Dave Meltzer stuff

[FLIK]

Just finished the match and i'm with Meltzer on this one, incredibly great match. Had a big match atmosphere with a packed sold out building treating both guys like superstars and going nuts for all the action. Went around 30 mins, never draged, kept me enthralled the entire time and if anything maybe felt a little short as they didn't overdo the big move near falls. Loved the build with them going back and forth with Naito trying to break Okada's leg and Okada going for a bunch of whacky lucha submissions. Even managed to make me think Naito might win for a few secs even though I knew the result going in. Limb work heavy matches are hard to pull off since guys have a tendancy to brush things off when it's time to get their shit in but I thought Okada did a good job of balancing things, selling things just enough to let you know he was hurting bad but not going so overboard that you couldn't buy him being able to use his leg at all. So yeah, this match is the real deal as far as i'm concerned, kudos to both.

[Coffey]

Personally I think the match is at least ****1/2 for the record.

Me too, man. It's my Match-of-the-Year so far, although I know we're only in March. It was really damn good though.

[Tim Evans]

I don't get the Okada hype. He sold ok but no way should he be IWGP champion.

[jdw]

I scanned it for five minutes yesterday, and the two things that stuck in my mind where:

 

* wrestler getting leg destroyed and selling the fuck out of it

 

* same wrestler pulling the Kurt Angle "I'm Okay" spot of getting up off the mat for a standing drop kick on the other guy who was up on the turnbuckles.

 

I mean... it was a Cool Move... he fucking got MASSIVE air on the drop kick... awesome!!!

 

Except it was the leg that just got knocked the shit out of every time I skipped forward in the match with him selling it like it had gotten ripped off, put through a wood chipper, then reattached to his hip only to be worked over some more.

 

It's Kobashi-style selling and psyche of the moment.

 

Actually, one other thing that sticks out in my head was the finish, which was a dosey-doh counter-o-rama choreographed dance that made me think of a paid of modern indy guys thinking how clever they are in having 6 counters in one spot before hitting something Cool~! I don't think I'm exaggerating on 6 counters: it might have been 8 in the finishing sequence.

 

Those were in two sections where I actually stopped, went back and rewatched what I saw to wonder if I was groaning by mistake... rather than just skipping ahead another 2-3 minutes.

 

This is likely a match where I'd shit on someone's parade if I wrote the whole thing up.

 

John

[Coffey]

So you watched a match in fast-forward going into it looking for flaws? How can you ever enjoy ANY match that way?

 

Actually, come to think of it, I don't think you're ever going to like a match ever again with that eye of scrutiny, man. Never talk good about a match again, cause someone will rip it apart in some way just to be contrary.

[FLIK]

I don't get the Okada hype. He sold ok but no way should he be IWGP champion.

Meh, there's other ppl who'd be good carrying the ball but the building was sold out and he was over as hell with the crowd so can't say the choice to run with him has backfired so far.

[Matt D]

Just some people's reactions to a strong recommendation is so deficit based at times. Don't want to get into an involved discussion but when did watching wrestling that MIGHT be extremely good become a chore?

I don't think it's THAT outlandish. I know a lot of things that Meltzer thinks are good and important in a match aren't things that I enjoy and actually, quite often, get in the way of the things I enjoy or are actively things I find faulty. I can totally understand why someone tuned into this stuff even more than I am would feel that way.

[Dylan Waco]

I just watched it. It was better than I expected but I have bare bottom expectations for modern puro. I agree with John's criticism of the Square Dance routine finishing run, but I didn't have any problem with the dropkick spot as he sold the leg in the immediate aftermath. To me it's no different than Kawada taking a german, popping up and hitting a clothesline. I did think his leg selling was spotty in the match over all, but at least they made a point to go back to it and I liked that Okada targed Naito's head and sort of stuck with that throughout the match. I also thought it was reasonably well segmented and was far less "your turn, my turn" than I had feared aside from the finishing run. I think some of the submission spots looked really shitty and unconvincing, but over all I have no problem calling it a good match. It wouldn't be in my top ten for this year though

[MikeCampbell]

This is likely a match where I'd shit on someone's parade if I wrote the whole thing up.

John, you make that sound like a bad thing.

 

I'm hoping to check this out soon, because I'm a big fan of Naito. Right now I'm making my way through last year's champions carnival.

[jdw]

So you watched a match in fast-forward going into it looking for flaws?

Wasn't going into it looking for flaws. At the office I don't exactly have 40+ minutes straight to devote to watching a match on Youtube. I was simply scanning it. The knee selling stood out, and I'm certainly a fan of knee selling (see the words I've written over the years about 12/03/93). I'm guessing it was bad luck that in a quick scan of the match I happened to hit the dropkick in the corner. Of course when I watch the whole thing, I would run into it and be groaning, and if I wrote it up point out that it's dumbfuck indy/Kurt Angle/Kobashi style stuff of shitting on the work that's been done to just get an instant-presto pop from the crowd.

