Dave Meltzer stuff

[Loss]

Gender pay equity is an interesting thing to think about. I wonder if Charlotte Flair, who is in a higher relative position than Seth Rollins or Finn Balor, actually makes more money than they do. I wonder if Sasha Banks makes more than Cesaro or Sheamus. 

[NotJayTabb]

To be fair to the wrestlers, a lot of the same people called out Lio Rush when he made his ill timed joke after Emma's firing, so it may be a sign of a close knit locker room who don't take kindly to a colleague being slighted

[Sean Liska]

2 hours ago, rovert said:

The last two pages covered most of everything. 

Basically, it is a real shame. As already said social media creates so much noise and a haven for bad actors.

Meltzer has been the loudest voice for worker's rights and the first one to say how phoney all of the WWE Women's Evolution stuff has been mainly because the women still don't get paid what they're worth and still get disrespected by the writing and booking.

Poor Peyton has been unnecessarily criticised for her looks since she was signed with NXT. Instagram trolls relentlessly attack her teeth and forehead. Which along with not being fluent in Meltzer speak may have lead to her firing off a hot-headed response.

This is the thing to me. Dave has always been so pro workers rights, when WWE signed the TV deals he immediately went into a long cover story on how they should have a union. To see so many workers lining up against him - it's a nice time to be Vince McMahon, there's no chance of this group having union talks or saying anything about Saudi Arabia. So it's time for us to stop feeling sorry for them and their independent contractor status and lack of a union and all that.

[NintendoLogic]

6 hours ago, CapitalTTruth said:

As for the argument that its hypocritical to speak out against it while working for the WWE, I just don't buy it. Your employer doesn't define your entire identity. Your public and professional image of your employer doesn't automatically become your public image, especially when you have a case like this where the women involved are clearly striving for and working to make changes within the culture of the WWE (even if it is for their own benefit). I can't bring myself to judge any concessions they make or any company lines they tow because I have no idea the sorts of professional waters they are navigating. Every wrestler has to do that to ensure their success and financial security.  Women more-so because they are actively part of a shifting culture. Things are changing for women and that is exciting. I expect it is really exciting for those involved they probably want to be a part of that. I expect they have to be particularly careful in picking their battles. Its all well and good to say "be consistent, stand up for what you believe in" when you aren't in their shoes, when you aren't a woman trying to succeed in professional wrestling. I'm not saying that isn't the case with anyone here - I honestly don't know, its more of a general statement. I know I can't really judge what women in those contexts do.

No, fuck them. If they can take collective action to try to earn brownie points from their boss, then they deserve to be called out when they stand idly by while their boss does shitty things.

Anyway, I think Alvarez deserves more criticism for his role as the host of the show. Once Dave started talking about Royce's transformation, he should have realized that the conversation had the potential to go in an unfortunate direction and shut it down. Instead, he fanned the flames.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

18 hours ago, NotJayTabb said:

To be fair to the wrestlers, a lot of the same people called out Lio Rush when he made his ill timed joke after Emma's firing, so it may be a sign of a close knit locker room who don't take kindly to a colleague being slighted

I felt the anger in that situation was a bit poorly distributed. It was a dick thing for Rush to say, but I found it very interesting that there was a lot of heat on him for joking about it but no heat whatsoever on management for actually releasing her. I know the wrestlers can't really criticize their bosses, but even something as innocuous as "they made a bad decision in releasing her" is too controversial for any WWE wrestler to say.

[Victator]

21 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

Gender pay equity is an interesting thing to think about. I wonder if Charlotte Flair, who is in a higher relative position than Seth Rollins or Finn Balor, actually makes more money than they do. I wonder if Sasha Banks makes more than Cesaro or Sheamus. 

I imagine, the women make more on merchandise, since they get promoted more. 

[Fando]

Honestly, I shouldn't be surprised after she took responsibility for the Reid promo with Paige and everything, but..

 

 

On 8/16/2018 at 9:09 AM, CapitalTTruth said:

Women and men have not faced the same sort of social and professional pressures regarding their physical appearance in general and over time.

 

[El-P]

Men's physique and body have never EVER been subject to comments in pro-wrestling. EVER. Especially in WWE.

