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FEBRUARY 2021 Discussion of Wrestling


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Final thing on the WON..     as said We've had March Madness here which is our own equivalent (and much more entertaining)  version of Wrestler of the Year (or arguably Most Outstanding Wrestler).  

There were years where WWE midcarders like Cesaro made deep runs.  Rusev made the semis or finals one year.  We had a luchador make a deep run. Bayley vs. Sasha was a finals.  New Japan wrestlers have made deep runs.  independent wrestlers have made deep runs.  i don't believe this voting body is as slanted as the WON voting body at all and that would prove out with additional categories. 

Also, for the most part i think the winners were fine.  AEW had a monster year.  Mox and Omega had great years. The promotion overall has been on fire.  None of my posts are anti-AEW.  it's the best promotion i regularly watch. 

 

 

 

 

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Thoughts out to Jim Crockett Jr. and family.

https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/wrestling-promoter-jim-crockett-jr-grave-condition-334466

Quote

On Saturday's Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer reported that legendary wrestling promoter Jim Crockett Jr. is in "grave condition" as both his liver and kidneys are failing.

"It's not looking good," Meltzer said.

Nothing else regarding the 76-year-old's condition is known at this time.

Wrestling was in Crockett Jr.'s family as his father founded Jim Crockett Promotions which Junior took over in 1977 after his father's death in 1973. Before that, he was an short-term owner of two minor league baseball teams. He became NWA President in 1980, the first of three terms he served in that position over the next 11 years.

During his second term, he purchased the Saturday night time slot Vince McMahon owned on WTBS and the rest is history. JCP eventually re-positioned itself as the NWA as he owned six territories and was president of the organization. 

He sold JCP to Ted Turner in 1988 who renamed the organization World Championship Wrestling. Once again, the rest is history. He flirted with getting back into the business several times, but instead settled on a life outside the business in Texas.

 

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Dumping this armchair wrestling psychology at the end of the month:

Bobby Heenan probably had ADHD. He had both the super quick one-liners no matter the situation and the insufferable need to fidget with things (usually action figures but sometimes other things) while hosting Prime Time with Monsoon.

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6 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Final thing on the WON..     as said We've had March Madness here which is our own equivalent (and much more entertaining)  version of Wrestler of the Year (or arguably Most Outstanding Wrestler).  

There were years where WWE midcarders like Cesaro made deep runs.  Rusev made the semis or finals one year.  We had a luchador make a deep run. Bayley vs. Sasha was a finals.  New Japan wrestlers have made deep runs.  independent wrestlers have made deep runs.  i don't believe this voting body is as slanted as the WON voting body at all and that would prove out with additional categories. 

Also, for the most part i think the winners were fine.  AEW had a monster year.  Mox and Omega had great years. The promotion overall has been on fire.  None of my posts are anti-AEW.  it's the best promotion i regularly watch. 

To me, the people who vote on the WON awards are just about as reflective of a diverse audience as here with the only exception being you get to explain your rationale in depth here and there are perhaps more people willing to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It's easy to dismiss the WON award voting because you're just seeing the numbers being tabulated (same with who enjoys what and what they didn't enjoy on a PPV). So it's just faceless and nameless voting. 

Now I wouldn't disagree with one of your earlier points that Dave has his acolytes. We already know that's a given. The problem with that though is it's very dismissive of people being able to have original thoughts. That's why I have to disagree with you that nobody here is as influential. Yes, they might not be an outright tastemaker like Dave has been over the years. However, I doubt this is the early tape trading days and the pro wrestling boom of the mid to late 90s to the early 2000s where Dave's influence was at it's very peak. You can go back and read old wrestling reviews from that time period, and you see these are copy and pasted Dave's thoughts and information from the Observer written into these reviews.

More importantly, this board has a bunch of smart and well researched people IMO (you definitely will not agree with ALL of them of course on different topics). However, it's hard to say none of these folks can be influential when we have our own favoriting system you can actually see. I would never say people agree with Matt D or odessasteps or gordi etc. because they have avid followers here, a bunch of liked content, and thus those people who gave them a like can't come up with their own personal opinions. Moreover, I wouldn't say there is a WWE bias because I know people openly dislike Dave and/or they cannot stand AEW or AEW fans. To me, if I'm going to give the folks who vote for the WON awards that credit, I have to give this forum that same credit. IMO it's not bias as much as it's what it is: people like what they like.

