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AUG 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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These last few pages have been WILD. Art, wrestling, chain restaurants... I couldn't read every word people posted, but I didn't see anybody talking about art as an actual artist. I played in the New England music scene for decades. I made art, according to some, and occasionally folks gave us money, but in the end I would've loved more love and more money. Fuck knows it cost me more than I ever made. 

All art, all media, all wrestling is valid. Love it or don't. If you don't like chocolate there's always pistachio or some fucking lemon sherbet. There's a billion styles of music. The greatest writer's words don't lose their impact regardless of how many times their reprinted. You can appreciate the Mona Lisa in person at the Louvre if you've got the time, money, and privilege, but seeing a copy in a magazine is just as legitimate if you appreciate it. Ruth's Chris is probably tasty as fuck, and so is what I make on my grill, and do you KNOW the mark-up on steak at restaurants? It's bananas, but YOU eat what YOU want.

Love your food, your wrestling, your art, despite of what others think. It's all valid ?

 

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I've come away from this conversation kinda upset that someone insinuated that Ruth's Chris was better than The Keg. Hell no.

I can't get a slice of Miner Pie at Ruth's Chris, that's for damn sure.

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9 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

I've come away from this conversation kinda upset that someone insinuated that Ruth's Chris was better than The Keg. Hell no.

I can't get a slice of Miner Pie at Ruth's Chris, that's for damn sure.

AMEN

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1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

If you can't rate a match in comparison to what it was there to accomplish than I don't think you should rate it at all..

It's like movies to me. The Conjuring can be rated high, just because it's horror doesn't lessen what it set out to do and accomplish. 

A showy match can be just as great as something heavy on psychology or counter wrestling etc.

The Rogert Ebert school of criticism!  I'm a firm believer in it.  Dude gave The Devil's Rejects three stars out of four.  Great review, too. 

14 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

 Ruth's Chris is probably tasty as fuck, and so is what I make on my grill, and do you KNOW the mark-up on steak at restaurants? It's bananas, but YOU eat what YOU want.

I've been to Ruth's Chris once in my whole life.  It was pretty damn enjoyable but also really expensive.  If it cost 3x as much as say, Outback, was it 3x as good as Outback?  Probably not.  Like a lot of things, I feel like what you're spending on something reaches a point where it's just senseless. 

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1 hour ago, tbarrie said:

Apropos of nothing, "Ruth's Chris Steakhouse" is a weird fucking name. It's the only large restaurant chain whose name I'm not even sure how to parse. Best I can figure out it's supposed to be a steakhouse owned by somebody named Ruth serving the meat of somebody named Chris.

 

The steakhouse used to be Chris Steakhouse, named after the owner. Weird name, yes.

Then it was bought by a woman named Ruth...something...and she kept the Chris in the name, hence Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

No, I'm not fucking with you.

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I've long suspected that the head-drop escalation in '90s AJPW was driven by the wrestlers themselves. My theory is that a lot of pro wrestlers are masochistic thrill-seekers, who justify their self-inflicted brutality by claiming they're doing it for the fans, when really it's mainly for their own satisfaction. (But then fans do get acclimated to it, so it becomes a vicious cycle.)

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31 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

I didn't see anybody talking about art as an actual artist.

I wrote and played in bands for over a decade (for no financial recompense whatsoever). IMO wrestling is performance art, and is also a business. It's a collaboration: art for money. You can't separate the two. It's not like playing a basement show and writing songs with your friends, painting, writing, etc. Without a paying audience wrestling wouldn't exist. That is its nature. 

Now trying to nail down what makes great wrestling in completely objective terms is like juggling about running, or whatever that analogy is. It's pointless. You can't draw parallels between all matches aside from they take place in a ring, and sometimes even then they don't. 

That's my two cents about two of the major conversations taking place here anyway. 

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My point about bringing up being musician was just to say that yeah, we had a lot of fun making the music we made and easily would have been doing it for free, but at the same time getting paid for it after recording on our own dime was very nice as well and I don't think invalidated at the "art" we made, but you're definitely right, @Curt McGirt- wrestling, at least on a scale as big as a decent indie, isn't quite comparable.

