Dave Meltzer stuff

[PhilTLL]

11 hours ago, Beast said:

Dave seems to feel that older 4/5 star matches don't hold up compared to today's best work.

That's an outlier opinion here, correct? Like, maybe Bret & Owen weren't doing a bunch of high flying moves at WM X, but the psychology and actual back and forth is better than 99% of what occurs today. Same with something like Murdoch vs. Windham. 

It's frustrating because when he pulls out that card, it's impossible to argue with him about hyperbole because the logic is already gone. He's consistent in saying today's wrestlers and matches are the best wrestling's ever been.

Bret/Owen *was* a workrate match in its time, though a remarkably story-strong one. Dave has always leaned workrate (see his "a bunch of great moves happened" reviews), and that fuels his now-ism a bit.

[Fando]

The ratings shift kind of makes a little more sense when you look at his argument for overall match quality. Like, there was a question on WOR recently about minus star matches and Dave had trouble coming up many after a certain year because you're not seeing workers that just come in out of the gym because they're big anymore and everyone is much better trained in the fundamentals. But his criteria doesn't seem consistent. Dave moving the goal posts when it's convenient is way more annoying than trolling twitter morons. He'll gripe about a Rollins match because of the psychology but then tell his audience that Vader-Mutoh wasn't a blow away match on rewatch because it had "basic moves." But the "best match of all time" was pretty much all basic moves in it's final 3rd. I was happy Alvarez brought this up on a show recently with Dave's favorite example: HBK-Razor ladder match and pointing out how the match was still great because of the layout and logical spots, because I feel the same way and when I watch that match again every year or so, it's always entertaining, but it was kind of like *whoosh*

 

 

 

 

[Beast]

Yep, that's basically why I finally stopped subscribing.

We have different viewpoints on what makes something a great match now. Lots of overlap, but his 2018-centric outlook doesn't connect with me and throws context out the window.

His mantra is older workers weren't working for today's audiences so you can't judge them years after the fact, but that's irrelevant. Great matches hold up and once a while a current match joins their ranks. I'm sure this has been said before (maybe in this thread), but it's like saying Avengers: Infinity War is the greatest movie of all time because it's effects are better than The Godfather's. 

Probably why he seems to stomach current WWE more than most here. He'll criticize the booking on a daily/weekly basis, but since they're all doing moves, it's still great. The roster is jam-packed, but matches lacking any sense of storyline (or without logical booking) don't do it for me, no matter how impressive the dives are.

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, Beast said:

Yep, that's basically why I finally stopped subscribing.

We have different viewpoints on what makes something a great match now. Lots of overlap, but his 2018-centric outlook doesn't connect with me and throws context out the window.

His mantra is older workers weren't working for today's audiences so you can't judge them years after the fact, but that's irrelevant. Great matches hold up and once a while a current match joins their ranks. I'm sure this has been said before (maybe in this thread), but it's like saying Avengers: Infinity War is the greatest movie of all time because it's effects are better than The Godfather's. 

Probably why he seems to stomach current WWE more than most here. He'll criticize the booking on a daily/weekly basis, but since they're all doing moves, it's still great. The roster is jam-packed, but matches lacking any sense of storyline (or without logical booking) don't do it for me, no matter how impressive the dives are.

We are here for you, Beast. 

[Richeyedwards]

On 6/13/2018 at 6:37 PM, Mad Dog said:

DG would lose some of the charm of they stopped claiming 8000 for a building that only holds 6500.

Then they did that today, Kobe world today was announced as something like 4500 so that is according to their claimed attendance that they are down 5000 from last year which looks awful. There was no way that they could announce any big number because the whole top deck was empty as was much of the first stand and bits of the floor. It was noticeably down even if the last few years were not close to what they announced it still looked sparse in places. CIMA was still huge for them bigger than previously thought.

[Beast]

4 hours ago, Matt D said:

We are here for you, Beast. 

Ha, yeah I guess I've finally seen the light.