However, if you did the exact same categories here and you didn't have a chance to discuss anything, I'm pretty sure you would come with mostly the same winners and very similar placement for the nominees or candidates with perhaps a few changes in the order. Thus, people would still be heated and upset afterwards (perhaps because they have more faith in "this" system as opposed to "that" system). The only difference is you wouldn't be able to put that on one person. Whenever you're talking awards of any kind, for whatever reason, people seek that validation for the stuff they like. And if the stuff you don't like or didn't like as much wins, you have to come up with a way to discredit that system or it's criteria. In actuality, you should probably just dismiss awards as whole because 9 out of 10 times you're going to have the exact same thoughts and feelings the next time around. Nothing is going to change in a year. In the same vain, nothing really changes here. If someone dislikes Misawa and Kobashi this year, they're probably going to dislike them going forward. There might be one or two people who change their minds because another member recommended something, but it's not going to be a whole sea change on 90s All Japan. This board would suck if people just have different, conflicting thoughts on every subject from one day to another. People definitely have their differing and dissenting thoughts (some more inflexible than others), but for the most part, it's not to the point of aggravation. There is a ton of agreement here. I don't see that as hive minded or anything. It's just that there are reasons people congregate here that are very similar to the reasons people subscribe to the Observer. It might not be 1:1 the same, but still very similar whether or not you love Meltzer or completely hate his guts. 

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28 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

More importantly, this board has a bunch of smart and well researched people IMO (you definitely will not agree with ALL of them of course on different topics). However, it's hard to say none of these folks can be influential when we have our own favoriting system you can actually see. I would never say people agree with Matt D or odessasteps or gordi etc. because they have avid followers here, a bunch of liked content, and thus those people who gave them a like can't come up with their own personal opinions. Moreover, I wouldn't say there is a WWE bias because I know people openly dislike Dave and/or they cannot stand AEW or AEW fans. To me, if I'm going to give the folks who vote for the WON awards that credit, I have to give this forum that same credit. IMO it's not bias as much as it's what it is: people like what they like.

i do think the posters you named and several others are likely influential but there is a variety of taste among them and something like March Madness you had posters making their case, posting matches and interviews and opened a new door for some folks who were unfamiliar with those wrestlers. i don't know how that process affects the results but to me the outcomes seemed more varied.  i can't imagine with WON we would ever see two women at the top of the Wrestler of the Year list or a WWE midcarder in the top 4 etc. 

i agree on awards overall.  it's mostly a discussion so people can feel good about what they like.  

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10 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

i do think the posters you named and several others are likely influential but there is a variety of taste among them and something like March Madness you had posters making their case, posting matches and interviews and opened a new door for some folks who were unfamiliar with those wrestlers. i don't know how that process affects the results but to me the outcomes seemed more varied.  i can't imagine with WON we would ever see two women at the top of the Wrestler of the Year list or a WWE midcarder in the top 4 etc. 

i agree on awards overall.  it's mostly a discussion so people can feel good about what they like.  

I think that's more on the sample size (and the type of sample size) if anything. And for the previous sentence, that definitely would affect the results or else why do it? With the WON awards, unless you're on the F4W forums or anywhere else those folks migrate (hell, some of them are likely here as well), you're not going to get a chance to huddle up and make a case for anything. Moreover, if someone is making a case, what goes into is the person making that case. Who am I likely to trust: You or some poster who has 15 posts and I never heard of? Even if we disagree on 99% of everything. Unless we're just on completely opposite ends of the spectrum, I am leaning your way. Now do that with someone who I agree with at least HALF of the time. That would perhaps greatly influence my voting. See, you're never going to escape any type of influence. Dave's way is that he's not going to do it like a general election where you can campaign for (or as done here, "pimp") your favorite matches or wrestlers through the newsletter. That way has its faults, but I doubt any way here would avoid having faults. However, I would never discredit it because there is no perfect system for awards or voting. It's just the general acceptance of the system that makes it that way and gives it any semblance of power. 

