odessasteps Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I saw Flair vs Hawk at the 86 Bash in Philly. It was an okay match, with annoying finish: the tommy Young “crawl across the ring while slapping the match to fool folks into there was a three count being made” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MORELOCK Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 All of these ridiculous prevailing IWC opinions can be traced directly back to Dave Meltzer - Keith was always just poorly cosplaying Meltzer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 At least Meltzer is consistent though. He likes pace, innovation, and workrate. It's generally pretty easy to figure out where you stand in relation to him and adjust his ratings. Keith...... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 1 hour ago, MORELOCK said: All of these ridiculous prevailing IWC opinions can be traced directly back to Dave Meltzer - Keith was always just poorly cosplaying Meltzer. I think it can't be understated how little a presence Meltzer had during the early internet years though. More people got their news from 1wrestling or Scoops or whatever. He was a late adopter and never really did wrap his head around technology. A guy like Keith, just by having a lot of easily accessible content that covered a broad range of stuff, ended up having an inordinately large footprint to a certain generation of fans. Most "critical" aspects of the IWC mentality stemmed from Meltzer and his contemporaries but we were fed it secondhand. I think it's interesting to look at how the DVDVR guys (DEAN, Phil S, Phil R, Pete specifically) ended up diverging, but that's another story (and a little close to home). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Wilson Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 Yea to agree with Matt, I got into following wrestling via internet around 2001 and read all the 1wrestling/Scott Keith stuff, but didn't really know much about Dave until years later. Sometimes those sites referenced him, but I don't think the teenagers of the early years knew Meltzer as more than just a guy people quoted as a source, his content/reviews weren't all over the place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I go on Keith's blog, mainly for his observer reviews. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Wilson Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 4 minutes ago, Kuetsar said: I go on Keith's blog, mainly for his observer reviews. . . . Being a Bills fan is no longer your worst life decision. 2 1 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victator Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 52 minutes ago, Kuetsar said: I go on Keith's blog, mainly for his observer reviews. . . . That is like a neutral place thing for people who like the Observer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sydneybrown Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I'm very curious how many people actually get print versions of the Observer. I find it funny how Dave mocks the WWE for still charging for PPVs when you can get it all for $9.99 a month, meanwhile he charges $13 a month for printed newsletters while you can get the newsletter online plus access to the entire site and archives for $10 a month. (Insert "I'd pay an extra $3 to avoid Bryan Alvarez too" joke here.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 3 minutes ago, sydneybrown said: I'm very curious how many people actually get print versions of the Observer. I find it funny how Dave mocks the WWE for still charging for PPVs when you can get it all for $9.99 a month, meanwhile he charges $13 a month for printed newsletters while you can get the newsletter online plus access to the entire site and archives for $10 a month. (Insert "I'd pay an extra $3 to avoid Bryan Alvarez too" joke here.) Me. Entering my 27th year of getting the print observer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakk_Sabbath Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I started reading 1wrestling when I was around 10 after I got linked there through an ad on ECW's site but I honestly don't think I heard of the Observer until an older friend mentioned it to me about 3-4 years later. I used to send Dave Scherer the shittiest little kid emails too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranesi Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I got back into wrestling in '98 or so and started lurking here soon after and within a year I would say the Observer (or at least the Eyada show) was the only source I paid any attention to. Kieth, 1wrestling and the rest seemed like tedious blowhards trying too hard to be entertainers (one thing no one would accuse Meltzer of is trying too hard to be entertaining) and they also tended to crash Internet explorer with popups. '99-2000 was that weird moment where "white guys blogging about stuff they like to watch" seemed like a viable career. I remember thinking James Lileks was going to be funny and important forever for about a month until he decided Al Quaeda was on its way to Minnesota to kill him and that he would single-handedly save white white protestant culture by blogging about Battlestar Galactica. But it was also such an obvious hustle. At least Meltzer was the weird shut-in collector with stacks and stacks of old wrestling mags who obviously had no choice in life but to do this because it was a genuine compulsion and the internet just sort of appeared around him. The rest seemed like con men who wanted a way in on the "internet thing" and chose wrestling because it seemed easy. At least that's how they all seemed to me then. If there was no internet Meltzer would still be being Meltzer right now. There's nothing else he can be. I kind of like that. