El-P

Except that it's been fun. I think you'd like it. They have Punk doing promos about how WWE sucks using lots of typical internet smart mark cliches. I watched the "greatest promo ever". Yeah, it was a great promo. That's why I did watch Cena vs Punk when I stumbled onto MitB. Loved Punk's entrance. Enjoyed the match to a point. Still, I always hated a title switching a hundred time in a month with suspensions and screwjobs and quicky title switch (man, the MitB gimmick seems annoying).

Add to this all of the amazing joshi puroresu and yep, it was a terrific decade. And a varied one. You had great stuff from tons of different style.

Ok, here's my point. What I see on WWE TV are *not* quality matches. This wrestling bores the shit out of me. Going from there, it's easy to name any TV delivering more quality match because I don't see any enjoyable wrestling on WWE TV every time I stumble onto it. We have to agree on disagree on the fact the current WWE wrestling is supposed to be "good". Before the vacations I was watching 1989 NWA Saturday Nights episodes, with mostly squash matches and very few and far between competitive matches. Well, I got tons of enjoyment out of the promos, angles, few good competitive matches and some really fun squash matches. THis appeal to me a lot more that the supposed "great TV" WWE is putting nowadays. And that's not even childhood memories syndrome since I never had access to WCW TV before 1996 and never watched this stuff before. Over the last few years I also watched pretty much all the ECW I could find (a little less than Dylan, but I would say easily 90% of ECW's footage), and I got tons of enjoyment out of it and save an insane amount of stuff on my hard drive. It's not hard for me to find something better than current WWE because I objectively can't stand it. That isn't the case at all. We are just as excited about finding undiscovered gems from 20 years ago as we are at seeing the next Bryan Daniels match. The awesomeness of modern technology means you can do both. Go gaga over new stuff and old stuff. Well quite frankly, more power to you then. I'm definitely turned to the past as far as US wrestling goes at this point, repulsed as I am by WWE and with TNA being so bad and Russorrific. I could download the G1 Climax tomorrow and certainly enjoy it, but I really haven't watched any new puroresu since Misawa died.

Then watch Rey v. Henry next to Bossman v. Kobashi and make that point. I didn't make the point. I'm guessing that was more or less the point.

This is what you don't get, of course I barely watch anything because every time I did for the past 4-5 years, I was so bored out of my mind and hating the presentation of the wrestling so much that what I saw on my screen was mostly repulsive to me. I'm not gonna force myself to watch something I obviously get zero enjoyment or interest from. I watch WM each year (and get bored by pretty much every thing), I watch the occasionnal "great match" because a part of me actually would like to get back into the flow, and I can stumble on french TV from time to time ontop a WWE program, like MitB the other week, which was a total aphazard instance. I can't help it, to me it's unwatchable after 15-20 minutes. I'm not gonna for simple lack of time and to be honest no desire to put me through watch and analyse 5 WWE match at this point. I know it doesn't click with me, I see why. I have no problem with people liking them, quite frankly, to quote a famous french movie reviewer, "People who like it usually are right to like it.". If I never get deeper into the analysis of modern WWE match, it's because I'm already bored by them, so I have no desire spending any more time to actually deeply analyse them. FTR I don't think Rock vs Hogan was a great match. The Rey vs Eddy matches from WWE are to me vastly inferior to their WCW counterpart although still very good, and Eddie vs JBL was excellent and a great Eddie performances. But we're talking about guys from previous eras who, although they did modify their style for the worse to get into the WWE mold, were (or are) still terrific workers. I have an issue with the product as a whole. I can't take the matches out of their context, out of their presentation. They're boring already as they are, but the production (by production I don't mean just the directing, I mean the entire production of the WWE product) makes most of them just unbearable to me.

I don't remember the first time I got acros WildPegasus, but it was a long time ago. I was never at ease with the way people packed on him each and everytime he would say something totally nonsensical, I got the feeling he was indeed bullied. And I don't like people getting bullied in general, even if the guy did deserved to be smacked most of the time. Anyway, the creepiest RE memory I have is me refering to some match as an abortion, only to have RE respond that it was way too much to compare a bad wrestling match to... "killing babies". I stopped right there, not even wanting to touch that subject with RE. He also had tons of wierd sexual remarks that reeked of homophobia and repressed homosexuality at the same time. I remember some thread being closed down after I kinda pushed to guy to start talking about sodomy. Yeah, I admit it, I was a dick to him too. No pun intended, of course. I got a laugh out of the "starting to review korean movies" line BTW.

Come on John, you know that in 2011, the only thing that matters is "playing your role well". That made me chuckle a bit. Also "Takada's execution of shoot moves is not as good as X".....

This is straight out of Russo's booking in 1998/99. Awful stuff.

"It was me all along."

The point is the expectation dropped so much that average matches from 20 years ago happening today on free TV would have people go ga-ga over it today. Or something like that I guess.

At this point, Taker is retired already by wrestling standarts and really only is the yearly WM attraction people come to see. If they don't make the biggest deal ever of him finally disapearing, they're idiots. Taker's last match should be the biggest thing ever in the company.

