Dave Meltzer stuff

[hammerva]

 

So Jim Cornette has invited Meltzer to come on his podcast next week to debate, among other things, PWG, Young Bucks & Kenny Omega, Chuck Taylor's grenade spot, Joey Ryan's dick spot, and quite possibly now the star ratings stuff.

 

I'm sure Cornette's take will continue to be that his style of wrestling & the wrestling of his day was more successful and therefore the "right" definition of what pro wrestling is.

 

Meltzer will likely counter with the need to evolve with the times and that these elements are the kind of thing that are "over" with the current audience and therefore have changed the definition of what modern pro wrestling is.

 

It should be interesting listening nonetheless even though we already know both guys' talking points. I guess you could argue that it is ironically comedic that 2 mid-50s guys are going to argue over whether what is "hip" is a good thing or not in their genre.

I've argued Dave on a lot of this stuff and I'm almost willing to bet these are going to be his replies:

 

- Wrestling has changed

 

- Nothing draws anymore and you can't measure how well something is drawing anyway

 

- He'll bring up various angles/gimmicks/wrestlers from the past that sucked

 

 

And Cornette replies will just be him saying how they all look like high school kids and not real wrestlers. Then saying fuck fuck shit shit 100 times.

 

We know why he hates the Joey Ryan, Young bucks and Kenny Omega although probably half of it is used to get involved in some angle to remain relevant. But attacking Chuck Taylor who his only knowledge of him was a 10 second clip that someone deliberately titled in order to push his buttons was the worst.

 

The idea of even caring for Cornette's opinion on PWG is baffling to me. PWG is almost a different makeup of today's indie wrestling much less wrestling from 1985. If you tried to change PWG to make it even Ring of Honor like much less WWE and TNA it would die quickly.

[sek69]

Dave did make a good point that if you showed someone who never watched All Japan in the 90s a clip of one of those comedy matches with old Baba they'd probably think it was the worst promotion ever. Cornette making opinions of PWG over a 10 second Chuck Taylor clip is the same concept.

[ragemaster]

I just find it funny that Cornette losses his mind over comedy spots, when he use to do them himself.

I'm sure the CPR at ring side or the boxing spot with Nick Patrick would have had older wrestlers rolling there eyes back in the day.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Corvette had a living mummy in SMW. So he can go jump in the lake.

[Loss]

He also wore a straitjacket inside a cage at ringside, attacked wrestlers while dressed in drag, wore a mask after he had his head shaved, threw fireballs, hit a woman in the stomach with a tennis racket repeatedly, tarred and feathered a top babyface, wrestled a ninja turtle, poured alcohol down the throat of a sober alcoholic, and ran his own militia. It was more sensationalist than 90% of wrestling today. And it was awesome.

[goc]

There's a difference between working regular comedy spots and doing an invisible grenade spot. The comedy spots Cornette did that were described here aren't of the "This is all obvious make believe" variety like the stupid Chuck Taylor thing.

[Bix]

I should probably put this here, too...

 

I wrote something for Deadspin about how Dave's star ratings became a big deal and the Okada-Omega ratings are (probably) not him trolling: http://deadspin.com/rating-pro-wrestlings-new-best-match-ever-is-way-more-1796026082

 

As for the Cornette stuff: Based on my own interactions with him, I don't think any of this stuff is 100% work. And goc is right, the invisible grenade doesn't even have close to the internal logic of even DDT's most ridiculous comedy spots. DDT is a particular universe with ridiculous rules. PWG has always had an offbeat comedy presence, but the invisible grenade literally exists for no reason other than Chuck Taylor to point and laugh at how he gets to play wrestler. He's not a conjurer, and he's not a face messing with a heel then making fun of his reaction. It doesn't have its own logic. It's *just* "haha, invisible grenade."

