cornette fans.  But just because people are baiting him it doesn't mean he has to respond. But he seems more than happy to sink to their level and that makes him hard to take seriously. I don't think people who want to be accepted as legitimate journalists should act like that, I don't care if "it's just Twitter."  If you make a living reporting facts and offering your editorial opinion, then I think you forfeit your right to compartmentalize your writing and assume people should think you're serious on your website and newsletter, but what you Tweet doesn't count.

Secondly, I am sorry but I do believe that his reporting techniques have been exposed over the past few years.  I am not saying that I agree with idiots like JBL or Bruce Prichard who claim that Meltzer makes stories up or invents lies to promote his newsletter.  I do not believe that Dave Meltzer has ever deliberately fabricated a story.  I don't think he has ever knowingly written something untrue. I think he believes what he reports, but I don't think he's anywhere near as infallible as I used to. When you're talking about the Conrad Thompson podcasts, you also can't lump them all together when it comes to their position on Dave Meltzer. On one end of the spectrum you have Bruce Prichard who is (and always has been) a lying carny and I don't believe a damn thing he says. On the other end, you have Jim Ross who frequently agrees with what Dave Meltzer reports and openly admits that he has talked with him in the past, and basically been one of Dave Meltzer's sources. Then you have Arn Anderson, who seems to have no axe to grind with Meltzer one way or the other. Let's throw out everything Bruce Prichard has ever said about Meltzer.  On their podcasts, both Jim Ross and Arn Anderson have been quoted something Meltzer reported and they've calmly and rationally stated that he was incorrect.  He got the story wrong. These are not guys who hate Meltzer, these are not guys who are trying to make him look bad. Both guys will freely admit when Meltzer is right about something, and even agree with his editorials and match reviews.

For example, one the episode of Arn's podcast that dealt with Arn's career ending injury and retirement, Conrad was using the Observer as the basis for his research, which he frequently does. Conrad was listing off the dates that Arn was off work and the supposed surgeries he had, when Arn stopped him and pointed out that one of the injuries that Meltzer reported had never happened, and he had no idea what Dave was talking about. I suppose it's possible that Meltzer was right and Arn is forgetting one of his own injuries, but I doubt it. But at the time, if I had read that story in the Observer I wouldn't have questioned it for a second. In my opinion, Dave Meltzer incorrectly reports things at times because he doesn't always bother to confirm his facts.

People love to blame the apparent end of the Dave Meltzer/Jim Cornette relationship on Cornette going insane over Meltzer's AEW fandom. And that is certainly part of it, but I don't think it is the whole story.  Jim Cornette has said that he considered Dave Meltzer a personal friend, but when Cornette quit the NWA over his infamous "fried chicken" joke Meltzer made that one of his major stories in the Observer, and that was fair.  It was news. Cornette had no issue with Meltzer reporting it, but the problem was that even though they were friends Meltzer never called Cornette to get his side of the story or even ask for a quote. How can you be friends with a person, report on something involving them but not bother to get their side of the story or check your facts?  Cornette has also confirmed that some of the things Meltzer has reported about the goings on behind the scenes in the NWA were factually incorrect...especially when it came to the nature of the financial end of Cornette's agreement with the NWA.  These are facts that Cornette would have been happy to share with Meltzer if Meltzer had actually bothered to ask him before reporting it in the Observer. (Especially since Cornette has since gone on to openly disclose the financial details of his agreement with the NWA on his podcast.)

The deal with Eric Bischoff and Dave Meltzer is a whole other situation.  Eric Bischoff absolutely does hate Dave Meltzer and will never let an opportunity pass to slag off Meltzer and the Observer.  Bischoff has been totally upfront about the fact that at one point he had a relationship with Meltzer, that Bischoff himself initiated. Bischoff has claimed that one of the main problems when he took over WCW was that Turner executives were reading the Observer and making management decisions based on what they were reading, which was leading guys like Gary Juster to leak info to Meltzer in order to further their own political agenda.  Bischoff openly admits that he hoped by working with Meltzer he'd be able to promote WCW in a positive light (and himself as well, I would assume) while at the same time stop the leaks. Bischoff claims that he wanted Meltzer to come to him directly before printing unflattering stories about WCW, so he could get Bischoff's side of the story. (I have no doubt that Bischoff was also hoping to exert some influence over Meltzer to get him to kill stories which made him and/or WCW look bad as well.) Either way, Bischoff claims that despite the fact that he made himself available to Meltzer, Meltzer continued to run stories about WCW without bothering to check with Bischoff and get his side of the story first.

You can like Eric Bischoff, or you can hate him.  He absolutely does have a problem with Dave Meltzer. But that doesn't change the fact that history has proven that a lot of the things Dave Meltzer reported about the inner workings of WCW were absolutely untrue. A lot of the facts Meltzer reported at the time about WCW were accepted as gospel at the time, and are still believed to this day. One glaring example is Dave Meltzer's claim that one of the the main reasons Eric Bischoff was able to turn a profit in WCW and get them out of the red, is because Hulk Hogan was not being paid by WCW so that money never came out of their budget.  Meltzer has claimed (and still does as far as I know) that Hulk Hogan had a separate contract with Turner Home Entertainment which wasn't part of the WCW operating budget.  Bischoff, Hogan and even some people who worked for Turner have since claimed that is absolutely not true...that if somebody worked for WCW their contract was part of the WCW budget...but that didn't stop Meltzer from reporting it.  And from arguing with anybody who claimed it wasn't true.  It's apparently true that after the merger, all major talents were signed to contracts with AOL/Time Warner that were separate from WCW, but that still doesn't mean the funds didn't come out of WCW's operating budget. I'm not going to bother to bring up stupid stuff like "Mabel being the third man in the NWO" and crap like that, but there have been many examples of Meltzer reporting stuff that happened behind the scenes in WCW - especially when it comes to reports about certain talents coming in, going out, or the details of contracts - which have since been proven to be wrong.  Bischoff claims (and I believe this) that guys like Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan would frequently tell Meltzer things that were either partially or totally untrue, and Meltzer would turn around and print it as a fact.

