AEW Dynasty - April 21st

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

24 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

If 5 stars is perfect then I'm not really sure what any rating above that means. Especially when you're getting into 6 1/2 territory. What makes something 6 and a half in comparison to 5?

Not that it matters at all really. 

"It is 1 and a half better than 5"

Seriously though, Da Meltz has left himself nowhere to go. He has undermarked, overmarked, wombled free for years now. The whole Meltzer star rating thing has become a parody of itself from which there is no escape. Damielson v Ospreay was one of the best matches I have seen and I don't need dodgy Dave to star it for me, and neither do you. When you consider he is basically grading it for an audience of one anyway. That one is the only person it matters to and he is a be-neckbraced NDA denier who lives and dies for that kind of thing. I think that AEW would close the day after Meltzer awarded one of its matches ten stars. 

[no user name]

35 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

If 5 stars is perfect then I'm not really sure what any rating above that means. Especially when you're getting into 6 1/2 territory. What makes something 6 and a half in comparison to 5?

Not that it matters at all really. 

I don't think 5 is perfect. Meltzer made the rating system then I'm guessing matches came along that he thought deserved more than 5 stars. I'm pretty certain he has admitted its his own opinion only 

Edited April 29 by no user name

[BomberPat]

31 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

If 5 stars is perfect then I'm not really sure what any rating above that means. Especially when you're getting into 6 1/2 territory. What makes something 6 and a half in comparison to 5?

Not that it matters at all really. 

there's a combination of things here.

1. Dave Meltzer doesn't take his star rating system nearly as seriously as the people who spend all their time arguing about it do.

2. The star system began as a rating out of four, in emulation of Leonard Maltin's system for rating films. Meltzer inherited the system from Norm Dooley and Jim Cornette, and Dooley gave his first five star rating to Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler in 1981, so in Meltzer's eyes, the system had already been "broken" and rated above the supposed "maximum" rating before he even got started. He assumes everyone else understands that, so doesn't see what the fuss is about when he awards more than five stars (refer back to point 1)

3. Meltzer never rewatches anything. All of his star ratings are based on his immediate feeling after the match has finished, and he never goes back and revisits it. But he stills the system as (within the caveats of point 1) fairly definitive, so rather than accept that what we consider "five stars" will have naturally changed over time and that all reviews are only ever valid within the context of the time they were written, he argues that any match he sees that's better than a match he gave five stars in the past must necessarily get more than five stars. But you'd drive yourself mad trying to apply that logic to any other form of criticism. He seems to really struggle with the idea of placing things within their historical or cultural context (see also, his arguments against Big Daddy being in the Hall of Fame, which largely come down to him not meeting criteria that don't make sense for the British scene of his time)

[Infinity Land]

3 minutes ago, no user name said:

Meltzer made the rating system then I'm guessing matches came along that he thought deserved more than 5 stars. I'm pretty certain he has admitted its his own opinion only 

He will often point out that he didn't come up with the system, and he wasn't the first to break 0-5 stars. Its just he's popularized the approach within wrestling. He credits one of Cornette's mates as someone he took the idea from.

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

1. Dave Meltzer doesn't take his star rating system nearly as seriously as the people who spend all their time arguing about it do.

Truth. The value therein is only to decide if Dave has a similar taste to your own, then use his ratings as a rough guide to whether or not a match is likely to be to your tastes/worth your while to watch. Not to stat spaff yourself silly over.

[Hannibal Scorch]

26 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Truth. The value therein is only to decide if Dave has a similar taste to your own, then use his ratings as a rough guide to whether or not a match is likely to be to your tastes/worth your while to watch. Not to stat spaff yourself silly over.

Is it any different to any other reviewer be it film or movie or tv? I love reading reviews of things but they don’t define my own feelings. Sometimes they will reinforce my opinion, other times I think they have got it massively wrong, but it’s just someone’s opinion at the end of the day.

[Version1.0]

Lars Sullivan has a 5-star match and Kurt Angle does not

 

[air_raid]

9 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Is it any different to any other reviewer be it film or movie or tv? I love reading reviews of things but they don’t define my own feelings. Sometimes they will reinforce my opinion, other times I think they have got it massively wrong, but it’s just someone’s opinion at the end of the day.