 

 

How can you ever enjoy ANY match that way?

The purporse wasn't to "enjoy" it but quick scan it to see if it might be worth checking out later. If in 5 minutes _everything_ I saw had me groaning, I wouldn't waste time with it regardless of how highly rated it was. I've got six episodes of Holmes on the DVR and another six set to tape on Sunday (along with a half dozen futbol matches, the ACC Tourney Final and Lakers-Celts), so spending 40 minutes on what in quick scan came off as a trainwreck would be a waste of my time.

 

I liked the selling that I came across in quick scan. Some moves looked pretty decent without crapping on stuff. The dropkick and finish made me think that while the match might not be total dogshit, that if I actually wrote it up it would come across like all of the people who shit on Davey Richards' work: while valid points are made in the eyes of a neutral, it no doubt rains on the parade of people who think Davey have a bunch of ****1/2 matches.

 

 

Actually, come to think of it, I don't think you're ever going to like a match ever again with that eye of scrutiny, man.

I'm not sure why. Hoback and I spent the Thursday before last having an off day from work and watching wrestling from 9 in the morning until 5 and enjoying pretty much everything we watched. The only thing that we had a bit of a tough time with was the Flair-Steamboat match that I tried to get some thoughts out of people in the What Are You Watching thread, but folks seemed to duck. I didn't even put in what I thought of the match, just tried to get thoughts without the influence of any comments from me.

 

Even there, I'm not sure I'd be critical of the match (other than Steamer's horrid work on the commentary track). It was just a match that was... "there"... for some reason. I have some thoughts on that: it was a Face vs Face match, and thus the long body of the match lacked the usual tension / drama / spots of a Flair match where there would be a heel (normally of course Flair). It was an incredibly slow match, given they were going 60... which neither of us happened to know when we popped it in. James thought it was a 30+ match. I tossed out that it felt like a 60 minute match, which turned out to be true and finally at the 40 minute mark we looked over at Corey's site and saw it was a 60:00 draw, and groaned. What it did show is how well all of Ric's normal heel bullshit / spots / comedy / stooging / bitching does to fill space in matches. Especially in a slow match like this, it could have added a lot of "pick the crowd up" stuff to the match.

 

Neither of us thought it was awful. It just was very different from a standard Flair match where you have a clear heel, or in a Face vs Face setting where Flair more clearly and consistently plays that he's going to snap and lose it to work heel. It's certainly worth watching, and very much something that I want to carve out another 60:00 to re-watch and think more about it in an analytical way.

 

On the other hand, everything else we watch pretty much popped the shit out of it on some level. I think I posted some comments about some of the matches in the 1992 Set forum.

 

That's the thing:

 

Just because a person doesn't Mark Out over every match that lots of people like, it doesn't mean that person doesn't still like Pro Wrestling. I gave examples in an earlier post of two Misawa-Kobashi matches that were nearly universally praised at the time. They bored me, with the second annoying me on some level. If the was a gaijin hardcore at the time that was a bigger fan of AJPW than me, I sure as hell didn't know him. It pretty much was my rep: All Japan Fan. Not reaching Hardcore Orgasam over those two matches like other people were didn't mean that I still couldn't pop in something like that 11/30/93 Misawa & Kobashi vs Hansen & Baba and not enjoy it.

 

 

Never talk good about a match again, cause someone will rip it apart in some way just to be contrary.

I've already had the happen over the years. I suspect that just about every match that I've praised has had people rip it, some of them just to be contrarian to the "consensus" that folks like to blame on me. People are going to do what people are going to do.

 

John

[jdw]

FWIW, Dylan's comments were pretty close to what I thought in the scan. There were some nice things popping up, and seeing knee selling pop up time after time was something that I looked foward to in a full watch. The two things that stood out in Groan level were pretty much in the "bare bottom expectations for modern" wrestling category. Hell, even stuff that I've praised in the last few years like Hero-Tozawa and Generico-Tozawa had things like that which probably would annoy me more watching it on tape than it did in the building those two nights.

 

My comment on the Kawada no selling that Dylan references is that it struck me *at the time* that Kawada went with this more when he gave up on trying to reel in the direction Misawa and Kobashi were dragging the style. That said, I don't recall a match prior to 1996 where selling a body part was such an all encompassing theme of a match like this one where Kawada would simply Kurt Angle Up for a spot like the drop kick. Take the last match of 1988 where his knee was destroyed. Kawada only would get up and back involved after long stretches of being out of it, not involved in the action (i.e. Tenryu going it alone against Hansen & Gordy) and slow recoveries. Perhaps on the next rewatch of it I'll find things to be critical of about it, but I've tended to find it solid over the years. Not sublime in the sense of 12/03/93, but good stuff.

