Stay away from Twitter Dave Meltzer.  Its a marketing tool and little more.

7 minutes ago, fxnj said:

Agreed. It’s impossible to argue with a statement like that since he fails to back it up with any specific examples. It’s just another Twitter Dave hot take designed to incite controversy and little else. If you’re getting triggered into going on a message board and bitching about how he only likes “CrossFit wrestling” then you’re doing exactly what he wants you to do.

If his goal is to get people to point out how shitty his opinions are, then kudos. He has won this day.

Being a journalist and all, perhaps his priorities should aim a smidge higher though? Just a thought.

"Crossfit wrestling" is my new least favourite board gimmick. Get done with it already, people.

As far as the rest goes, I happen to agree totally with Meltz as far as Omega vs Okada feud being the best ever maybe, and this G1 being on another level than pretty much anything ever. And totally disagree about him shitting on Taichi, for instance. So there. 

Haven't subbed in years, does Dave still bring up his opinion of it being unfair to judge old wrestling through modern eyes? He always used that one whenever Brody or Tiger Mask was discussed

Really interesting tweet from Dave on Bret vs. Shawn.

There's a number of directions I'd like to go, but I need some more time to formulate my thoughts, so I'll let the board take a crack at it first.

Basically just says his taste in what he likes changes. Which is cool, but also just adds to the pile of reasons why no one should just subscribe to one person's opinions on performance and art.

Well, I think some people would dispute the notion that Dave is any less into theatricality today, as well as the idea that New Japan main event style is closer to Bret's style than Shawn's.

46 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Well, I think some people would dispute the notion that Dave is any less into theatricality today, as well as the idea that New Japan main event style is closer to Bret's style than Shawn's.

Why are "some people " "disputing " the notions that Dave actually said? 

I totally agree with Meltz about the current NJ greatness. Okada & Tanahashi especially (it really struck me during the G1) are the like best Bret Hart ever mixed with a modern high end offensive style. And Bret Hart to me was a much better wrestler than Michaels anyway.

21 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Basically just says his taste in what he likes changes. Which is cool, but also just adds to the pile of reasons why no one should just subscribe to one person's opinions on performance and art.

Well said, 100% agree.

22 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Why are "some people " "disputing " the notions that Dave actually said? 

Not even sure what I'm disputing, but today's style is much about theatrics and how it looks on the surface than ever before. Each person can find that better or worse than before, I don't think that matters tbh, it is what it is. But I see today's New Japan or almost any other promotion (besides few matches from each one) style not having a lot to do with realism and logic, at least not compared to the other stuff.

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1060684502295502848

"Matches I gave 5 stars in the past when I watch back with today's eyes are usually closer to **** today. The standard has evolved so much higher as the younger wrestlers learn from a greater variety of styles, places and different styled opponents."

A bit late on this but obvious troll is obvious. Argues how 6 and 7 star matches are reasonable while retroactively downgrading 5 star matches from the past and making generalized, outlandish claims not supported by any evidence. It makes sense to use him as a reference for finding matches but there is no reason to take anything he says seriously. 

I'm most confused by his talk of the 'greater variety of styles' in current wrestling. What is this based on? Wrestling right now seems more homogenised than ever. WWE, US/European Indies and NJPW are all predominately the same kind of 'lots of moves and kickouts' wrestling now.

So, did you guys saw that spanish indy match feat. ZSJ that Metlzer gave the full five recently? I'ts on youtube apparently.

7 hours ago, Tetsujin said:

So, did you guys saw that spanish indy match feat. ZSJ that Metlzer gave the full five recently? I'ts on youtube apparently.

I did and it was amazing, they such a simple story. I don't do star ratings but I gave it 5 myself.

So in what has to be the absolute bottom of the barrel, the Bischoff/Russo stans are now chirping at Dave for saying Ready to Rumble was a bad movie.  I didn't even know that was a matter of debate. 

(Context: David Arquette was asked if there would ever be a sequel made, and he said he was down for it but Scott Caan did not want to do it)

Well given that Ready to Rumble was basically a movie un-intentionally design to make wrestling fans looks like uneducated morons, Russo saying it was a good move makes sense.  Plus Ready to Rumble is definitely a better movie on chemicals and we know of Russo's new love of those as well

 

 

Listening to Meltzer and Alvarez talking about Raw, and yeah, the show really sucked but them getting annoyed at Strowman's promo because he exaggerated the severity of his injury is so dumb. Like, they do know that the point of pro-wrestling is to lie, right?

