The greatest cons in wrestling history

[Loss]

Crockett had a successful 1985-1986 running the classic style nationally.

 

Dave Meltzer, who is probably the most pro-workrate guy you can find, often talks about how having good matches helps, but putting together storylines that hook people is key.

 

Does anyone argue differently?

[artDDP]

No, I agree with Loss. Casual fans need storylines they can latch onto which lead to believable matches. Storylines, angles, feuds, whatever you want to call them, drive business. And for those storylines to work they must have a logical ending. Wrestling has traditionally clung to the idea that you can squeeze "one more match" out of anything. For example, if the NWO storyline actually ended rather than descend into self-parody.

[Death From Above]

90% of the people who trumpet 6/3/94 as the day the Lord himself smiled upon the wrestling world have no idea why they think that way other than someone told them it was a Momentous Event for wrestling. That match is nothing more than "perfectly acceptable wrestling" ( to quote a Scooter-ism) unless you understand the context of why these guys are facing each other and why it's a big deal.

I really think this belongs in the wrestling myth busters thread.

 

Or maybe I'm just odd and I was the only one who thought it was batshit awesome on a first viewing (and it was the first Misawa/Kawada match I ever saw).

 

I argued pretty heavily during the Mid-South set that if you want "wrestling that requires context to understand", the Duggan/DiBiase uber-stips on a pole match is probably the best example of it I've ever seen. Without the setup it's some 10 minute clusterfuck, with it... it's amazing. And that really the 94 Misawa/Kawada context arguement looks awfully silly put next to something like it. I don't need "context" for athletic exhibition. I do need it for "guys in tuxes fighting a pole match". I was already watching the athletic exhibition because I happen to like that shit to begin with. To get me to watch "two guys in tuxes fighting a pole match", and not only pop for it, but be blown away by it... that's a much bigger accomplishment. And requires a lot more context to make happen.

 

If I were to put together a list of the top 100 matches I thought needed "context" to become "good", Misawa/Kawada 94 wouldn't crack the top 100. Hell I doubt it would crack the top 500. But I was always of the opinion All Japan's appeal (for me personally) was the raw athleticism. I didn't need that sold, which is good, beause they never did much to sell it. It was just (as someone once described it) "guys in trunks and boots, and they just wrestle". The wrestling had to stand on it's own merit because there wasn't anything else. Once that athletic level eventually dropped off (along with running out of new shit to do)... well, people can see where it's at now. And in hindsight that was probably an inevitable consequence of going that way. I find most American-style wrestling requires far more context for me to enjoy, because not that some of the matches aren't great, but there's a lot more going on aroud them. Which is probably why it's hard to get back into it once one has been out for a while, "do I really want to go through learning all the backstory, again".

 

Maybe that's just me.

[Death From Above]

Maybe the bigger wrestling con there is people convincing themselves that the statement "90% of the people who trumpet (insert wrestling match from any style) as the day the Lord himself smiled upon the wrestling world have no idea why they think that way other than someone told them it was a Momentous Event for wrestling." doesn't somehow apply to every style, country, era, and promotion, when it becomes conveinent for it not to anymore. Because it probably does.

[Sean Liska]

I remember watching this on Raw on night"

 

Watching what? The night that the Clique had the big hug? The night WWF "tore down kayfabe"?

In 1997, DX was in the ring doing a promo and then THE FOOTAGE started playing on the Raw screen. That was what I remember watching. Not the actual MSG stuff going down as it happened, but DX playing footage of it on Raw and making comments about it.

 

Where we are today? You'll have to explain the link from "06/03/94 happening and guys like Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Mysterio, Psicosis, Malenko giving a visual definition to the term WORKRATE" to today's top WWE stars of Cena, Batista, Orton and Hunter.

Where 'we' are today, as far as wrestling fans who have smartened up, is not accepting guys like Masters,Luger,Batista, and their poor work being. I think fans always had an idea of what an amazing wrestling match should be rather then the WWF roid monsters and in 1994-1995 it was available to the mainstream public in the united states. When I was 8 I knew I didn't enjoy Hogan matches and I loved seeing guys like Savage,Steamboat,The Rockers, Koko B Ware, and Tito Santana and always thought they should be in the mainevents of the shows and should be champions. Because these guys were working the 'WWE style" they didn't break out the stuff 1994-1997 ECW did that later became so heavily pimped.