As far as "making a difference", well, I would hope Fatu would have talked about how the #WomenEvolutionPPV was a non Saudi Arabia exclusive...

Keep taking your vitamins, folks.

[Jmare007]

In a lighter subject, how about them G-1 STARS~!

Tana vs Okada 5 stars

Omega vs Ibushi 5.5 stars

Ibushi vs Tana 5.75 stars

 

 

Man, if 6/9/95 happened this year in New Japan - or if you switched Dave's love for All Japan in the 90's to today - I think that shit might've gotten like 9 stars or something

[Johnny Sorrow]

11 hours ago, El-P said:

Men's physique and body have never EVER been subject to comments in pro-wrestling. EVER. Especially in WWE.

 

Vince used to call Albano a fat slob regularly . 

[Cap]

Of course men have been scrutinized and shamed for the their physical appearance, especially in the WWE/F, but to conflate that with the pressures women face and/or to think of these issues in wrestling as detached from the broader contexts is just silly. Poorly articulated examples from Charlotte aside, sure, the twitter outrage machine wouldn't react the same if this were a man, but that is such a peripheral point to this, a distraction at best.

[Cap]

11 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

In a lighter subject, how about them G-1 STARS~!

Tana vs Okada 5 stars

Omega vs Ibushi 5.5 stars

Ibushi vs Tana 5.75 stars

 

 

Man, if 6/9/95 happened this year in New Japan - or if you switched Dave's love for All Japan in the 90's to today - I think that shit might've gotten like 9 stars or something

I think  he is slow building to the day he can give something 10 stars. Like, I genuinely believe he is looking forward to it. 

[Herodes]

Are we at the stage where some people feel their favorite CrossFit match has been underrated if it only got 5 stars?

[Boss Rock]

2 hours ago, Herodes said:

Are we at the stage where some people feel their favorite CrossFit match has been underrated if it only got 5 stars?

I don't think so, most star rating discussions these days seem to be how silly and ridiculous they've gotten (which they have) and that NJPW is overrated.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

23 hours ago, CapitalTTruth said:

I think  he is slow building to the day he can give something 10 stars. Like, I genuinely believe he is looking forward to it. 

I’m guessing it’ll be for whatever Omega’s last match in NJPW is.

[SomethingSavage]

Only time will tell, but I honestly feel like at least 75% of these new 5 star matches won't be as well remembered or highly regarded as even the 3.5 star matches of the nineties.

The counter argument could be made that there is such an abundance of "great" matches now that they rarely stand out as much as they would have in slower periods. While that's true of course, the counterpoint is that *IF* the bar is raised to such a degree, then the scale should be adjusted accordingly. 5 stars is the new 3 stars to a lot of these modern critics. And it's gotten a bit ridiculous.

But what do I know? The system always seemed silly to me.

[Loss]

I think you're right. Something like Shawn-Owen from In Your House VI, for example. Talked about fondly for years as a great match. Not an all-time classic, just a great match. That would be forgotten after Monday night now, I think.

[NintendoLogic]

I just think that when Dave is really excited about a company's product, he inflates ratings for them across the board and gives matches bonus points they wouldn't receive in a lean period. He did the same for All Japan in the 90s. Look at all the random six-mans he gave five stars to that were largely forgotten by the end of the decade. Hell, jdw once bemoaned the fact that seemingly any MOTYC-level match automatically got five stars. I can only imagine what he'd say today.

[El-P]

The fact he can genuinely love pro-wrestling matches that much after more than 30 years of watching and covering it is actually a pretty refreshing thought. Better that than to be a salty mofo bitching and moaning about snowflakes on a weekly basis.

[EricR]

On 8/18/2018 at 8:38 AM, CapitalTTruth said:

I think  he is slow building to the day he can give something 10 stars. Like, I genuinely believe he is looking forward to it. 

The way this slow build is going he'll hit 10 stars on a match by All In

[Coffey]

On 8/19/2018 at 2:33 PM, SomethingSavage said:

Only time will tell, but I honestly feel like at least 75% of these new 5 star matches won't be as well remembered or highly regarded as even the 3.5 star matches of the nineties.

But what do I know? The system always seemed silly to me.