How many times has the WWE title changed hands since the beginning of the summer and the "great" Punk angle ? With suspensions, bogus tournament, hotshotting title changes twice in one show, Kevin Nash costing someone the title, MitB ?

The issue is that if you don't consider the WWE product as great wrestling, then you're doomed, because they're pretty much the only game in town. TNA sucks way too much to even consider them as an alternative at this point.

Yes, but not to the point of the directing getting totally crazy. That came with the 00's.

Good if the match look good on house show, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a production trick to cover for any mistake or weak shot, and it makes the matches unbearable to watch to me. It's an epileptic directing that keep the brain from concentrating on anything. I hate movies who do the same shit of editing a thousand shots in a minute because things have to move "fast" so the audience doesn't get "bored". I can watch and enjoy a good wrestling match without a frame change every two seconds.

Yes, it's just insane to look at. Really, to use a bizarre comparison, modern WWE style to me is Autotune wrestling : everything is leveled down, anyone can look at least decent because everything is so simplified, safe, robotized and pasteurized, there's no personality in anything, it's even faker looking that the cartoon era thanks to the super slick production, it's the same shit over and over again, it's been totally sucked out of everything that made wrestling fun to me. If that's the apex of wrestling TV, then I guess I'm not much of a wrestling fan after all. Much like I'd rather listen to music produced without any Autotune. Then again, the people who produce those shows aren't wrestling fan or wrestling people either, to the point they're in complete denial about what business they're into. To me it transpires through the way this product is written and produced. It makes whatever good pure wrestling content totally irrelevant. Sorry if I sound like a bitter old man, but there's nothing for me to watch on these shows I haven't seen before done a shitload better without the terrible WWE taste.

I was actually thinking about that one when I mentionned the "so-called great Cena matches" in the other thread. Good match, yep. I mean *good*.

It drives me nuts, makes the matches very hard to watch, and is a huge part why everyone looks "decent". It's a production trick.

It isn't? I'm pretty sure that saying someone isn't very good at his job isn't a compliment. And yes, he's awkward. So what? That really has no bearing on his ability to perform. Plenty of wrestlers with much more severe physical limitations have had good matches. Indeed, "not very good" means exactly that : "not very good". It doesn't mean "godawful" or "terrible". "Awkward" means exactly that, he moves in a very unsmooth way, looks clumsy, nothing he does looks crisp or even solid. A goofy oaf he is. On occasion he can really suck, from what I've seen he's decent enough to be involved in a lot of good matches thanks to the controlled nature of WWE style. I absolutely don't buy the "great Cena era" of the late 00's, I've seen zero Cena match I would call better than "very good". I don't think Cena sucks as a pro-wrestler, I think he's pretty much perfect for that era and the role he's been put into : tons of charisma (although the character sucks, but that's another thing), knows how to work the big match style despite mechanically being a clumsy oaf. Overall I would say Cena is a average to decent worker. That mean he's also, "not very good".

There are plenty, they're out there, they've been exposed time and time again. The only reason I mention the fact that maybe it has passed me by is because I get absolutely nothing out of it each time I try to get back at it. While I can download any current puro card today I will surely enjoy it to a point despite all the very annoying things about current puro. Admit it's already enough to consider WWE as a pretty poor promotion overall. Add to that the shitty overproduced and übercontrolled in-ring style by mostly boring characters and dull workers, and you get the death of pro-wrestling as I like it. The thing I would agree is that it probably level things up to the point no-one can have really horrible matches (except the women, who are godawful) and if you have some basic talent you can look decent every time around. But I don't care about that. I would take any lively wrestling show with some good stuff and some awful stuff over that land of controled dullness that is modern WWE. When I watched stuff for the GOAT poll, I remember enjoying some post 2001 matches up to 2003-2004, and not much of everything past that, and that was a point there was still tons of "old-school" workers on the roster, so you may be right about 2004/2005 being the debut of the style as we know it.

What was problematic about that match v. something like Bret v. DBS or Backlund v. Patera or Shawn v. Foley or anyone of the other matches that are often considered top level WWF matches of all time? Self-conscious modern WWE epic with a truly awkward and not very good worker in John Cena in it. I was thinking : "good match aiming at looking way better than it actually is". Just couldn't hold my interest after a while.

As far as Rey Mysterio best US babyface ever, Ricky Morton and Ricky Steamboat say hello, but I agree he's easily in the top 5.

Modern WWE style (and I put the entire production into the word "style") has basically killed my love for wrestling and has only produced an entire landscape of dullness to me. Fuck modern WWE style. Good for those you can still find something to love in it, I sure can't no matter how many chance I give it. Like I said, either it has passed me by completely, either it really sucks.

I haven't followed the story, but are you saying Mistico got fired and they put another luchador under the Sin Cara hood ? This is truly Max Moon redux.

For all the criticism you can adress to Rey over the years, and there is some I guess, to say he's a "flippy floppy guy" is really stupid.