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwoy2j Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 13 hours ago, EVA said: My question is, did @cwoy2j have this encyclopedic knowledge of Scott Keith reviews BEFORE today, or did this self-destructive behavior start after Miami lost to Pitt? I think the former might be more troubling, honestly. SK was the first writer I was introduced to when I joined the mythical "IWC" back in the late 90's. Honestly he doesn't bug me that much b/c I just treat him like any critic of anything. He's got his own tastes which I won't agree with most of the time but he's entertaining enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 It was also the case that a lot of us were kids when we got into this at the start of the IWC era. That's just the general age of the board. I think I was 16-17 when I started looking at things. Kids are drawn to shiny things: spots, bumps, movez, quick-paced action, lots of two-count kickouts in rapid succession. Keith spoke to those. They're less drawn to the more nuanced things in wrestling like foreshadowing, build and payoff, the timing of hope spots and cutoffs, crowd interaction, consistent selling, and character work in both offense and reactions, all of the stuff that barely has a place in the narrow Special Effects driven workrate mold. (The two are not exclusionary, of course, but sometimes the first can disrupt the second, and if you have the first without the second, you're going to have a Michael Bay movie instead of a wrestling match; kids like those though). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 The only site I frequented as a kid was Lords of Pain (bwahahahaha) but that was for just for news. I actually found DVDVR through searching for anything related to Japanese garbage wrestling (I was that kid that would get on the library computer and look at pics of Onita bleeding, my version of Matt's "shiny things") and read ever since, but didn't get on the board until '08. There were a lot of time lapses in my fandom in between there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 I didn't get into the IWC until probably 2003. Meltzer must have been king at that point. I just remember every site using his reports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanChessgame Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 When I first got regular internet in 1996 wrestling sites were the first thing I looked up. RSPW took me to scoops central (which became my browser start page when I got my own computer), wrestlezone, and a few other sites that I'd check every day. The only blogs I regularly followed were recaps of the Monday night shows. The only other friend I had who was close to being a "smart" fan subscribed to several print dirtsheets, but I don't believe any of them were the observer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RRR Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said: The only site I frequented as a kid was Lords of Pain (bwahahahaha) but that was for just for news. I actually found DVDVR through searching for anything related to Japanese garbage wrestling (I was that kid that would get on the library computer and look at pics of Onita bleeding, my version of Matt's "shiny things") and read ever since, but didn't get on the board until '08. There were a lot of time lapses in my fandom in between there... I did LOP too lol Didn’t take long before I noticed at the bottom of all the news the source was always WO and eventually I just cut out the middleman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 16 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said: I didn't get into the IWC until probably 2003. Meltzer must have been king at that point. I just remember every site using his reports. 2004 for me and I more or less remember it the same way.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wyld Samurai Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 In the 90s it was Bob Ryder, Wade Keller and the absolutely fantastic throw a dart at a board Al Isaacs. But they all just copied Super Dave. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 Finn Balor's open mocking of the not over thing is my favorite thing on wrestling Twitter this week EDIT - The poll is "Which Raw Superstar would you like to see challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Title next?" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabremike Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 Would be tremendous if the whole thing leads to a Daniel Bryan type backlash where they basically have no choice but to push Finn. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brysynner Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 36 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said: In the 90s it was Bob Ryder, Wade Keller and the absolutely fantastic throw a dart at a board Al Isaacs. Yokozuna will finally join the Hart Foundation this week! Also all this talk abou late 90s Internet writers reminds me of Chris Hyatte who I thought was the best back when I was a teenager. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 Also, those other options to face Brock are horrible. Terrible. I'd have no interest in any of those especially the rematches. Maybe Roman since their first match was great but not looking forward to another coronation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 55 minutes ago, RIPPA said: Finn Balor's open mocking of the not over thing is my favorite thing on wrestling Twitter this week EDIT - The poll is "Which Raw Superstar would you like to see challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Title next?" Wait, did Balor vote for himself in that poll? What a mark! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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