Art SHOULD be paid for, though, and as a society were basically taught that it's something we are just given for free whenever we want. 

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10 hours ago, Craig H said:

The steakhouse used to be Chris Steakhouse, named after the owner. Weird name, yes.

Then it was bought by a woman named Ruth...something...and she kept the Chris in the name, hence Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

screenshot_20171014-021257164282093.jpg?

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22 hours ago, supremebve said:

I'd probably argue against that being art as well.  I think art is an exercise in creativity.  Once you start mass producing "art" to be sold, or designing things for someone else to paint, or limiting your creative process to appeal to more people you are no longer producing true art.  You can be a painter, or a musician, or a sculptor, and you can create high quality work, but that isn't what I would consider art.  

Honestly, this might be the opposite. Art is an exercise in creativity, but more specifically, to make art is to want other people to see it and understand something going on. No matter what it is- to paint, to create music, to sculpt, to write, to wrestle- whether it's as big as the musician making "I am making a three minute pop song because it'll be a huge hit and everyone will see it", or as small as "I wrote a piece of fanfiction  and maybe two or three people will think it's interesting", the very act of making art is wanting someone else to see it and understand something you want them to see or feel.

Art may be about creativity, but if someone truly does not care if anyone sees your artwork after its finished and truly not caring about whether anyone else in the world likes it? They're not making art, they're masturbating. 

16 hours ago, supremebve said:

Yes and no.  I think Flair is great, but he's like the Shawn Michaels prototype.  If you went to see Flair you were going to get you money's worth, but it's all steak and lobster.  If you want innovative vegetarian fare, they'd just look at you and say, "why would you want that when you could have this?"  Ric Flair was trying to give you the best that he had every single night, but what he thought was the best had much more to do with his effort and much less to do with giving you something unique.  I think the reason him and Foley never got a long is that Foley was constantly doing something to give the fans something they've never seen, when Flair wanted to give you the best version of the thing you're used to watching.  Flair wasn't attempting to be creative as much as he was trying to be the best.

Well, this also ties into the fact that Flair started being formulaic when he was the touring champion, because ALL touring champions had to do that. Again, going with the same comparison to big chain restaurants, the point of a chain restaurant isn't that "you're getting a generic steak", but rather "Any schmendrick can cook this. We don't need to find a world-class chef to make this, pretty much anyone off the street can follow this recipe and it'll be pretty good...and even if they're so bad at this they can't even boil water, they can at least throw some of these into a microwave and at least satisfy people." 

Hell, I'd go further and say the ability of "yeah, you're only going to put on a two star match with anyone- no matter how good they are....but on the other hand, you'll put on a two-star match with ANYONE.  Take any person, no matter how bad they are or untrained they are, and you'll pull them to the match of their life and make them look like a superstar for one night" is FAR more valuable than "put this person in the ring with another good wrestler, who they've worked with for a while, and you'll get a five star match without thinking...but if you put them in with someone they don't know, it'll be mediocre." It actually ties into the weakness there- if it ties to the NXT claims, it goes to "any two human beings on earth, if you teach them implicitly, have them rehearse it over and over again, and only teach them exactly what it would take to put on this and only this match, until it becomes muscle memory, could put on a three star match together." 

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13 hours ago, Matt D said:

You always have to keep purpose in mind. What were they trying to accomplish? Did they do it. But that's not the be all/end all in a comparative sense. Different purposes have different levels of difficulty and different opportunities. 

But keep it in mind.

For instance, you should absolutely hold purpose against the Road Wild Benoit vs Malenko match because they wrestled like the crowd wasn't there instead of finding some way to marry their act with the unique crowd they were in front of. 

You should hold it against Johnny Polo vs Marty Jannetty because the whole point was to add heat for Jannetty/Kid vs Quebecers by having Polo be a chickenshit heel manager trying to wrestle and instead they went all out and had a spotfest.

