Dave Meltzer stuff

[Loss]

There is discontent with Dave's views on wrestling that gets expressed frequently enough that he responds to it, often pre-emptively. Dave will sometimes tweet about nameless and faceless people who think the Young Bucks and Will Ospreay are killing the business with their working style, and is quick to point out that guys like Shibata and Ishii are probably the best sellers in wrestling, which a lot of people don't get because they think there is only one way to sell. There is also the other discontent, not to be confused with this, that focuses on him underrating WWE at the expense of New Japan.

 

Still, Dave has said match ratings are the least important part of what he does. There's no way he doesn't know his reader base sees it very differently, though.

 

The only way to counter this is to relentlessly publish a weekly pro wrestling newsletter for nearly 35 years, even during death scares, the loss of family members, sicknesses and personal injuries, marriages, birth of children, and whatever else.

[Matt D]

I suppose it's telling he's published books on his Obits and not a compilation of his star ratings.

[El-P]

There is also the other discontent, not to be confused with this, that focuses on him underrating WWE at the expense of New Japan.

 

FWIW, Meltz overrates plenty of WWE stuff too.

[Loss]

The criticism is that he gives NJPW matches 5* matches all the time and not WWE matches, which is funny because I waver on whether the U.S. has had a ***** match since 1989. Depends on the day.

[El-P]

***** matches are sooo 1995. ******1/4 is the name of the game now.

(seriously, I thought people stopped caring for snowflakes a long, long time ago. I'm kinda shocked people are concerned that much about it again. Last time I used snowflakes regularly was like, in 2001 or so)

[Coffey]

I don't necessarily think that people care about the ratings of the matches per say, it's more what they represent. If Meltzer gave Omega/Okada 5-stars, yeah, OK, whatever... people would read it & move on. Maybe some would roll their eyes. But him making his scale grander to emphasize how great it was, that then changes things to the point where he's not saying it's just a great match, he's saying it might be the best match ever. And although *I* might not care about what Dave's opinion is, when talking about professional wrestling on-line, it's obvious that his opinion holds weight among the people we associate with online in our small, niche pro-wrestling circles.

 

Dave Meltzer is respected in the wrestling business & he deserves that, as he's been doing this for a long time. Now though, it feels like he's just trolling half of the time & there aren't people that differentiate one from the other. Dave has his favorites: wrestlers, promotions, angles, etc. But I think that sometimes people forget that he's not totally impartial. And his opinions certainly influence other fans (and wrestlers, I imagine). Just go over on Wreddit and try to say that Okada/Omega wasn't great, in example.

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

[NintendoLogic]

Dave recently said that **** is the equivalent of a black belt and anything above that is additional degrees.

[joeg]

 

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

Dave Meltzer is one guy, sharing his own opinions and his own biases that are treated as gospel. Rotten Tomatoes provides access to 20 plus reviews for each movies, some from respected film critics at major publications, some from random random bloggers. If a consensus of the reviews are positive, the film is certified fresh, if a consensus of the reviews are negative the film, its certified rotten. In wrestling there is no consensus, its just Meltzer. With movies if you think the guy who reviews for one publication is an ass, you read the reviews from another publication. There isn't that in wrestling because there isn't anybody who does what Meltzer does on the same scale, so we are kinda stuck with the guy for better or worse.

[FMKK]

I don't care about his opinion per se (though I do think his workrate worship has been damaging to this generation of wrestling) it's more about the ignorance of his own biases and the arrogance of dismissing contrary opinions as being because the other person just doesn't know as much as him and is therefore too stupid to understand the objective correctness of his personal taste.

[Sean Liska]

***** matches are sooo 1995. ******1/4 is the name of the game now.

 

(seriously, I thought people stopped caring for snowflakes a long, long time ago. I'm kinda shocked people are concerned that much about it again. Last time I used snowflakes regularly was like, in 2001 or so)

People stopped caring for a while when Japan was down and WWE was dominated by Cena and Dave didn't regularly rate ROH. Now, with the NJPW resurgence and the explosive growth of hardcore fandom (evidenced by something like ROH immediately selling out a 2,100 seat venue in Chicago just by advertising Omega), Dave's ratings have taken on a whole new life like it's the 90's again.

