Dave Meltzer stuff

[Dylan Waco]

I don't know the context and I like Sombra fine for what he is, but I imagine if I put pencil to paper he wouldn't be a top fifty luchadore right this second

[sek69]

About Dave going to WWE shows, I think he said he'd go to Wrestlemania if the new 49ers stadium gets it. Makes sense since it's going to be in a suburb of San Jose which makes it almost literally in Dave's backyard.

[jdw]

I wouldn't have believed this had I not seen it with my own two eyes, but I was sent a photo by reader Drew from Impact last night taken from behind the announcers, and they've got two monitors, one of which is showing Impact and the other of which is airing the NFL game. Tenay and Taz were watching the game all night while doing the show.

Ouch!

[sek69]

I know it's been long known Dave and/or Bryan seemingly post things on the front page without reading them, but the latest ROH TV report is just insane. Not only is it a wall of text, it switches to micro sized font for the majority of the review before going back to normal size. I don't expect proof reading, but don't they even bother looking at what's posted?

[soup23]

On the latest Observer Sim Limte show, Dave outright scoffs at the notion that Cena is the best big match wrestler in WWE history. He throws up Michaels, Edge, and Angle as examples of better big match wrestlers. I shouldn't have been surprised but the way that he outright denied the thought that Cena was one of the best in history did surprise me.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't know why it's surprising given Dave's taste. I think the idea that Edge or Angle are better candidates is laugh out loud funny, but this is just another example of how the era of "consensus" is largely over in these sorts of things.

[soup23]

Yeah like I said, I shouldnt been surprised but Dave has rated Cena matches fairly high over the years so I thought he valued him more.

[Jimmy Redman]

I think Dave is one of those people who will rate a lot of Cena matches highly, but then give the bulk of the credit for them to his opponents.

 

And for the interest of Matt D, Dave is definitely on board the Arn Anderson train.

[Sidebottom]

On the latest Observer Sim Limte show, Dave outright scoffs at the notion that Cena is the best big match wrestler in WWE history. He throws up Michaels, Edge, and Angle as examples of better big match wrestlers. I shouldn't have been surprised but the way that he outright denied the thought that Cena was one of the best in history did surprise me.

Was he talking in terms of a box office draw or atmosphere though? I'd certainly say I've looked forward o Angle / Michaels matches far more than Cena's - and those two more regularly delivered the goods in the ring as well.

[Matt D]

On the latest Observer Sim Limte show, Dave outright scoffs at the notion that Cena is the best big match wrestler in WWE history. He throws up Michaels, Edge, and Angle as examples of better big match wrestlers. I shouldn't have been surprised but the way that he outright denied the thought that Cena was one of the best in history did surprise me.

Was he talking in terms of a box office draw or atmosphere though? I'd certainly say I've looked forward o Angle / Michaels matches far more than Cena's - and those two more regularly delivered the goods in the ring as well.

 

Depends on your definition of goods. There's a whole note about Cena. Go find it and read it.

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=20910

 

Here, then at least you can start a discussion with us from the same starting point since we already got this far with it.

[Loss]

I need to listen to see if Dave is distinguishing best workers from best big match workers. For example, I'd be surprised if he didn't prefer Muto to Hashimoto as a worker in the 90s, but if he thought Muto was a better big match worker, that would make him insane.

 

Preferring Angle, Michaels and Edge doesn't surprise me, but I'd be slightly more surprised (but my jaw wouldn't exactly drop) if he is making the distinction and still prefers those guys.

[Sean Liska]

I can sympathize with Dave making an argument for HBK or Angle given his tastes, but no way on Edge.

[Matt D]

I need to listen to see if Dave is distinguishing best workers from best big match workers. For example, I'd be surprised if he didn't prefer Muto to Hashimoto as a worker in the 90s, but if he thought Muto was a better big match worker, that would make him insane.

 

Preferring Angle, Michaels and Edge doesn't surprise me, but I'd be slightly more surprised (but my jaw wouldn't exactly drop) if he is making the distinction and still prefers those guys.

Everything I've read from Dave makes me thinks that he feels like Edge, Angle, and Michaels are both better workers and better big match workers. Everything. The things that Cena does well aren't the things that he values the most.

[Jimmy Redman]

I remember the minute that I tapped once and for all in taking his opinion seriously on Cena (and most other things) was after the great Cena/Show match from Smackdown 2009. Show just beat the sh*t out of him forever and Cena sold like a million bucks, barely even getting a comeback in. He made Show look like a legit monster in a way few others have.