You should give credit to Race vs Martel in Portland because even though Race gives Martel WAY too much for it to be a really compelling match, that was to put over Martel, new to the crowd, as a big star, since he was going to be one of the lead babyfaces for the rest of the year. It means the match isn't nearly as good as it would have been if Race took more of it, but it really accomplished what it set out to do.

I'll let someone else engage on the rest (but the direction I'd go would be ...."Geez, that movie had great special effects but a really shitty story." And then you'd go "Sometimes I'm in the mood for that." and then I'd go "Sure, but in a comparative sense..." and add in "There are plenty of movies that have both..." and I don't think we need to do that.) 

That's a great example of a match that's hard to rate. In a vacuum, it's a very good match. The problem is, matches don't happen in vacuums and that was the wrong match for that crowd. 

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The reason I posed that question originally is because my friend and I do a Zoom watch-along every week. Just something to keep busy during the pandemic. His favorite match of all-time is the Rick Steiner/Buff Bagwell vs. Scott Steiner/Giant match from Halloween Havoc 1998. We both know it's not a great match and the booking is all over the place but it's entertaining to see Scott Steiner use roughly 8,000 low blows in that match, Giant coming to the ring smoking a cigarette and doing a missile dropkick, Buff Bagwell turning on Rick, going to the back and coming back in a Bill Clinton mask to hit Rick with a slapjack only for Steiner for overcome all of that and win the match. By any logical standards, that match is a convoluted mess but Buff Bagwell in a Bill Clinton mask will never not get me to pop.

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12 hours ago, Technico Support said:

The Rogert Ebert school of criticism!  I'm a firm believer in it.  Dude gave The Devil's Rejects three stars out of four.  Great review, too. 

I've been to Ruth's Chris once in my whole life.  It was pretty damn enjoyable but also really expensive.  If it cost 3x as much as say, Outback, was it 3x as good as Outback?  Probably not.  Like a lot of things, I feel like what you're spending on something reaches a point where it's just senseless. 

When my dad retired he got gift cards for Ruth's Chris and the Don Shula Steakhouse, everyone thought Ruth's Chris was ok but way to expensive and overrated, Shula's was great and we've gone back a few times. Has there ever been a true steakhouse thread on this board?

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15 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

(...) The root cause of the problems in Japan, IMO, is that they didn't get a new wave of wrestlers. For whatever reason, perhaps the diminishing TV presence, they didn't get as many rookie tryouts and new talent in the 90s as they did in the 80s. Without fresh talent, you become stale. New Japan managed to eventually develop some generational talent, but it took them a while. The Japanese wrestling business has always had severe peaks and troughs, even during the Showa era, but it's basically the same as the US market -- an act gets hot and business heats up. That didn't happen in the 90s. Instead, the promoters cashed in on inter-promotional feuds, had a few fat paydays, and nothing they could book after that which could capture the fans' imaginations.  (...)

I always thought that it was a general problem in Japan, that almost each generation was not on the same level as the previous generation (at least when looking at the Strong Style and King's Road :

Inoki and Baba were big, but not as big as Rikidozan was

Jumbo and Tenryu were definitely not on the level of Baba, Choshu and Fujinami (you can also add Fujinami to that list, if you want) were not nearly on Inoki level.

The second generation might have been on a similar level as the previous generation (Hashimoto and Mutoh vs. Choshu and Fujinami, Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi vs. Jumbo and Tenryu).

The third generation is, as you already pointed out, another drop-off (Sasaki, Nagata, Tenzan and Kojima vs. 3 Musketeers; it's much worse with All Japan, as besides Akiyama, that whole group was a complete bust, star-level wise: Kea, Omori, Honda, Inoue, Izumida ...).

The fourth generation was maybe pari to the third one for New Japan (Tanahashi, Nakamura & Shibata), for King's Road (NOAH now, though mostly still trained in All Japan), you had none who got even close to the Akiyama level, two heavyweights who had to retire way too early and a bunch of junior heavyweights who had to fill the gaps.