 

06/03/04 kicked the smark stuff into overdrive, I believe, as it provided a template for what classic wrestling and GOOD WRESTLING can be. It made wrestling into an art form. But I honestly believe if WCW hadn't done its Japan shows and had the NJPW relationship then a lot of fans would have never come to discover 6/03/94 and amazing overseas workers, perhaps leading to Heyman never really booking them as there would essentially be no real buzz.

 

Wrestling fans don't accept Batista? I guess WWE fans are a bit more cynical than they were in the 80s, as back then we never would have seen a top face treated like Cena has been at times, or a scene like Goldberg-Lesnar, or fans loudly chanting "You Screwed Matt" at Lita and Edge after Matt Hardy was fired. Those fans are still in the minority when compared with most WWE fans, but it is somewhat different now than it was before 96-97ish. We could discuss when that change happened. I'd say the combination of the Monday Night Wars and the growth of the internet.

 

I don't think 6/3/94 really changed anything, fan-wise. To the people reading the Observer and trading Japanese tapes back then, it was awesome, but those people were all watching Japanese wrestling to begin with. No casual fans saw it. I'm not really seeing the connection with the WCW or ECW.

 

Not sure about WCW smartening people up, although Muta's exposure in WCW and the WCW/NJPW SuperShows may have encouraged more Observer/Torch readers to pursue Japanese wrestling. There was a time when people complained about Dave covering too much Japanese stuff in the Observer back before the tapes became more widely available with Japanese supermarkets popping up around the country.

[Log]

90% of the people who trumpet 6/3/94 as the day the Lord himself smiled upon the wrestling world have no idea why they think that way other than someone told them it was a Momentous Event for wrestling. That match is nothing more than "perfectly acceptable wrestling" ( to quote a Scooter-ism) unless you understand the context of why these guys are facing each other and why it's a big deal.

I really think this belongs in the wrestling myth busters thread.

 

Or maybe I'm just odd and I was the only one who thought it was batshit awesome on a first viewing (and it was the first Misawa/Kawada match I ever saw).

 

I argued pretty heavily during the Mid-South set that if you want "wrestling that requires context to understand", the Duggan/DiBiase uber-stips on a pole match is probably the best example of it I've ever seen. Without the setup it's some 10 minute clusterfuck, with it... it's amazing. And that really the 94 Misawa/Kawada context arguement looks awfully silly put next to something like it. I don't need "context" for athletic exhibition. I do need it for "guys in tuxes fighting a pole match". I was already watching the athletic exhibition because I happen to like that shit to begin with. To get me to watch "two guys in tuxes fighting a pole match", and not only pop for it, but be blown away by it... that's a much bigger accomplishment. And requires a lot more context to make happen.

 

If I were to put together a list of the top 100 matches I thought needed "context" to become "good", Misawa/Kawada 94 wouldn't crack the top 100. Hell I doubt it would crack the top 500. But I was always of the opinion All Japan's appeal (for me personally) was the raw athleticism. I didn't need that sold, which is good, beause they never did much to sell it. It was just (as someone once described it) "guys in trunks and boots, and they just wrestle". The wrestling had to stand on it's own merit because there wasn't anything else. Once that athletic level eventually dropped off (along with running out of new shit to do)... well, people can see where it's at now. And in hindsight that was probably an inevitable consequence of going that way. I find most American-style wrestling requires far more context for me to enjoy, because not that some of the matches aren't great, but there's a lot more going on aroud them. Which is probably why it's hard to get back into it once one has been out for a while, "do I really want to go through learning all the backstory, again".

 

Maybe that's just me.

 

While the match can definitely be enjoyed on first viewing, I don't think it'd hit that "greatest of all time" stuff without the context.

[sek69]

Not to mention the aura of 6/3/94 spread back in the days when very few people had access to Japanese wrestling, and by the time it became widely available it was already a decided fact that it is the greatest match of all time and to disagree meant you were a moron who doesn't know what you're talking about.

 

I'm not saying it's not a good match btw, I just peg it as the start of the "people on the net base their opinions on what others say" trend.

