Watching whole shows vs. watching individual matches

[Sidebottom]

I thought I'd be the same when I got a tablet, but so far the only time I've loaded it with wrestling was on a flight to America. I tried it once on the tube and felt like a knob, so that quickly stopped.

[Death From Above]

I can't say enough about how my ipad has upped my ability to watch wrestling. I load on discs from my comps and watch anywhere. My wife really rolls her eyes when I have a ballgame on TV and wrestling on my ipad at the same time.

Don't give in. Keep living the dream. You can do it.

[JerryvonKramer]

I have to say that I'm a pretty big "I'm only going to do one thing at once" guy.

 

Apart from eating. I don't mind eating and watching something at the same time. But essentially if I'm watching wrestling that's all I'm doing. I have to give it my full attention.

 

When it comes to films and certain tv I'm a bit hardcore about it to the extent where I can be a dick to others for not paying full attention. I can't actually tolerate watching anything with my parents anymore. My dad will bugger about during the first ten minutes of a film and then spend the next hour and a half asking what's been going on. WATCH IT THEN. I don't like talking during films. I don't like my wife going on her iphone or whatever. I have chastised the same friend mentioned in the OP for posting on a forum while watching the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre for "disrespecting the film".

 

Don't really understand how anyone can put up with me. Ha ha.

[Marty]

Life is too short and there's too much good wrestling out there. I have seen enough bad wrestling in my time to last me a lifetime. There's too much good out there that I haven't seen to sit through an entire show. The idea of doing so is almost painful.

 

I'm also a guy who will happily delete all the filler from albums in iTunes. I like singles.

I hear ya, but while wrestling is only a hobby, life (heck, being human) is all about taking the good with the bad. The bad makes me appreciate the good some more. I'm of the mindset that if there's too much good, it's easy to take for granted.

 

Some full shows I like watching because they make some matches at least seem better. Royal Rumble 2000 comes to mind for me. I'm not crazy about the HHH-Cactus Jack match. On its own, to me, it's the quintessential long HHH match that's been overhyped over the years. But watching it within the show, for whatever reason, I have a greater appreciation for it. Maybe it's not so much the match as the additional build-up shown for it or it being matched up with anything else on that card. Either way.

[Matt D]

I think the album comparison has some limitations. On an album it is a single creative voice (or at least a single team of creative voices) creating a coherent product. With a wrestling show, there are multiple voices but there are considerations. The TV leading to a match should impact what creative decisions they do within the match. The other matches on the show should as well since you can't have blood in four matches in a row, etc. Also, what was done last month matches. You can build spots and reversals between matches sure, but also an ongoing storyline that's played out through ringwork. It can work in obtuse ways, too. They specifically put Race vs Haku on the Royal Rumble 1989 card in order to portray Heenan as having split interests as a way to conceptually show a potential example of the Elizabeth issue for Wrestlemania. I think it adds a few percentage points of interest to the Mania match to have seen Haku vs Race first as weird as it sounds. I honestly believe that having watched it. It doesn't move the dial much but it does move it a little.

 

So really it comes back to WHY you are watching. If you're watching to fully understand how good a wrestler is, it makes sense to watch as much of you can of him, including the context around his matches and building up his matches. If you're watching to compare one great match against another to figure out which matches are the greatest, well, it's not nearly as important. If you want to really understand a match in time, then you should watch as much as possible. I watch to kill time, to be able to talk with you fine people, and to have as detailed an understanding of this thing that I love. I feel like I can't do that without seeing as much footage as possible about a single period in time (including magazine articles and WON stories from the era and shoot interviews and whatever else). I honestly enjoy it so it's not work to me and I never feel like I'm missing out because I didn't have time to see some recently pimped NJPW or indy show. If something is thoroughly good enough that I should see it, then I have people whose opinion I trust who will tell me that and I'll see it. In the meantime, I'm happy going about watching what I want to watch with something like an 80s project or DVDVR's March Madness to pull me at least somewhat out of my comfort zone now and again.

[ohtani's jacket]

Not only individual matches, but hand-picked individual matches most of the time. Don't really consider myself a big watcher.

[Wolfman]

I can't watch certain old school WWF cards in their entirety. No reason to watch Steve Lombardi vs Jose Luis Rivera going to a twenty minute draw.

[theconstipatedsmark]

They both have their benefit, but when you have three hours with nothing really important to do and a wrestling show you really want to see, hardly anything compares IMHO.

[Johnny Guitar]

I can't watch certain old school WWF cards in their entirety. No reason to watch Steve Lombardi vs Jose Luis Rivera going to a twenty minute draw.

Watching some old school cards is depressing as hell,as you end up noticing how many people on it are either dead or crippled.

[victory]

It really depends on my mood. If I'm in a mood for example to watch Randy Savage matches I don't want to sit through other stuff to get to his match. So a comp/best of is the way I go.

 

Then other times I'm just in a mood to watch a World Class show and don't really care who is on the card. I just want to enjoy the whole feel of the show from start to finish.

 

Overall I'm 50/50 I would say.

 

For music I'm definitely a person who only wants to listen to a few songs off an album. I will listen to the whole thing once, but after that I'm going to pick and choose from what I liked at first listen.

[Wolfman]

I wish I could see the entire cards of some of the old NWA shows I went to in Philly. There were good start to finish.

[Smack2k]

When Chad and I talked to Loss last month, he mentioned that Starrcade 89 is the first full show he'd watched in ages.

 

I have a friend who has an almost militant (and in my view insane) stance when it comes to music albums. He argues that you're missing out on too much context if you skip tracks or hit "play all --> shuffle" on your i-pod. He insists on only listening to albums from start to finish and says this is the best way to get the best out of good music. I often make fun of him for this.

 

I wanted to drill into this a bit more vis a vis wrestling though. I quite like watching full shows for a number of reasons.

I'm not sure this concept works completely for wrestling. Albums such as Love's Forever Changes, Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, and the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St (just to name a few) are cohesive works of art which are intended to be digested as a complete whole. Sure, a person is able to listen to Tumbling Dice on its own and enjoy it as a good song but when it is placed alongside strong album cuts like Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, and Casino Boogie (all featured on record 1/side 1) the listener is given a much richer musical experience that creates mood and atmosphere. This goes double for a concept album like Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in which the songs taken as a whole allows the listener to gain some sort of understanding of the emotional state of its creator, Brian Wilson.

 

I'm not sure complete wrestling shows work on the same deep, abstract level that the majority of the greatest albums ever recorded are able to work.

 

 

On the other side, not ALL Albums are made to be listened to in their entirety....Classics like Dark Side / Wish You Were Here / Every Beatles Album starting with Sgt Pepper and some of the greats cabinboy mentioned SHOULD be listened to in their entirety...but outside that, MOST albums are individual tracks cut by the band / performer in seperate sessions with completely different meanings to each and can be listened to as singles...so with that:

 

I am a BIG fan of individual matches most of the time (like most albums made), but feel that full angles or show long tournaments (classic albums) should be seen in their entirety to get the full vision of things...so its a matter of what you are watching...

 

Quick Example:

 

Survivor Series 1998 should be seen in entirety

Battle Of the Belts 1986 (with Luger / Flair 2/3 Falls) can be seen individually...

 

Completely out of the blue examples..but you get the idea..

 

Hope you are well Jerry VonKramer...your show is still really good..I miss the few I got to do and so wish I could still be there..keep it up!