[joeg]

What exactly is Meltzer's claim when talking about modern wrestling? I would readily agree that wrestling worldwide is better than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Good matches happen more frequently, there are more quality wrestling tv programs to chose from, there are more good wrestlers, etc, etc. But does he also believe/claim that wrestling is better than it was 30 years ago because that's a stretch. 

[El-P]

"Soon women will be able to drive in this country. Wait, no, that's the other country they go to." Meltz about the ridiculous way WWE is selling its women only PPV. I burst out laughing in the street. Sometimes, you can't deny the man has a great deadpan humour.

[NintendoLogic]

On 7/20/2018 at 11:28 AM, Charles (Loss) said:

Something's fucked up about all of it when a show with four ***+ matches, Extreme Rules, gets 73% Thumbs Down. He's also set up a situation for himself where people will ask why this match "only" got *****. 

I don't think it's fucked up at all. We can debate how this era's best matches compare to those of the past, but baseline match quality has unquestionably increased. It's like how home run totals that would have been earth-shattering in the 1910s were nothing special ten years later. We're in a workrate live ball era, and people's expectations have shifted accordingly. Also, a show in the 80s and 90s with four ***+ matches most likely would have had strong or at least competent booking leading into and going out of it. It takes a lot more in the ring these days to overcome the crappy booking.

On 7/22/2018 at 9:34 AM, Beast said:

His mantra is older workers weren't working for today's audiences so you can't judge them years after the fact, but that's irrelevant. Great matches hold up and once a while a current match joins their ranks. I'm sure this has been said before (maybe in this thread), but it's like saying Avengers: Infinity War is the greatest movie of all time because it's effects are better than The Godfather's.

I think it'd be more accurate to say that he views modern epics as having the acting of The Godfather and the special effects of Infinity War. Say what you want about Omega, but he clearly puts a great deal of thought into his matches.

On a possibly related note, here's a Dave stylistic quirk I noticed recently. The only finisher whose name he capitalizes is the One Winged Angel. I don't know if it means anything.

[Coffey]

Whereas I would say modern epics have the acting of an Adam Sandler movie with the special effects of Infinity War. That's my biggest issue with modern wrestling, actually. It's nothing but bell-to-bell ringwork with no substance outside of that. 

I just feel, regardless of the year, that pro-wrestling needs a draw for a match other than "well, the match will probably be good." But unless Meltzer starts giving out star ratings for promos, character work & gimmicks, that isn't going to happen. 

[Fando]

32 minutes ago, Coffey said:

Whereas I would say modern epics have the acting of an Adam Sandler movie with the special effects of Infinity War. That's my biggest issue with modern wrestling, actually. It's nothing but bell-to-bell ringwork with no substance outside of that. 

I just feel, regardless of the year, that pro-wrestling needs a draw for a match other than "well, the match will probably be good." But unless Meltzer starts giving out star ratings for promos, character work & gimmicks, that isn't going to happen. 

All those things are basically reasons he gave for upping stars for the last Omega-Okada match though.

[hammerva]

Oh look Meltzer with another awful opinion about women in wrestling

Quote

"The deal with women's wrestling in the US is that you're supposed to say it's good even when it's not"

We get it Joshi is awesome.  The line between "Twitter Dave" and the real Dave is about the width of 2 sheets of paper as this point

 

[Mad Dog]

Why don't you post the entire thing he said instead of cherry picking a single line from multiple paragraphs worth of words that he said on the subject.

[Coffey]

Alvarez:

Forget the guys. I hit the wall last night. I’ve seen bad matches with Alexa [Bliss], with Nia [Jax], with Lana. If you want me to be excited for this upcoming pay-per-view, show me that you can utilize the talent that you have. They have not showed me that in months.