The book "The Death of WCW" by RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez was considered by many to be the source of information behind the collapse of WCW. I thought it was.  I own a copy of that book.  And Dave Meltzer's reporting was one of the main sources of information for that book (which isn't surprising when you consider Alvarez is one of the authors) and Meltzer even wrote the foreword.  When I read that book, I assumed that it was pretty much accurate.  The problem is...a lot of that book is speculation and a great deal of it is factually untrue.  And that has been proven.  That's why Bischoff is constantly promoting the book "Nitro - The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans. Trust me, that book does not always paint Eric Bischoff in a flattering light but at least Guy Evans bothered to speak to Bischoff and more importantly he talked to high ranking executives at Time Warner to get the complete story about the real death of WCW.

There are a lot of people who will believe what Dave Meltzer reports, or agree with his editorial opinion, just because it's Meltzer that said it. For as many people there are out there that disagree with everything he says and jump all over him when he reports things, there are an equal number of people who blindly believe everything he says.  Maybe it's unfair of me to expect the guy to not have an opinion. I can see that. But because he has long been considered the leading source of information when it comes to Professional Wrestling, when he says something people will listen to him and give his opinion a lot of weight.  So when he offers up an opinion about something stupid, I just find it annoying.  I find that his opinions and his editorializing seem to intermingle a lot of the time.  I've had disagreements with people about AEW, (not here at PWO, granted) who have turned around and quoted Meltzer.  That annoys me, because Meltzer doesn't always report just facts about AEW.  I don't think he's objective. He likes those guys, he's friends with a lot of them and he clearly has a bias when it comes to promoting them.  Conversely, I think when he doesn't like somebody, he can be equally as guilty of using his newsletter as a platform to bury them. He's allowed to have friends and he's allowed to have a bias (both positive and negative) but when your voice carries as much weight as his does, I think you should take some consideration when passing your opinion.

In the end, I really don't buy the argument that Dave Meltzer and his newsletter are popular, so that some how validates him or his opinion.  I'm sure he's more popular now than he ever has been. So what?  Jim Cornette has one of one of the most popular Pro Wrestling podcasts around right now, and his audience is growing every week.  That doesn't make his editorial opinions any more valid.  Fox News is the #1 news channel on cable, that doesn't make everything they report true or justify every opinion they express.  My main point was that I don't believe Dave Meltzer as much as I used to, and I know there are other people who feel the same.  I was speculating that maybe the fact that people are now questioning his factual validity was the motivation behind some of his more proactive editorializing, and I stand behind that.  I respect the reasoning of those who don't agree with my position on this issue, but it doesn't change my opinion.

Maybe this should have its thread, or moved to the Meltzer one.

[World's Worst Man]

3 hours ago, Mrzfn said:

Regarding Okada vs. Misawa, or era vs. era, I'm sure I couldn't say which is "better".

But I know personally I'd much rather be watching 90s All Japan, because I overwhelming prefer that style.

I wish more people realized that all of this is just that - different preferences. It's one thing for someone to bask in their ignorance and spout bullshit, ala the dregs of wreddit, but Dave is a guy who has a lot of exposure to pro wrestling and simply likes certain styles more than others. Criticising him for being snarky or trollish is fine, but I have to say it's really ironic considering that I see a ton of nasty/provocative comments about the things Dave likes (AEW, NJPW, the modern spotty indy style, etc), which is apparently fair game. With that being said, if a critic holds wildly different preferences from the reader, it's perfectly reasonable to discount and ignore those opinions. I would imagine that is the disconnect here, much as it's the disconnect with the WWE fanboys who started the Tokyo Dome meme.

 

 

[WingedEagle]

What do you those of you who are fans of both eras think about the integration of tag matches in each?  In 90s AJPW they were arguably some of the best matches of that or any era as well as vital chapters in the stories and feuds of the time.  In modern New Japan they haven't been any kind of focus outside of using the Golden Lovers to sell some US shows in 2018 and as a feature attraction on the last Korakuen before Wrestle Kingdom.  This undoubtedly saves the top stars for the grueling singles matches they work, but do you think their absence has been left any kind of hole in the booking?

[kas]

There were a couple of years where the junior tag division was awesome, 2014-2015 I'd say, but that's about the best either tag divisions have looked. The lack of quality tag matches for singles stars wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that there are very few tag teams worth mentioning, and the matches themselves are mediocre. I happen to be a fan of G.O.D, but I know a lot of people hate them, and with them dominating the division a lot of people are turned off. Plus there are very few tag teams that aren't just singles guys thrown together. Of the top of my head I can only think of G.O.D and Tencozy for HW, though Tencozy is stretching it slightly, and Roppongi 3k for the junior division. I really think they should utilise ROH more for this purpose, especially The Briscoes, who had an awesome couple of matches with G.O.D last summer.

[MoS]

With Tanahashi, I freely admit it might be a cultural thing where I don't "get" him like I do Kobashi. One thing in that comparison is that Kobashi had a lot more physical charisma than Tanahashi does, and his facial expressions at least in the early 90s were out of this world.

[MoS]

Very topically, Naylor posted this on Twitter just a couple of hours back