 

John

[NintendoLogic]

Finally watched the match. ****3/4 is a stretch, but I thought the match was really good. It was clearly a Naito carry job, but Okada held up his end. Naito's leg work was good, and Okada targeting the head and neck to set up the Rainmaker was a nice touch as well. Okada's selling of the leg was a little spotty overall, but I didn't have a problem with the dropkick spot. I distinguish between fighting through cumulative damage and going back to selling immediately afterward and no-selling (or delayed selling) the immediate impact of a move. To me, it was closer to Misawa hitting someone with a rolling elbow after his arm had been worked on and then collapsing than Kawada popping up after a German. Overall, it was 2012's first true MOTYC.

 

What the hell was with that dude in the crowd decked out in two-tone gear? He looked like he belonged at a Specials concert, not a wrestling show.

[Dylan Waco]

It was only the first true MOTY if you pretend Lucha doesn't exist

[NintendoLogic]

I've seen your top three lucha matches. I thought Okada/Naito was significantly better than all of them.

[Dylan Waco]

I've seen your top three lucha matches. I thought Okada/Naito was significantly better than all of them.

Well at least you watched them. I thought Okada v. Naito was about as good as the third best Show v. Daniel Bryan match, which sounds like an insult but really isn't. I think most modern Japanese wrestling is garbage, so thinking it is probably a top twenty-five match at this point in the year is high praise from me. No clue how anyone could prefer it to that Santo/Villano tag especially, but I am consistently amazed by the opinions of others

[Jingus]

It was only the first true MOTY if you pretend Lucha doesn't exist

We need a "lucha for people who don't like lucha" thread.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not the best person to start that thread. While I am a relatively new fan to Lucha (about 3 years or so of watching really heavily) and someone who came didn't watch it for years because I figured it would be hard to get into, I have found it remarkably easy to get into. Discussion of the great Lucha workers probably does deserve it's own thread though

[NintendoLogic]

I like lucha brawls, but they tend to run together for me, so I generally don't have strong feelings about one over another. And Che/Terry had the added problem of being overbooked to shit.

[KrisZ]

Which of these periods was best/hottest

WWF 1998-2001 47.7%

All Japan 1990-1996 14.0%

WCW 1996-1998 11.1%

WWF 1984-1987 8.4%

Mid Atlantic 1983-1986 7.2%

Mid South 1983-1985 3.5%

New Japan 1991-1996 3.4%

AAA 1992-1994 1.5%

UWA 1997-1982 1.0%

All Japan 1984-1986 0.7%

New Japan 1981-1983 0.7%

CMLL 1989-1992 0.6%

Wow

[Loss]

"Best" and "hottest" are two different things. The question is poorly phrased and I could see confusion over how to answer that. Not that I'm taking up for people who did the poll, but the question is really ambiguous.

[cm funk]

Yeah, that should be two separate polls....

[Loss]

Dave in a post on Sabu:

 

This benefit of hindsight showing he sucked is actually the lacking of understanding of hindsight. Everything in wrestling is about time and place. The single stupidest thing modern fans do is try and value and gauge a performance from another era based on a set of standards not applicable to the era. We all go through that phase. I did in the 80s when I'd get tape of guys from the 60s and think that everyone sucked because they weren't wrestling like they did in the 80s. Later, when standards changed, I figured out, especially when older guys were hammering it in my head, how in 1965, how could they possibly work a match for a 1985 audience and to judge them on that is beyond stupid. If they were good for their team, then they were good. If they sucked for their time, but it was a style that actually translated better 20 years later, they still sucked.

I would love for someone to debate him about this back and forth. I'd love to even do it myself.

[jdw]

I sat next to Dave for a match where he thought Sabu sucked. It's not like Dave changed his mind in 2012 about Sabu circa 1994. By 1995 at the latest, he thought Sabu wasn't as good as he previously thought he was. He got past the initial WOW! factor of Sabu and thought his stuff was messy.

 

I'm not sure why he's coming to Sabu's defenses. Given some of the comments here, there appears to be some re-revision thinking about Sabu:

 

The original He's Awesome! --> Whatta Trainwreck --> He was better than people give him credit for

 

John

[Loss]

That's consistent with this, the first part of the post:

 

He was different. Different was good and he got over great. I never thought he was a good worker except after the first few times I saw him because he was doing so many unique things that got over so great and really was the talk of wrestling in a lot of places. His matches at first were blowing people away, but after seeing him live a few times it was pretty clear he was lacking in a lot of ways. I cringed when he nearly won Wrestler of the Year, but, for his time he had great matches by doing new things and I can't deny that.

 

When other people started doing the same thing, he was no longer different, and whatever he was after that was based on whatever stardom and following he had previously gained.

[jdw]

I cringed when he nearly won Wrestler of the Year

High on the list of my favorite phone calls from Dave were the series the month he was tallying votes that year and just gripping about the ECW Ballot Stuffing and the possibility that Sabu would win WOTY... climaxed by his relief when Kawada (i.e. Not Sabu) finished on top.

 

John