[hammerva]

Even if you think the grenade spot is stupid which is kind of is, the idea that you are basing someone's career off of that is embarrassing. Cornette makes it seems like Chuck Taylor is some backyarder who gets booked to PWG because nobody in the company cares about what wrestling looks like. Chuck Taylor has been wrestling for at least 10 years. Maybe even longer than the Bucks themselves. He has been involved in a number of non comedy stuff. His whole 'Dustin' character in EVOLVE was largely based on him thinking that Gabe and anybody in WWN Live respects him.

Saying that Chuck Taylor is garbage based on a clip is like saying Kenny Omega is a terrible wrestler because of his DDT stuff which plenty of people like Cornette does. Based on that logic, Kane is terrible because of the Christmas Creature in Memphis and Okada is terrible because of his TNA stuff.

 

Also the idea that the mummy stuff is different than the grenade spot is because of the "This is all obvious make believe" argument really makes old wrestling fans look like morons. Have a hard time believe that fans in Smoky Mountain over the age of 10 were so dense that they actually thought a mummy was wrestling. They were in on the joke too

[El-P]

The Mummy wasn't Corny's doing. The financial backer of SMW wanted a mummy because he fan a fan of the old wrestling mummy when he was a kid. It turned into a vehicule for James Mitchell to say the most obscene stuff on a southern TV, so it was fine with me. The whole dust flying off was great too. A wrestling mummy is always great. Even when it's called a Yetay.

[hammerva]

Oh I am not saying that the Prince Kharis thing was bad. Okay it was actually bad but I find it enjoyable as well. But to act like what Chuck Taylor once every 4 or 5 months is destroying the realism of wrestling is laughable.

 

It goes back to the bigger point of how the "smartest man in wrestling" can be easily trolled. Now is he being easily trolled because he sees a bigger picture in this for himself that is my argument. I believe most of this stuff is just him trying to stay relevant in today's wrestling. Problem is guys know it and they are just letting him playing the Ole "get off my lawn" guy by himself.

[El-P]

I don't know Chuck Taylor, so no comment on that from me. A fake exploding grenade spot does sound funny as shit in a comedy match context though. Then again, I like Joey Ryan's dick spot.

 

I'll say this, those completely absurd yet amusing spots are nowhere as idiotic and annoying as say, the fucking Worm.

[PeteF3]

Cornette has always stressed that Prince Kharis was never pushed as an actual mummy--he was a protege of a delusional madman *claiming* he was 3000 years old, but wasn't.

[El-P]

Yeah, that too. I loved how SMW made the most sense out of everything that happened there.

[stomperspc]

I think the argument of “Dave doesn’t take his star ratings seriously anymore so nobody else should” is really flawed. I think he very clearly does still take them seriously. He often utilizes his star ratings as metrics to support his arguments on particular wrestlers/promotions/periods. He discusses and defends his ratings in the newsletter, on the audio shows, and on Twitter. As an example, in this past week’s issue with the Omega/Okada rating, he devotes several sentences to explaining why he gave a Jeff Cobb/Matt Riddle match from PROGRESS **** ¼ instead of the **** ½ that his readers who saw it live gave it. You don’t explain a ¼ rating difference if the ratings aren’t intended to be taken seriously. He continues to devote space in the Observer and elsewhere to his star ratings. At the most basic level, why continue to devote thought and time to star ratings if they don’t matter? That would say more about Meltzer than it would any of his readers. Not sure how you can look at all of that and conclude that Dave doesn’t take his star ratings seriously, at least to some level. He clearly puts stock in them.

 

Having said that, I strongly suspect Dave wouldn’t use the “not meant to be taken seriously” argument on his own. I think that’s strictly an argument that others have levied on his behalf. I think he would – and has – argued that they aren’t gospel and there is not a science behind it, for example that the difference between a **** ¾ and ***** match is a gut feeling (the difference between having to think about whether a match was 5 and immediately knowing it is). There’s a difference between understanding the limits of the rating’s value and not taking the ratings seriously.