On 11/27/2018 at 9:18 AM, FMKK said:

Listening to Meltzer and Alvarez talking about Raw, and yeah, the show really sucked but them getting annoyed at Strowman's promo because he exaggerated the severity of his injury is so dumb. Like, they do know that the point of pro-wrestling is to lie, right?

This amuses me. Dave glosses over some of the most incredible logic gaps ("That's just WWE") yet often finds some random bit of minutiae to get irritated with like exaggerating an injury.

8 hours ago, artDDP said:

This amuses me. Dave glosses over some of the most incredible logic gaps ("That's just WWE") yet often finds some random bit of minutiae to get irritated with like exaggerating an injury.

I've never figured out when Dave actually gets annoyed by that kind of stuff or when he's trying to make a joke/be sarcastic.

I think I have Meltzer's hot takes and general lack of real content in his Twitter figured.  

He's trying to hang on to subscribers any way he can.  Let's face it, what he does is no longer as necessary as it was in the 90s or early 2000s.  You don't need the Observer or the Torch or whatever other newsletter whose writer you agree with on wrestling to tell you about what happened in this promotion across the world.  It's all on a streaming service that at least 5 people who post on the same board as you do have.  Writers like Dave Meltzer are becoming marginalized by the sheer availability of wrestling and he's just hanging on for dear life.

I say this not as a commentary on Meltzer himself.  I think the world has changed and pro wrestling changed with it.  Meltzer just wants to keep doing what he loves and getting paid for it, which is completely understandable.  

1 hour ago, dawho5 said:

I think I have Meltzer's hot takes and general lack of real content in his Twitter figured.  

He's trying to hang on to subscribers any way he can.  Let's face it, what he does is no longer as necessary as it was in the 90s or early 2000s.  You don't need the Observer or the Torch or whatever other newsletter whose writer you agree with on wrestling to tell you about what happened in this promotion across the world.  It's all on a streaming service that at least 5 people who post on the same board as you do have.  Writers like Dave Meltzer are becoming marginalized by the sheer availability of wrestling and he's just hanging on for dear life.

I say this not as a commentary on Meltzer himself.  I think the world has changed and pro wrestling changed with it.  Meltzer just wants to keep doing what he loves and getting paid for it, which is completely understandable.  

I think you are underselling what Meltzer does. His value is in far more than regurgitating what people could see on a streaming service for themselves. His value is in telling people about what they can’t see on the screen for themselves but want to know. His value is far, far more in news, history, and analysis then it is in recaps or match recommendations.  If it wasn’t, he would have been irrelevant long ago.

Given that, I think the increased accessibility to wrestling only helps him. His base has always been the hardcore fans. Increased accessibility has only made more fans into hardcore fans. There are far more people interested in learning more about New Japan now than five years ago and that plays into Meltzer’s business. Yes, you can find people on message boards who know a lot about wrestling but how much of their knowledge comes from Meltzer? There is not a single person out there that can match Meltzer for depth and breadth of pro wrestling knowledge. Could someone (or more likely, a group of people) outdo Meltzer on those important facets of his job (news, historical perspective, business analysis) and offer the service in one place at a a better price (or for free)? Sure and that might happen, but it hasn’t yet. In any event, I don’t think the services Meltzer provides are being marginalized and will become irrelevant anytime soon. If anything, the thirst for the reporting he provides will only increase with more and more hardcore fans, which is what more and more viewing options should create.

Meltzer types will become largely irrelevant eventually, but we’re not there yet.

The Tumblrization of wrestling fandom still has a ways to go...

10 hours ago, funkdoc said:

The Tumblrization of wrestling fandom still has a ways to go...

What does that even mean?

I agree that Dave's hot takes seem to be his main method of keeping himself relevant, but I see things a bit differently in getting there. If anything, WWE's pivot towards appealing to hardcore fans has created a larger market than ever for dirtsheet writers and the situation with social media has made it so that, reliability notwithstanding, virtually anyone with an internet connection can make a name for themselves reporting and speculating on rumors. I recall the news of John Cena and Bryan getting pulled from Crown Jewel being broken by a virtual no-name, for example. This has created a situation where Meltzer is slowly getting crowded out of the game, so playing up his status as a historian and inciting controversy is the best he can do to keep his name out there. I personally haven't been subscribed to the Observer for close to a decade, as it's made pointless by the sheer number of dirtsheets out there posting and analyzing anything Dave writes within hours of it going up.