My biggest issue with the star ratings as a whole is it makes people ignore massive parts of pro-wrestling that matter. It's never been about JUST the in-ring, especially in WWE. When a new generation of fans, and even wrestlers themselves, are going out there with the impression of "what will the rating for this match be?" I think it hurts professional wrestling. 

I think part of the reason why it sprouted up in the first place was because of the language barrier with foreign wrestling to English-speaking fans. There's a universal pro-wrestling language, so even if you don't understand the speaking language you can follow what happens in the ring from the bell-to-bell parts but we can't just ignore character work, promos, drawing ability, crowd reactions, the storyline of a feud & everything else. Even the theme song & Titantron matter a ton - it's the whole look & feel & production of it all.

Dave Meltzer can praise Kenny Omega & Okada as much as he wants but at the end of the day, I'm still always going to care more about a 1992 Rick Rude match. Because these new wrestlers don't have any star power to me. They're just dudes doing a bunch of moves. It's the same reason why I'll never give a shit about Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn. Personally, I enjoy wrestling more when it lets me suspend my disbelief and buy into what I'm watching. I don't like overly choreographed wrestling - I like when it looks like a real fight. But a lot of the wrestlers nowadays grew up watching the likes of Shawn Michaels & Rob Van Dam, listening to crowds at ECW shows & reading Dave Meltzer newsletters. So this is where we're at. No one is trying to work like Stan Hansen or Terry Funk, they all want to be Jeff Hardy or Rey Mysterio, Jr.

It reminds me of ROH several years ago where every match on the show was trying to be Match of the Night. And you would have 3-4 very good to great matches on the show each night. Then the next week you would have it again. Then the week after have it again. By the end of the month, no one remembered or could differentiate one match from the next & none of it mattered long-term. Sort of like the Smackdown Six era. There was a lot of good work there but how many people still mention it or talk about it nowadays? Being good in the moment and standing the test of time are two different things & it doesn't matter how good your matches are if you, yourself as a wrestler/character, are not personally memorable.

Maybe modern pro-wrestling has passed me by though. I've been disenfranchised with modern wrestling for quite some time. Even the big shows like Royal Rumble, WrestleMania or Wrestle Kingdom don't get my excited like they used to. I have more fun watching & discussing old wrestling. When I have a friend come over to watch a show, 9/10 times, we put on an old show from pre-Attitude era on WWE Network. 

I knew I was starting to get passed by when online I would read nothing but praise for The Young Bucks. I've never seen a match from them that I thought was good. That's the antithesis of what I enjoy in wrestling. I don't wanna see 450 spike Tombstone Piledrivers for a two count, I want someone to get punched in the fucking mouth. Now even in WWE you have guys like Jeff Hardy doing a Swanton Bomb to the ring apron. The bar is too high, it's insane. 

 

[Microstatistics]

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 1:50 PM, Boss Rock said:

I don't think so, most star rating discussions these days seem to be how silly and ridiculous they've gotten (which they have) and that NJPW is overrated.

I don't know, I think that's limited to the PWO circle. In the larger scheme, current NJPW is seen as a golden age of wrestling (similar to 90s All Japan) and many ratings and comments mirror those of Meltzer. 

[Boss Rock]

I guess it depends on where you are and who you talk to. I also see plenty of people on Twitter who rag on it all the time. Then again, pretty much every gets dragged on Twitter, ha.

[Jmare007]

I agree with Boss Rock, I've seen plenty of people in different places make fun of ratings and how silly some of the love for New Japan has gotten.

[Johnny Sorrow]

On 8/19/2018 at 3:24 PM, El-P said:

The fact he can genuinely love pro-wrestling matches that much after more than 30 years of watching and covering it is actually a pretty refreshing thought. Better that than to be a salty mofo bitching and moaning about snowflakes on a weekly basis.

As you've pointed out, we rarely are on the same page. But here you go. Dave at his core is a wrestling fan. If he's so excited for wrestling that he starts throwing stars around like a ninja in a 1970's Saturday afternoon Kung Fu movie, then that's great. Good for him. Who cares, really ?  If that really bothers people, then just make your own star ratings. Wrestling is a performance. Everyone experiences it differently.