Branching off from the Dave Meltzer thread here, I'd like to entertain the idea of gathering a "critical consensus" for star ratings. There are plenty of voices beyond Big Dave on the web, but I'm not sure there are enough who provide consistent reviews to make this feasible.

 

Use this thread to play around with the concept and let's gather some influential names who would be worthy of inclusion.

Larry Csonka of 411Mania is one who comes to mind. He's one of the few that does star ratings.

My man Pete (shoe) is a certified accurate star rater

Cagematch allows people to rate individual PPVs. I like to visit there and see how my ratings compare as I watch shows from the past - but because its based in Germany (I think), aside from numerical scores, there are entire reviews I don't understand a word of.

 

I use star ratings - 0-5 (which means a 2.5 is your average match) - and have reviewed a couple thousand matches by now on my blog. Every year or so, I post my database of just scores on my blog but this year I'm going to switch it up and just share the Google Doc (view only) via Facebook (or here if anyone's interested).

 

At this point, I've reviewed a couple hundred PPVs, but they're a bit scattershot. For example, for WCW, most of 89', a couple 92', but then all of 93'-98' and I'm into the winter of 99'. For WWE, its roughly 2002-2004ish, but then every Network Special since the Network debuted (except WrestleMania 30, which I enjoyed with friends).

 

Personally, I love the match reviews here and tend to come here first to see if a match has been reviewed and what people think of it and I love the option of adding my thoughts, even as I'm watching the match in the context of the full show (usually) while others were reviewing it as part of a Yearbook set.

Scott Keith is also known for his star ratings.

 

Are there any other big name journalists like Meltzer who have ever bothered? Did Wade Keller ever rate matches?

Bryan Alvarez has rated a ton of US matches in his newsletter and there's also some 411 guys who are pretty prolific, but they all strike me as second-rate Meltzers with play-by-play "reviews" and jizzing for movez.

 

PUNQ has kind of a weird rating system but he's rated a ton of puro, including literally every show available from 2006-2010

Arnold Furious is a really good reviewer that does star ratings with lots of stuff up on 411mania and then his own site called Rear View Reviews.

 

I always used to enjoy JD Dunn's stuff, again over on 411mania, but I don't think he's posted anything for years.

 

Really, there's plenty of great reviewers that use star ratings all over the match review section of PWO!

You could dig through old DVDVRs, but theres a lot of million, billion stars ratings that may throw off the averages.

Well, this is something I was looking into when I wrote for Wrestling With Words. I created this just to see how it would play out and talked about it with the staff somewhat. Since the site is dead now, here is a spreadsheet that I started:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xWUEz_IyqAlHNRwzBoy2brIYgAWco28ib5yQylIbkC8

 

I only did a certain amount for New Japan and WWE at the time.

Thought of you JML when this post started. I think this is a worthwhile thing but feel it is really narrow in view. For instance, on the VOW message board in dispute of Okada not being the greatest singles wrestler of all time, Meltzer was seen as the gold standard. That could happen where the shift occurs from a singular viewpoint (Ebert) to secular (Rotten Tomatoes) but it would take a consorted effort and probably a committee of core reviewers across different spectrum that would watch all the matches and offer up a rating for them.

Not a bad podcast idea, eh?

I think a wrestling version of RateYourMusic may be more manageable. User ratings and reviews for albums/singles/EPs/etc that are tallied up and put in lists, customisable by year, genre, what have you.

Thought of you JML when this post started. I think this is a worthwhile thing but feel it is really narrow in view. For instance, on the VOW message board in dispute of Okada not being the greatest singles wrestler of all time, Meltzer was seen as the gold standard. That could happen where the shift occurs from a singular viewpoint (Ebert) to secular (Rotten Tomatoes) but it would take a consorted effort and probably a committee of core reviewers across different spectrum that would watch all the matches and offer up a rating for them.

It was interesting how the ratings stacked up cause I tried to find different perspectives in terms of reviews but places like TJ Hawke and SC sometimes don't even bother with reviewing mainstream stuff like New Japan and WWE. Also, I tried to stick to published reviewers for review sites like 411 Mania and the AV Club but I gave leeway to SC and TJ. For th most part and not a new discovery, Dave overrates New Japan and underrates WWE for the most part where as VOW and 411Mania bring the ratings back down to earth.

 

However, it showed that we do need more diversity in reviewers on bigger websites. No slight to TJ Hawke (who used to right on 411Mania) or the SC crew but it's not as big as the sites I had listed.