[Sean Liska]

I don't care about his opinion per se (though I do think his workrate worship has been damaging to this generation of wrestling) it's more about the ignorance of his own biases and the arrogance of dismissing contrary opinions as being because the other person just doesn't know as much as him and is therefore too stupid to understand the objective correctness of his personal taste.

This isn't an unfair categorization of how Dave responds to disagreements with his ratings. I'm telling you guys, between the 100% faith in the correctness of his opinions, the big weightlifting habit into old age, the obsessive work ethic, Dave saying he has no plans to retire, there are Meltzer/Vince similarities that we could go into.

[Jmare007]

I don't care about his opinion per se (though I do think his workrate worship has been damaging to this generation of wrestling) it's more about the ignorance of his own biases and the arrogance of dismissing contrary opinions as being because the other person just doesn't know as much as him and is therefore too stupid to understand the objective correctness of his personal taste.

 

This.

[Coffey]

 

 

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

Dave Meltzer is one guy, sharing his own opinions and his own biases that are treated as gospel. Rotten Tomatoes provides access to 20 plus reviews for each movies, some from respected film critics at major publications, some from random random bloggers. If a consensus of the reviews are positive, the film is certified fresh, if a consensus of the reviews are negative the film, its certified rotten. In wrestling there is no consensus, its just Meltzer. With movies if you think the guy who reviews for one publication is an ass, you read the reviews from another publication. There isn't that in wrestling because there isn't anybody who does what Meltzer does on the same scale, so we are kinda stuck with the guy for better or worse.

 

 

On Rotten Tomatoes, you look at the percentage. If it's good, it might sway your decision on if to see it or not. Meltzer praising a match is the same thing to smarks. That's what I meant.

[Sidebottom]

All this talk of Rotten Tomatoes. Technically wouldn't he be closer to Harry Knowles?

[Eduardo]

Not the best week to be comparing Dave Meltzer to Harry Knowles...

[joeg]

 

 

 

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

Dave Meltzer is one guy, sharing his own opinions and his own biases that are treated as gospel. Rotten Tomatoes provides access to 20 plus reviews for each movies, some from respected film critics at major publications, some from random random bloggers. If a consensus of the reviews are positive, the film is certified fresh, if a consensus of the reviews are negative the film, its certified rotten. In wrestling there is no consensus, its just Meltzer. With movies if you think the guy who reviews for one publication is an ass, you read the reviews from another publication. There isn't that in wrestling because there isn't anybody who does what Meltzer does on the same scale, so we are kinda stuck with the guy for better or worse.

 

 

On Rotten Tomatoes, you look at the percentage. If it's good, it might sway your decision on if to see it or not. Meltzer praising a match is the same thing to smarks. That's what I meant.

 

 

Not really. With rotten tomato I can find if the critics who usually like sort of movies that I like gave the film a good review. The databases of wrestling matches (profightdb, cagematch, etc) only have ratings from 1 critic.

[joeg]

Not the best week to be comparing Dave Meltzer to Harry Knowles...

lol

[Coffey]

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

Dave Meltzer is one guy, sharing his own opinions and his own biases that are treated as gospel. Rotten Tomatoes provides access to 20 plus reviews for each movies, some from respected film critics at major publications, some from random random bloggers. If a consensus of the reviews are positive, the film is certified fresh, if a consensus of the reviews are negative the film, its certified rotten. In wrestling there is no consensus, its just Meltzer. With movies if you think the guy who reviews for one publication is an ass, you read the reviews from another publication. There isn't that in wrestling because there isn't anybody who does what Meltzer does on the same scale, so we are kinda stuck with the guy for better or worse.

 

 

On Rotten Tomatoes, you look at the percentage. If it's good, it might sway your decision on if to see it or not. Meltzer praising a match is the same thing to smarks. That's what I meant.