[Guest Kenta Batista]

Sometime ago I actually got to finally watch the match. I turned out the lights,hooked my computer to flat screen, and sat back and watched it. Good match, make no bones about it. But I left with this feeling that if that EXACT same match happened in the U.S. it wouldn't be pimped as much. I just think that at some point, as mentioned by others, it just became overly pimped and used as a centerpiece for some smarks as an example of when wrestling is at its 'best' or what it should be. I have to admit that I do that with ROH when it comes to people who think wrestling is The Boogeyman vs. Hornswoggle in a 3 minute contest with Maria Kanellis refereeing.

[Indikator]

I would apply your notion to 90% of the praised WWE matches post-2000. Nobody would give a shit about MITB matches at a COD. And people wouldn't notice most heavyweight matches would they happen anywhere else.

 

I wonder how long it takes until somebody will say that the 95 AJPW tag matches do not have any context and that there is no need at all to watch them chronologically.

 

How can you say that there is no story to 6/3/94? That's like saying that the Rock vs Steve Austin matches weren't connected. That would make an awesome trolling job btw, convincing people that those matches were interchangable and context-free. And Savage vs. Hogan didn't have a backstory either as the turn didn't happen at WM5 and you only watched the WM5 match without knowing that they had a feud. Oh blissful ignorance, how sweet you are.

[Sean Liska]

You could probably make the argument that no pro wrestling match is all that special without context, I guess. I don't see how 6/3/94 is different from any other great match in that way.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't see what's wrong with basing your opinion on what others say.

[sek69]

I don't see what's wrong with basing your opinion on what others say.

 

When people literally wait to see what Meltzer/Scooter/jdw/whoever their hero is say on something before they offer any insight, it's a problem. You're basically a parrot with no views of your own.

[ohtani's jacket]

That may be true, but it's difficult to have an original opinion about that Misawa/Kawada match.

 

I don't think basing your opinion on what other people say is a bad thing as such, the problem is when people feel the need to have the same opinion as others, as if they're getting "it" and others aren't.

[goodhelmet]

I have read the last two pages of this thread and have no idea what you guys are talking about. I blame myself.

[Johnny Sorrow]

That may be true, but it's difficult to have an original opinion about that Misawa/Kawada match.

Wouldn't the opinion of anyone who watches that match or any other match be an original opinion? It may be an opinion that is similar to others, but it'd still be an original opinion.

[ohtani's jacket]

What I meant is that it's difficult to have an original take on the match.

[tomk]

Does anyone actually still talk about that match anywhere? I mean Snowden still makes jokes but those really feel like dated jokes, like mocking SPuds Mckenzie. I mean this really feels like we're debating a circa 99 talking point. My favorite bizarro part of the English puro fan posse who do most of the puro analysis on the figure four board is it's folks who got into puro in last three years, are superenthusiastic about that period and not really interested in anything before it. It's like first being exposed to Rod Stewart's through his "Great American Songbook" stuff and becoming a superfan...and then being completely disinterested in The Jeff Beck Group , Small Faces, or Stewarts 80s pop period. I really think the figure four board is representative of alot of the puro writing on the web. And you get threads on dvdvr and I've seen it here as well were people essentially post statements to the degree that "there is no selling in Japanese wrestling...selling is a US based construct". 6/3/94 doesn't mean anything to people currently writting about puro.

[Ditch]

Eh, no. I think it's possible to split puro fandom into a couple chunks, for instance the long-term people who did tape trading, people like myself who discovered it late 90s/early 00s as the IWC got big, and newer fans who found it through ROH and file sharing. This board is heavy on the first two, light on the last. DVDVR's puro board is lighter on the first, heavier on the latter, but you still have a solid core of people who have watched all the classics, and even today's newbies are still likely to have seen at least a handful of the most-pimped stuff from past decades. Heck, Pro Wrestling Torrents did a big 'top 100 matches' poll several years apart, and for a place that skews younger and WWE-er than somewhere like here, the puro support went overwhelmingly towards '90s over recent years. Misawa vs Kawada 6/3/94 is still one of the five most broadly seen Japanese matches, if not #1. Of course there are the occasional stupid comments on message boards, but the newbies shall always be with us.

 

It is worth mentioning that a lot of the 'old-timers' have stopped paying attention to current puro, so as far as discussion of current puro as opposed to puro in general, yeah I suppose that skews toward relative newbies who aren't as aware of how much better the '90s were.

