Ageism in pro wrestling

[Jimmy Redman]

The ladder match won MOTY.

 

I say this with love but Dylan and co. were in the minority.

[Matt D]

Still are. We forget that sometimes because of the awesome bubble we've got going.

[Microstatistics]

I don't know about the PWO circle, but yeah generally that ladder match (and Jericho in general) got a ton of praise at the time. Almost everyone thought it was four star - MOTYC level stuff. Haven't seen it in years but I remember it being one of the weaker matches of their 08 series.

[NintendoLogic]

Honestly, Dylan is literally the only person I can recall who expressed a negative opinion about the ladder match. I haven't seen it, but I doubt I'd like it much due to my disdain for ladder matches in general. I did like all the other matches in their series, though.

[jdw]

 

Edit: well I asked him and he's confirmed it with a caveat: "although he's an actual journalist and I'm just a guy blathering about wrestling."

I followed up on this and he said that he couldn't afford an observer sub till 2000.

 

Let's make this easier: I will retract my single apportioning of blame to Meltzer, let's just say the lines of influence are too hard to untangle, and instead let's give the blame to every single person who contibuted to the rspw FAQ.

 

In a way that means jdw is in some way responsible for smarky crowds, which seems about right.

 

 

Smarky crowds existed before I got online and before I started writing for the Torch, both of which happened in 1996. It's not hard to find a specific smarky crowd prior to that.

 

 

Again, as somebody who was on RSPW and various other places around during the 90's without being part of any 'scene', we got it 2nd hand through garbled paraphrasing of the Observer from various people who had subscriptions. By that measure, were we "influenced" by Meltzer? Sure. But, it wasn't Meltzer saying "oh these wrestlers are great" so we all liked it, but it was more Meltzer said these guys are great and we watched tapes or saw them on Nitro or RAW or ECW and realized, they're pretty great. I mean, I could make the same argument that a lot of your star ratings on AJPW matches are close to Meltzer's. Because sometimes, there is a 'right' rating for a match to 99% of the people who watch it.

 

Also, you have to remember, the Overton Window of acceptable wrestling opinions on the Internet was much narrower in 1995 than it is now. Basically everybody loved Benoit. Basically everybody thought Hogan was the devil. It took until the late 90's and sites like DVDVR and its offshoots for basic things like 'ya' know, Hogan wasn't that bad a worker during the 80's' to bubble up to the surface.

 

Jesse pretty much nails it.

[Parties]

Jericho-Michaels sucked, while Jericho-Mysterio from roughly the same time was great to the point where they were having MOTYCs on random Smackdowns. I remember not even understanding how slow botch magnet Y2J was having these matches, which to this day are the best of his career. It's tempting to say Rey carried him based on how bad Jericho was directly before and after, but I always think it's weird and tricky to say someone "carried" someone else unless its an injury situation. Some guys just have good chemistry, or find their athletic groove for a limited time in the same way that in baseball, career .250 hitters will get red-hot for some random month.

[JerryvonKramer]

Smarky crowds existed before I got online and before I started writing for the Torch, both of which happened in 1996. It's not hard to find a specific smarky crowd prior to that.

Even you can recognise the difference. Even you.

[Loss]

jdw, I think the argument is that we've shifted from smarky crowds as occasional anomalies to smarky crowds as the general norm.

[Laz]

Which makes sense given the crowd shift (pro wrestling has become an accepted part of nerd culture, notorious for over analyzation and general snark). It's pretty hard to blame Meltzer for that when half the media surrounding [insert superhero movie here] is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of it.

 

If you really want to pinpoint when the overall tone of fandom changed, there's probably going to be something meaty with the James Rolfe/Doug Walker growth in popularity. However, as has been said, good booking/writing can overcome a jaded and cynical audience.