It’s the rational, logical approach. Unfortunately tv, cinema, video games, music etc don’t seem to have one critic where an overwhelming majority of the consumers of the entire art form have latched onto their word as gospel. Nor do any of those “normal people” pursuits likely have as much toxic nerdiness going on, by which I mean amounts of passionate energy to argue the toss about something so wholly subjective, even with the industry expert whose opinion apparently matters to them.

5 hours ago, Version1.0 said:

Lars Sullivan has a 5-star match and Kurt Angle does not

And I don’t know what’s worse, that people are so invested in these things, that people actually take it up with Dave, or that he so often is willing to engage with them. It’s such a load of nonsense. People will STILL take it up with Dave years later why X match “only” got 4 3/4 and not 5 years later where Dave will point out that 4 3/4 still makes it one of the best matches you’re likely to have seen that year. The historical nitpicking is something I think only wrestling fans would give a shit to keep doing. Or maybe I’m wrong, and people still ask Rolling Stone if they consider re- scoring Baby One More Time (**) because they gave Mutations by Beck **** and it doesn’t sit well with them?

I think it’s a symptomatic thing, the wrestling fans seem to have a weird fascination with their opinions of wrestlers, shows or matches being the right ones, and being able to “prove” them right either by popularity or correlation to what Dave thinks. So if Meltzer doesn’t rate a match as highly as one of these weirdos, they take it personally that the revered voice on star ratings suggests they’re “wrong” in their opinion. And sadly whereas if you argue the toss with an average Ian or raid about an opinion on Twatter you’ll get called a moron and blocked, Meltzer actually engages with them. He’s an enabler.

[BomberPat]

2 hours ago, air_raid said:

I think it’s a symptomatic thing, the wrestling fans seem to have a weird fascination with their opinions of wrestlers, shows or matches being the right ones, and being able to “prove” them right either by popularity or correlation to what Dave thinks. So if Meltzer doesn’t rate a match as highly as one of these weirdos, they take it personally that the revered voice on star ratings suggests they’re “wrong” in their opinion. And sadly whereas if you argue the toss with an average Ian or raid about an opinion on Twatter you’ll get called a moron and blocked, Meltzer actually engages with them. He’s an enabler.

I put a lot of wrestling fan weirdness down to the nature of wrestling and wrestling fandom - a lot of fans seem to live in deathly fear of being worked, of admitting that they just enjoy watching wrestling and want to see their favourite wrestlers win matches. They're afraid of being "marks", so they wrap up every opinion they have in language that makes it look like they're actually super-smart and informed - they can't just be upset that the wrestler they like lost, they have to talk about how backstage politics are holding that wrestler down, or about how the company never makes new stars. If ever anything "real" happens, be it a release or an injury or a backstage spat, someone's bound to insist it's a work, because it doesn't really matter if they get it wrong that way around, but if they claim something's a shoot when it really is a work, then they're just a mark who got worked, and to their eyes that's the worst thing you can be.

That extends to obsessions with ratings, be they the TV ratings or Meltzer's stars. They don't want to say "I enjoyed this match, because it was good and the wrestler I liked won", they need some kind of quantifiable measure of a "good match" or a "good show", and they're angry that the most high profile critic's views don't match their own - "their own" views usually being an amalgamation of whichever old wrestlers' podcasts they're listening to, because you can't overlook the role that a legion of grifters have in demonising Meltzer in all this. Though he doesn't help himself with how he is on Twitter, though again I think other people take him far more seriously on there than he does, I assume he's just dicking around and amusing himself.

There's definitely an equivalent thing in other media now that I think about it, but directed at critics and tastemakers in general rather than at one individual - I think the impulse is the same, just that wrestling fans have the name "Meltzer" to refer to. It's no different to Snyderverse fans being angry that their shit superhero films aren't treated as high art. For some reason it's not enough for them to enjoy the media they consume, or even for it to be popular, they also need it to be universally praised.

[Infinity Land]

21 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

There's definitely an equivalent thing in other media now that I think about it, but directed at critics and tastemakers in general rather than at one individual - I think the impulse is the same, just that wrestling fans have the name "Meltzer" to refer to.

Roger Ebert in US cinema might have been the closest. Thanks to being a critic that was televised from the 70s onwards he had the public had general awareness of him and his opinions were easily accessible. Working for so long and covering most things allowed people to use him as a baseline. As just with Meltzer you'd learn personal quirks that you'd either agree/disagree with. 