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Yes, this would be a worthwhile effort. Now, I'm not excusing nor defending anyone (as everyone will answer for themselves if need be) , but OSJ may have thought that he was on wrestlingclassics message board  (well, of course not) , as that place is becoming a jungle. I'm guessing ever since Mark Nulty passed things have gotten rather brutal over there.

Yeah, I can see why this place doesn't have a Politics -section. Jeez!

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5 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

Art SHOULD be paid for, though, and as a society were basically taught that it's something we are just given for free whenever we want. 

Insofar as I believe the arts should be publicly funded, yes. My view of the collusion between business and art is far more jaundiced than that though -- and art SHOULD be free to all who want to experience it. There is more than enough money in this world to share with artists on a collective level. 

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3 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

Can we make a concerted effort to dial back the insults? Can we go back to the thread about Hana Kimura's tragic passing and remember when we all said how mind-blowing it was that people on the internet could be so cruel? I'd like that, a lot, and I have the feeling I'm not alone. 

Thanks for reading ?

You mean the same thread that, even while people cried crocodile tears about people using the Internet to insult Hana Kimura and cause her death, @Smelly McUgly flat-out said it was okay to bully me because people disagree with my opinions and that everyone should pick on me and not only did he not get punished, but people outright took his side?

Yeah, it's not so much about dialing back the insults and it never has been. There's been a lot of people who pull this shit, even when they know the problems.

Did I hold back on it for a while? Yes- luckily someone else called them out for it instead, and I am grateful for that- but the same thing's been going on- and admitting that thread as proof of how people can be kind and not insult people here just gets to me.

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3 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

You mean the same thread that, even while people cried crocodile tears about people using the Internet to insult Hana Kimura and cause her death, @Smelly McUgly flat-out said it was okay to bully me because people disagree with my opinions and that everyone should pick on me and not only did he not get punished, but people outright took his side?

Yeah, it's not so much about dialing back the insults and it never has been. There's been a lot of people who pull this shit, even when they know the problems.

Probably because you frequently post mini novels that are almost as out of touch as Vince McMahon himself. 

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20 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

You mean the same thread that, even while people cried crocodile tears about people using the Internet to insult Hana Kimura and cause her death, @Smelly McUgly flat-out said it was okay to bully me because people disagree with my opinions and that everyone should pick on me and not only did he not get punished, but people outright took his side?

Yeah, it's not so much about dialing back the insults and it never has been. There's been a lot of people who pull this shit, even when they know the problems.

Did I hold back on it for a while? Yes- luckily someone else called them out for it instead, and I am grateful for that- but the same thing's been going on- and admitting that thread as proof of how people can be kind and not insult people here just gets to me.

You're a bad person who makes light of death because being contrarian on a message board is thrilling.

Don't @ me again. Put me on ignore if you don't like me calling out your fucking disgusting use of someone's suicide to push your "WRESTLING FANS ARE THE REAL PROBLEM" screed. 

You disgust me. 

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16 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

You mean the same thread that, even while people cried crocodile tears about people using the Internet to insult Hana Kimura and cause her death, @Smelly McUgly flat-out said it was okay to bully me because people disagree with my opinions and that everyone should pick on me and not only did he not get punished, but people outright took his side?

 

On 5/23/2020 at 1:36 AM, SorceressKnight said:

If you wonder why I blame the fans...unfortunately, this will go down as Exhibit A.  There is no excuse- no "but it was REALLY the big mean promoters who did it", no "but the customer is always right!", nothing around it. 

Can you at least look at this and understand where people are coming from? How you may have exhibited a failure to read the room and instead pressed on grinding your usual ax? 

Just wanted to add some context. Moving on now. 

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If you can take everything that I wrote and immediately turn around into an attack on somebody else and not see a shred of irony in that, I don't think any further discussion will change your mind. For the record, you've been on ignore for quite a while, and it's a great option for you as well if you don't want to hear what other people have to say. 

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