Meltzer:

That’s because of who they pick on top. For all their talk…it’s pretty girls. If pretty girls can wrestle good, that’s a bonus. ‘We’re gonna put Carmella and Alexa Bliss, that we think are really attractive, we’re gonna put them over whether they’re good, bad, or average.’ Granted, they can both talk which helps; but, still this is more of a delivering in the ring business than it’s ever been in history and you’re putting these sore thumbs out there and you’re not getting a great product when you do that. It is kinda like the ultimate in hypocrisy to go in there and, ‘We’re opening doors and we’re making things fair for women and then we’re looking for women that based entirely on looks as opposed to anything else.’ Not entirely; but, the looks are far more important than they need to be. It’s not like the other women on the roster are unattractive. They’re not unattractive; but, because there’s this feeling that guys will only watch women, if they’re really good looking on television, which is the whole thing of why the women’s matches – I’m not saying they’ve all sucked for the last twenty years – there have been matches that are great and there are good women wrestlers out there, more now than ever before. If you go on the whole of the last twenty years since they’ve revived the women with Sable and Debra [McMichael] and all those women that couldn’t wrestle, the large percentage of women’s matches on big shows have sucked. Some of them have been average. Some of them have been good; but, the overall standard is way way way behind men and there is no reason why the women should be any worse than the men….if it was a real fair world, you would get over on your own merits. You wouldn’t have to do this, ‘Oh we’re so generous, we are creating this Evolution.’ They should just do it on their own and blow the doors down themselves and not be held to these criteria where if you’re not good looking enough – like Lana. What does Lana have in the ring past the fact that she’s really good looking?

Meltzer believes that none of this matters because Evolution will be regarded as great regardless of its actual quality. He compares Evolution to the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble, which Meltzer claims featured some of the, ‘Crappiest wrestling in a WWE ring all year.’ Meltzer believes the quality in the Women’s Royal Rumble was overlooked due to it, ‘Being part of the game.’ He continued, ‘If it was guys wrestling that bad, it would be pretty bad.’

[sek69]

I mean,  you might not like how he words it but Dave isn't wrong. Just because we've come a long way from pudding fights and bra & panty matches doesn't mean the current main roster women's matches are great. Some of if for sure is booking, but there's no doubt if any of the men had a match like 75% of what the women do it would get buried 100 feet below the ground. 

They do give pushes to Alexa and Carmella for obvious Vince related reasons, Nia gets a push part because of her family and part as a token PR move so they can say "see, we push big girls too!" Women who can actually wrestle are an afterthought far behind who the company feels is attractive, and there's a pretty narrow focus on how they define that. As was mentioned in another thread, Charlotte might as well be renamed Ramona Reigns at this point for how hard she's pushed as the star of the women on Smackdown despite others arguably more deserving of the spot at this point. 

Women's matches absolutely get graded on a curve, and to an extent that's fair seeing as how embarrassingly bad  women's wrestling was in WWE for so long it wouldn't be right to expect it to turn on a dime. There comes a time, and again it can be argued we're at that time, where if you really want equality you have to be honest about what you're seeing.

Again, a lot of this falls on the company too.  Clearly no one on the main roster spends the time with the women that they do in NXT. Other than the completely green newbies, you seldom see a terrible women's match there. On the main roster, there's often clunkiness apparent in every match. Even more so if it's opponents that never had matches together in NXT. One of the reasons the Women's Rumble stood out is they pulled everyone off the road practiced, so that everyone had a chance to get familiar. Obviously they can't do that for every show, but there must be a midpoint between nonstop practice and just throwing them out on Raw to flail. 

Other companies don't seem to have an issue with this. I don't watch joshi, but the Impact women have consistently better matches and it's not like you can say their roster is better than WWE's. Even the ROH women seem to have more effort put into their matches than most in WWE. Everyone went over the moon praising Fit Finlay when he helped the women improve back in the day, there's no reason they can't have someone in a similar role now. 