 

So you read the Observer report on the show and it's something close to "Cena was first-day-of-wrestling-school bad for most of this match, and Big Show couldn't carry him."

 

Now, Cena can absolutely be awkward or clumsy, but there was none of that, there was literally nothing physically wrong with his performance here. Nor did he do anything else wrong that would make him say that. So what it boils down to is that Dave called Cena "first-day-of-wrestling-school bad" because he was selling too much. For a giant.

 

When you start getting down on a guy for selling for a giant, something has seriously been lost in translation.

[Matt D]

I probably need to cool it on the "Arn Anderson, super-agent" thing.

[rovert]

http://offtopicwithjeffmcginnis.podbean.co...-sports-movies/

 

On this episode, the pioneer of wrestling journalism Dave Meltzer discusses his love of films based on various sports stories, from "Slap Shot" to "The Wrestler" and beyond.

http://offtopicwithjeffmcginnis.podbean.co...portsMovies.mp3

 

 

Edit: Just listened. Really fun short podcast. Forgot about Dave's undying love for Slapshot.

[sek69]

Funny moment during the RAW review, Bryan pokes fun at Dave for taking the time to mention JBL referenced the wrong "Welcome Back Kotter" character in a joke he made. All the while I'm thinking Dave probably did that since he knows he has to explain any TV/movie/sports reference to Bryan.

[S.L.L.]

I probably need to cool it on the "Arn Anderson, super-agent" thing.

It is a bit funny how Arn's super-agent powers only ever seem to make Cena's matches awesome, and everyone else either doesn't need his help or are beyond helping.

[Matt D]

I probably need to cool it on the "Arn Anderson, super-agent" thing.

It is a bit funny how Arn's super-agent powers only ever seem to make Cena's matches awesome, and everyone else either doesn't need his help or are beyond helping.

 

Well, to me, and I don't know how Dave frames it, it's like Patterson. Patterson received a lot of credit for, let's say, Hogan vs Warrior at WM VI. Obviously Hogan knew a lot about how a match should be framed by 1990, but Patterson still gets and probably deserves, a decent amount of the credit. It's a pretty well known theory(fact?) that for a number of years Anderson has been Cena's personal go-to Agent. We're not sure who else he works with heavily except for Punk, so I tend to give him some credit for both of their matches. I don't know how much to give him so I say "some." I could be wrong but I don't think Patterson was spending a lot of time laying out matches for mid-carders. The only example I know off the top of my head was a throw away tag match with the prime time players on TV which (per rumors) got Dustin fired due to a botched double powerbomb type move.

 

There is this:

 

The difference between me and someone like Dave is that I give Cena a ton of credit for what he does by way of execution (selling, timing, presence, effectively using his power, crowd interaction, and effective nuance, etc). When it comes to the match layouts/calling them, I don't know. Why did something like Cena vs Rock or even Cena vs Bryan which were considered to be "video game matches" by some, look so different than a lot of his other PPV matches of the last year or two?

 

These are things I'm not sure we can get an answer for but I like to keep them in mind because they're interesting to me.

[Jimmy Redman]

The thing about calling is that you can clearly see Cena calling pretty much every spot in the vast majority of his matches, good and bad alike. He's the one calling every spot, every cut off, even things like how long to stay in the STF and when to reach out. Whether he has Arn helping him with some or half or most of it beforehand, unless Arn gives him a match spot-for-spot backstage and he memorises it Savage/DDP style, there's an agency there that is hard to deny.

 

The thing about the WM VI thing is that we kind of know as an accepted fact that Patterson worked on it. Same with how we know that he worked on the Rumble layouts. We don't really 'know' in the same way which Cena matches he had a hand in. The Cena/Punks are a good shout, but again I don't think we can be reasonably sure to the same degree. So it's hard to judge how much Arn helps Cena or not when we can't exactly sit down and compare an Arn match to a non-Arn match. We don't know what they are.

 

I agree that it is an interesting aspect, and I wish we did know more about it. But at the same time, since we don't, I find it hard to judge it fairly.

[rovert]

Another Observer front page poll:

 

[goodhelmet]

Myopia in the wrestling bubble.

[Jimmy Redman]

There's something really weird psychologically about continually running polls for the sole purpose of being able to lambast people afterwards for being so stupid as to pick the wrong option in a poll.

[Matt D]

Especially when it's your audience, the people who give you your livelihood, your flock.

[rovert]

Dave's reaction:

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/382599252276281344