 

 

Not really. With rotten tomato I can find if the critics who usually like sort of movies that I like gave the film a good review. The databases of wrestling matches (profightdb, cagematch, etc) only have ratings from 1 critic.

 

 

Yes, really. I go to Rotten Tomatoes. I look at the number. I don't read the reviews because I don't care that much. If a movie has like an 80%, it's probably pretty good. That's the entire thought process that goes into it. I'm not looking to read a review and have the shit spoiled before I watch it. That was the comparison.

 

If Dave says a match is like 4+ stars, its like if a movie is 80%+. You're really over thinking this. Shame, cause that was a good ass quote too. Bleh.

[El-P]

If Dave says a match is like 4+ stars, its like if a movie is 80%+. You're really over thinking this. Shame, cause that was a good ass quote too. Bleh.

 

Except in both cases, it actually doesn't mean anything, really. I've seen plenty of movies with critical/public consensus which I thought were not good at all, so it's never an argument to me. (it works better the other way around usually, when there's a consensus on something being really horrible, it usually is, although there are exceptions)

[Matt D]

 

If Dave says a match is like 4+ stars, its like if a movie is 80%+. You're really over thinking this. Shame, cause that was a good ass quote too. Bleh.

 

Except in both cases, it actually doesn't mean anything, really. I've seen plenty of movies with critical/public consensus which I thought were not good at all, so it's never an argument to me. (it works better the other way around usually, when there's a consensus on something being really horrible, it usually is, although there are exceptions)

 

Isn't the issue not whether or not it matters to you but whether or not it's used by enough people to move the needle, either commercially or as it pertains to reputation in general? I think we all appreciate the fact that you don't care what critics say and some of us don't care either (others use the RT aggregate as one factor in how to manage the large amount of media available at our fingertips in 2017, for instance). But again, the discussion isn't about what you or I or Coffey does but what the larger community does or doesn't do based on this.

[El-P]

The issue is some people getting pissy because Evil Meltz is supposedly influencing the entire pro-wrestling business with his allmighty star ratings and is solely responsible for a style they don't care about becoming the norm of success currently. More or less.

[Jimmy James]

 

 

 

Dave Meltzer is to pro-wrestling what Rotten Tomatoes is to movies.

Dave Meltzer is one guy, sharing his own opinions and his own biases that are treated as gospel. Rotten Tomatoes provides access to 20 plus reviews for each movies, some from respected film critics at major publications, some from random random bloggers. If a consensus of the reviews are positive, the film is certified fresh, if a consensus of the reviews are negative the film, its certified rotten. In wrestling there is no consensus, its just Meltzer. With movies if you think the guy who reviews for one publication is an ass, you read the reviews from another publication. There isn't that in wrestling because there isn't anybody who does what Meltzer does on the same scale, so we are kinda stuck with the guy for better or worse.

 

Dave is like whoever happens to be the drama critic for the New York Times. No single film critic has a fraction of the power the NYT theater critic has over Broadway, not even since the days of Pauline Kael etc.

[Jimmy James]

I get the impression that I (and a lot of people) care about this bullshit a hell of a lot more than Dave does, because I really do not get the impression that he regards himself as the Keeper of the Flame for good workrate, or whatever. I think he does have an outsized effect when it comes to defining what a "great match" is, whether he intends it or not, however (and that's nothing new, this goes all the way back to the 80s with him).

[Loss]

He doesn't see himself that way. He just thinks he's in line with consensus, not realizing it's more that consensus is in line with him.

[Coffey]

 

If Dave says a match is like 4+ stars, its like if a movie is 80%+. You're really over thinking this. Shame, cause that was a good ass quote too. Bleh.

 

Except in both cases, it actually doesn't mean anything, really. I've seen plenty of movies with critical/public consensus which I thought were not good at all, so it's never an argument to me. (it works better the other way around usually, when there's a consensus on something being really horrible, it usually is, although there are exceptions)

 

 

It doesn't ultimately, naw. My favorite comedy ever is UHF and it has like a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. My favorite Survivor Series match is the Doink Vs. Lawler match featuring all of the minis.