Since dying there's been the rise of Rotten Tomatoes and other aggregators. Which is wrestling's fate with Cagematch. 

[BomberPat]

the other thing with Meltzer is that he has this dual role as critic and journalist, and he separates them far more than the people who dislike him do, and more than they assume he does. So the people who attack him for the star ratings usually do it in the same breath as attacking him for getting "news" wrong, when usually it's one of two things - they're repeating a criticism second-hand from someone like Eric Bischoff, or they read an aggregated report on a third-party website saying "Dave Meltzer says..." and assumed it's him reporting that something will happen when quite often it was him talking off the cuff about what he thinks might happen. Again, Meltzer can be a poor communicator so he's not blameless, but most of the people who criticise him aren't reading what he's written, they're reading people who have cribbed from his notes, or listening to other people's attacks on them and adopting their opinions.

[JimmyAnderson]

On 4/23/2024 at 5:27 PM, air_raid said:

"TLC" only really exists as a name which WWE use. It's a ladder match. The rules are exactly the same. Do whatever the fuck you want, use any weapon you want, win by climbing a ladder and retrieving what's hanging.

Aye I get that, and agree with it.

But this one did feel more TLC, than standard ladder, just because the tables were involved in a couple of the big spots. I think they were even lined up outside the ring rather than underneath it before the match. Not that it makes any difference though because as you, rightly, say the rules are the same.

[Supremo]

Yeah, I almost never see valid criticism for Dave online. It’s never about his massive blind spot for all the Speaking Out stuff, how you can sometimes clock where he’s taken things too literally or misunderstood what was likely a wind up, or how for a man making his living doing podcasts he can sometimes be the most difficult human being alive to listen to.

It’s alway the same old shite from people who listen to grifting melts like Cornette, Bubba Ray and Bischoff. He’s never taken a bump! Kurt Angle’s never had a five star match! He said Mabel was the third man!

Bret rates Dave. Bret’s never wrong. Six and a half for Ospreay vs. Danielson sits fine with me. Because it doesn’t matter at all.

[Sheffbag]

I think Cena summed it up perfectly

“So how do I put this… I am much more concerned when I perform for WWE in how the audience as a whole feels about my performance rather than one individual trying to grade me in a level of stars. 

[westlondonmist]

18 hours ago, BomberPat said:

there's a combination of things here.

1. Dave Meltzer doesn't take his star rating system nearly as seriously as the people who spend all their time arguing about it do.

2. The star system began as a rating out of four, in emulation of Leonard Maltin's system for rating films. Meltzer inherited the system from Norm Dooley and Jim Cornette, and Dooley gave his first five star rating to Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler in 1981, so in Meltzer's eyes, the system had already been "broken" and rated above the supposed "maximum" rating before he even got started. He assumes everyone else understands that, so doesn't see what the fuss is about when he awards more than five stars (refer back to point 1)

3. Meltzer never rewatches anything. All of his star ratings are based on his immediate feeling after the match has finished, and he never goes back and revisits it. But he stills the system as (within the caveats of point 1) fairly definitive, so rather than accept that what we consider "five stars" will have naturally changed over time and that all reviews are only ever valid within the context of the time they were written, he argues that any match he sees that's better than a match he gave five stars in the past must necessarily get more than five stars. But you'd drive yourself mad trying to apply that logic to any other form of criticism. He seems to really struggle with the idea of placing things within their historical or cultural context (see also, his arguments against Big Daddy being in the Hall of Fame, which largely come down to him not meeting criteria that don't make sense for the British scene of his time)

 

He may apply it wrong but maybe grading something when you watch it first and never revisiting is the best way. It's wrestling and supposed to make you feel a certain way. It has storylines which matches are often a part of. I think Martel Vs Roberts is fantastic because it fed off the feud amazingly and as a kid had be on the tip of my toes. If you watch it back as a video having never seen the feud you'd be bored as fuck but it's purpose wasn't to be watched again 30 years later. I think Meltzer may have given it minus stars though. I'd say the same about Hogan Vs Slaughter, it worked then because of a war and the crowd are hot so still in reality a good match and made sense given the time. 

 

So many matches are great because they capture the feud or the then current culture well. Some age well because of the story told in that match, seeing heels get the boos, the face coming back at the right time but watching a match when first on, not sure who will win will always have a magic that watching back can't provide. 

 

 

Edited April 30 by westlondonmist