 

Your post gives me an idea.

[ohtani's jacket]

Someone posted a random link to some "greatest tag matches ever" article on 411 and I was amazed by how generic the choices were. Even in this age of downloads and filesharing, shit still doesn't fall that far from the tree.

[tomk]

I stand by my previous post.

 

I’m not going to pull a Rob and accuse people of lying.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7776046.stm

 

But even if people have seen it, it does not inform any of the current discussions. Doesn't mean anything to people currently writing about puro. Doesn’t inform their writing.

[Ditch]

What do you mean by 'inform discussion' or 'inform their writing'? A lack of references to it and/or matches like it? Lack of perspective?

 

Also I'm wondering what you mean by "people currently writing about puro". I get a strong sense that there's a couple people specifically who stick in your proverbial craw. I try my best to seek out places where puro is actually discussed in any meaningful sense as opposed to an "Indies/Foreign" ghetto on a WWE board, and I really don't see current discussion being dominated by the faction you're talking about. I don't have access to F4W so things might be just as you say, but that's still only one place.

[Death From Above]

That may be true, but it's difficult to have an original opinion about that Misawa/Kawada match.

 

I don't think basing your opinion on what other people say is a bad thing as such, the problem is when people feel the need to have the same opinion as others, as if they're getting "it" and others aren't.

One other thing that bugs me. Overall, "originality" might be the most over rated pile of nonsense that gets praised in society as a whole. What does being original (when discussing something as subjective, and overall worthless, as wrestling match quality) even gain anyway?

 

The shakey cam action scene in movies was at one point an "original", fresh concept. It still sucked and has added virtually nothing of value to the greater cinematic collective. Plenty of things, and ideas, that are original don't really bring anything good to the table but are more originality for the sake of originality, which gets you at best a lateral move.

[Kronos]

Ditch, I think now I understand that this thread was the inspiration for your survey on DVDVR. What's the point of that survey, anyway? To show how many of us that haven't seen so many of the classics don't have the right to speak because we haven't seen all the best stuff? Or to show that we newer puro fans think things are cool when they aren't? Or to satisfy yourself that most of your regulars on Purotopia are properly educated?

 

I realize I am sounding snippy, and I don't mean to be. I am just suddenly curious at where you were going with it. Is it a kind of two-pronged experiment, in which you narrow down which have not seen the Kawada match (as part one)? And then send those people off to watch it to see if they come back with their own opinions?

 

Probably nothing so sinister -- you may have just been curious as to whether your 3-part division on puro fandom was accurate. But as I review this thread, I see that it discusses the idea that people can't have their own ideas (or won't) but can only parrot what the online wise men tell them to think, and I wonder if you're trying to prove or disprove that theory?

[ohtani's jacket]

One other thing that bugs me. Overall, "originality" might be the most over rated pile of nonsense that gets praised in society as a whole. What does being original (when discussing something as subjective, and overall worthless, as wrestling match quality) even gain anyway?

Not much, I suppose.

[Ditch]

I honestly had no idea how things broke down as far as what people have seen, so I asked. And people did a lot more commenting than I expected, for instance showing just how many don't watch joshi and/or deathmatches. As I say at Purotopia, I myself was initially disappointed by half the stuff listed, and a couple items probably aren't the right picks (for instance KOTDM '95) in 2009 regardless of whether it's a long-time puro-fan or a newer vintage.

 

Tom intimates that people are likely say they've seen more than they have. For thread replies, maybe, though pretty much every 'newer' person admits to plenty they haven't seen. Anyway the poll itself is anonymous, far more than the average survey. Just talking to someone on the phone or whatever makes you want to give a good impression of yourself. I wouldn't expect anyone to reply who had seen almost none of the big '90s matches, but some did put a check mark in the lower tier options.

 

But even then, per Tom's last post in this thread, just having seen 6/3/94 is only part of it.

 

Codegreen, someone like myself who is so obsessed with getting as much feedback as possible regarding 'best of' things can't be too picky about only having the stalwarts participate. Early in the process someone suggested we do closed nominations among the old-timers when it came to the best of 2000-2005, but I'd rather have more participation even if it's someone who has only been into puro long enough to see a fraction of the classics. Because even relative newbies have guided me to matches I like, nay love. And that's what I'm in this for!