[Alucard]

Carmella's been on the main roster for 2 years and hadn't ever really been pushed strongly until these past 4 months. I think she's been fun as cowardly heel champ but once she loses the title, she'll go back to the middle of the pack like she was. Always thought Alexa has had several strong matches in ring and has earned her spot on top, even if this current reign is just to be fed to Ronda. I dunno, only pushing the pretty seems weird when most of them are.. and most that have been around for any real length of the time have gotten a title run. I agree that Lana's probably the least worker of the women, but she's at least never been put over the rest of the roster in any real way.

[hammerva]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

 

Other companies don't seem to have an issue with this. I don't watch joshi, but the Impact women have consistently better matches and it's not like you can say their roster is better than WWE's. Even the ROH women seem to have more effort put into their matches than most in WWE. Everyone went over the moon praising Fit Finlay when he helped the women improve back in the day, there's no reason they can't have someone in a similar role now. 

Even if a Finlay could come in and do something like they did before you can't use the standard of comparing them to the men.  I mean when Trish and Lita and Victoria and later MIckie James were putting on good matches did any of them really think they were on the technical level as a Cena or Steve Austin or Triple H.    Tessa Blanchard is really good in TNA but nobody would put  her technically on the level of Austin Aries or Matt Sydal.   

I remember a year or two ago when AJ Styles had a damn good PPV match against Reigns I think (probably someone else) and Meltzer had to tell people that it wouldn't have been in the top 6 matches of New Japan that weekend.   Is that how we are supposed to judge women's wrestling now?

The quote that I mentioned came from his notes about day 1 of the Mae Young Classic.  Here is a tweet that I found.   

https://twitter.com/wrestlingbubble/status/1027520379567460353

So not sure how you connect the dots there unless you assume that the vast majority of people selected were because of their looks.  

[Beast]

The quote is based on reports he received of the show. If I remember correctly, last year's tournament had a lot of editing done as well. 

He's right that U.S. women's wrestling is totally graded on a curve. Or more specifically, I should just say WWE because I've never heard people overpraise Shimmer.

The "Women's Revolution" does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Partly because of how transparent the PR push is, but also because it's all overrated to me. There have been a lot of great WWE women's matches in the past 5 years, especially from NXT. On the main roster, I can't go over how lame everyone seems, especially because they are portrayed as subservient to Stephanie and cheer when Mother Stephanie announces news like the PPV, Royal Rumble and title belts. You can't deny Bayley and Sasha especially have lost much of their momentum from NXT the past few years.

The matches are clunky. They feel way more like a theatrical performance than most other matches and there's usually a few times each match that takes me out of it because of a botch, miscommunication, or whatever. I was one of the people that was not impressed with the Royal Rumble as well, even storytelling wise. And to be clear, I don't like WWE in general right now so I'm not giving the men a pass on this. Everything feels like a performance, not a competition. 

They've come a long way, but once the women's matches stop getting overpraised, we'll know that it's become a normal part of WWE shows rather than a PR campaign.

Last thing, I did watch WrestleMania and I did think the Ronda match was the best match on the show. I haven't watched her since, but I was impressed with that match, Stephanie included. And that's not grading on a curve.

[Coffey]

1 hour ago, hammerva said:

Even if a Finlay could come in and do something like they did before you can't use the standard of comparing them to the men.  I mean when Trish and Lita and Victoria and later MIckie James were putting on good matches did any of them really think they were on the technical level as a Cena or Steve Austin or Triple H.

I would argue that fans were "grading on a curve" back then too. Trish & Lita were never good. They were just better than the Sable's & Debra's of the world. Actually the rose-colored glasses regarding Trish Stratus is one of my biggest pet peeves in all of wrestling. She worked hard & improved but people online acting like she was some super worker drives me bonkers. Helluva bumper though.

[FMKK]

I agree with the overall message of what Dave is saying, even though I disagree with some of the specifics. They do have some great women workers but I think the tendency to have one or two people dominating the divisions does them a disservice. I don't even hate Charlotte but she's the most overpushed act in the whole company and it is a little bit off-putting because you know anything happening with the women on Smackdown will be swallowed up by her.