 

I guess what I am trying to say is that “don’t take his ratings seriously because he doesn’t take them seriously” is a cop out. If the second part of that sentence is true, then Dave should stop giving out star ratings. That would be the issue, rather than blaming his readers for taking the ratings at face value.

[hammerva]

I think Dave takes star rating under 5 seriously but anything after that is complete trolling on his part. I mean if we get Okada vs Omega 3 which I fully expect, the star rating will probably be 7 or 8 cause he knows that people be like "what the fuck"

[Loss]

The Mummy wasn't Corny's doing. The financial backer of SMW wanted a mummy because he fan a fan of the old wrestling mummy when he was a kid. It turned into a vehicule for James Mitchell to say the most obscene stuff on a southern TV, so it was fine with me. The whole dust flying off was great too. A wrestling mummy is always great. Even when it's called a Yetay.

 

It's funny, because in his 1994 shoot interview during SMW Fan Week, he keeps going on about how there was a mummy in Louisville when he was a kid, and "I love the fucking mummy!"

[stro]

Chuck's grenade spot also only comes in purely comedy matches from start to finish. It's not like he does it in the middle of a superheated, stiff, serious match.

[Johnny Sorrow]

The mummy had his finger cut off and sand poured out.

And I loved it, but come on. Is that any more realistic than invisible grenades?

[PeteF3]

Eh. Two minutes after the finger thing, Dirty White Boy is out and completely no-selling it ("You expect us to believe that this big piece of toilet paper is 3000 years old?!"). The sand in the finger can be faked just as easily in storyline as it obviously was in real life.

[sek69]

Basically old timers be all "our silly, hokey shit was just fun times while your silly hokey shit is destroying the biz".

[Indikator]

Once the first European tournament wrestler who couldn't really cut it figured out he would be booked because of his comedic antics (escape spots!!!) or because of he was lovable hometown hero the business was doomed in that regard. That probably happened in one of the first ten tournaments which were ever held.

I love how some (IIRC 1901'ish) Vienna tournament coverage explicitly stated that because the normal, charismatic ring announcer/mc was missing one day a full fledged riot couldn't be prevented, unlike the other days when they could be calmed down by said MC. Wrestling has always been wrestling and will always be wrestling

[NintendoLogic]

I wish Dave wouldn't spend so much time on Twitter dunking on Russo apologists and other assorted morons. The occasional tweet to that effect is fine, but it seems like he spends half the day responding to easily rebuttable nonsense.

[Loss]

"It's good for business."

[sek69]

Dave's father passed away last night/this morning, and between the story in the last newsletter and Dave's comments on last night's show you can tell where he got his legendary work ethic from.

[NintendoLogic]

Dave's thoughts on the GOAT debate:

 

As far as greatest of all-time, I think the best description is that Flair was the greatest of his time on more different days than anyone else ever was.

Shawn is in the discussion but as a contemporary of Kobashi and seeing both, I can't think of them as even close. Kobashi had more of a star aura, his best matches were better than Shawn's to the point you can't even make a comparison (some of that is his opponents were better but not all of that), his work was more real looking and matches felt more real, he got more crowd reaction, he had more presence, he was far better known in his culture. Some will saw Misawa was better than both and he was more over than both and had more great matches than both, but Misawa was pushed as the star of the promotion in a way Shawn & Kobashi never were. Kobashi's late surge was far superior to Shawn's. He was a far bigger drawing card to the point you can't even compare them in that category. The only thing in Shawn's favor is that he was smarter in that he didn't work as hard so he lasted longer and is physically in better shape today.

I really think any Shawn as the greatest of all-time is a heavily time biased period of a childhood and even more, a WWE viewpoint not recognizing WWE was never the place where the best in the world were in his career.

Still, Shawn was more physically talented than Misawa or Flair, but even there, the physical talent, he was no better than Kobashi, and Kobashi was 60 pounds heavier. Kobashi was hurt by working so much harder than anyone that his body broke down.