 

In fairness, Alexa is the best at projecting her character of all the women so you can understand their desire to push her. WWE are always going to favour someone who's strong on the mic and a bit weak in the ring to someone who's strong in the ring but weak on the mic. It's just to super smug self-satisfaction they exhibit towards the whole thing. Imagine being so proud of yourself for realising that feminism exists in 2018. 

[Mad Dog]

It feels like we are back to Divas level booking. Alexa and Carmella are essentially the same character. I think they have some great workers on the roster but they don't know how to book anyone that isn't a catty bitch. 

[El-P]

Dave Meltzer, the women hater who used to say the japanese women in the 90's were as great or better than the best men. (but yeah, there goes that "japanese" word that some people seem to be triggered by these days... get over it people, japanese pro-wrestling has always been ahead of the curve. I do think at this point there's a resentment against Meltz that goes hand in hand with some sort of bizarre anti-japanese sentiment.)

As far as "joshi rules", well, I haven't followed the scene since 2002. But when you see girls like Asuka and Kairi Sane show up and work circles around everyone else on either roster or the MYC, well. Sorry to say, but yes, japanese women seems to still be on another level in 2018. People should just get a grip. 

I was thinking about this the other day actually, if I had to show pro-wrestling to someone who never saw it now, I surely would either show some japanese stuff or some lucha libre (despite the fact I'm not watching lucha libre, really) to try and demonstrate why this is cool and can be really great. There's no way I'm showing any US stuff. 

[FMKK]

4 hours ago, El-P said:

Dave Meltzer, the women hater who used to say the japanese women in the 90's were as great or better than the best men. (but yeah, there goes that "japanese" word that some people seem to be triggered by these days... get over it people, japanese pro-wrestling has always been ahead of the curve. I do think at this point there's a resentment against Meltz that goes hand in hand with some sort of bizarre anti-japanese sentiment.)

As far as "joshi rules", well, I haven't followed the scene since 2002. But when you see girls like Asuka and Kairi Sane show up and work circles around everyone else on either roster or the MYC, well. Sorry to say, but yes, japanese women seems to still be on another level in 2018. People should just get a grip. 

I'd love to know who this is supposed to be arguing against exactly

[rovert]

On 8/10/2018 at 1:11 AM, Mad Dog said:

Why don't you post the entire thing he said instead of cherry picking a single line from multiple paragraphs worth of words that he said on the subject.

 

Meltzer in the same issue has major praise for the Viper vs Kay Lee Ray vs Bea Priestly World of Sport match from last weekend on ITV TV over here. Two Scottish women and an English/New Zealander.

He put over Tessa Blanchard vs Allie Slammiversary match big too. An American versus a Canadian.

I am a big advocate for Women's Wrestling and the first to criticise Meltzer. Personally, I fell into being so as I saw the talent coming up and the potential. But on the US indies there IS a curve and a culture of non-criticism. I know several people who wrote about/reviewed Women's Wrestling on a serious basis/applied similar standards to those matches as they would men's matches. Only to face harassment online and in person from wrestlers and their obsessive fans. A lot of female wrestlers will tell you privately there is/was a curve when it comes to women's Wrestling. I've had a fair few friends of mine get signed the past few years and they are thankful they don't have to wrestle certain popular indie wrestlers anymore.

[rovert]

On 8/10/2018 at 5:02 AM, Beast said:

He's right that U.S. women's wrestling is totally graded on a curve. Or more specifically, I should just say WWE because I've never heard people overpraise Shimmer.

 

SHIMMER's library will be available soon via a subscription service. This site is big on the entire/whole history of Wrestling being freely available to be analyzed so that is something to get actually excited about. A lot of the matches are on par with most of everything that was going on in the 00s/10s. There are SO many talented female wrestlers who came along 5-15 years too early who deserved better and better than Johnny Ace's swimsuit catalogue model fetish. Made me a believer in that US/Western Women's Wrestling doesn't need a curve. And that it is okay to say not every Women's match is "decent", "fun" or "a good effort by both".