If Dave's way was so fucked up, the level of participation would nosedive even if he had his ardent backers. Same way here. And again, it also doesn't help that wrestling (largely WWE) is in this weird place where it's not as bad as it was in 1991-1995, but it's definitely not super popular. That definitely applies to its critical appeal. That's always going to play into voting. There is a decent contingent here that doesn't like WWE at all. Are there enough people to counterbalance that? Yeah, but I can only come to that conclusion through anecdotal evidence and just the "feeling" that it may feel fairer. There is probably a number of people who vote on the WON awards who feel the same way. I wouldn't dismiss that either.

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44 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

  i can't imagine with WON we would ever see two women at the top of the Wrestler of the Year list or a WWE midcarder in the top 4 etc. 

Maybe the year (95 or 96) when Toyota won Most Outstanding if there had been more support for Hokuto,  Nakano or another AJW woman. But that's also something Dave pushed very hard to his readers as revolutionary and cutting edge. 

And there are probably a number  of "WWF midcarders" that could have gotten support in the mid 80s, Steamboat most likely and Savage if you consider the IC title (the workers belt) as midcarders and not people who often headlined the B shows. 

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I started up a 2020 Awards thread in huge part because I'm genuinely curious to see how much opinions here might diverge from the ones at the WON. 

Another thing is this: I wonder how many people put real thought into their awards ballots vs how many people who would like to put real thought in but are pressed for time so end up mostly going chalk so they can at least get a ballot in. I'm sure some people literally keep a notebook on this stuff. On the other end of the spectrum, when I did my post on the WON awards in this thread, the one with all the blue text, I just had the reddit thread with the results and a random wrestling site listing the winners open in my browser and I did a fair bit of cutting and pasting. I tried to come up with some "alternative" candidates, but I didn't think of Lulu Pencil until after I posted it. I remember loving one of the Mox vs Darby matches but I couldn't remember if it was 2020 or 2019... It's not like I had a couple of days to really work on it and do research and stuff. I wanted to contribute to the discussion while it was ongoing.

So I can imagine that kind of stuff also lends itself to results being a bit same-y and predictable sometimes. Maybe people who've been busy with other stuff and didn't have time to watch everything might have felt safe going with "obvious" choices like The Bucks, Omega, ZSJ... if they still wanted to get a ballot in. Similar to how a washed-up vet with a great pedigree will often make the pro bowl or the all star game over a younger player who is obviously better but hasn't been voted in before.

That being said, the WON results mostly seem very reasonable to me and a fair representation of pro wrestling in 2020. It's not like Mox and Omega and Bucks and ZSJ are bad choices!

And I'd still very much like to see everyone's personal lists.

Edited by El Gran Gordi
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Personally, I used to put in the same kind of work for my Awards ballot every year that I used to when I filled out my Gillette MLB all star ballot. I haven’t done an awards ballot in a few years, but I do put in the same kind of work for my HOF balllot these days. On the other hand, most of my March Madness voting here was mostly who do I like better. ? 

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 The Observer awards generally go to quality wrestlers/wrestling. I object to support of some individuals like Randy Orton or HHH because they are boring to me. However the one (now defunct) award that was way off to me was the worst tag team award. I loved watching Baba & Andre, The Oddities, Boogie Man & Bugsy and most of the other winners.

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Melzer is a reason why AEW became a thing in some form or another whether he wants to admit it or not. He's been putting over Omega and the Bucks heavy before AEW existed. It doesn't bother me that he puts that company other so heavy because I'd be lying if I said I didn't value his a opinion but I don't agree with everything he says. I'm not one of these AEW superfans but I want them to succeed as far as they possibly can and if Melzer putting them over so much helps then I'm fine with it. The same way Cornette burying them every week is helping them too whether he knows it or not. It's been almost 20 years without a second major promotion. I don't watch AEW as much as I'd like to but I'm happy that they are on a major channel that supports them. I'm not into this promotional Tribalism, but I understand it because when I was younger I was all about ROH over everyone else. I'm at the point now where I want every promotion to seceed as far as they can. There are guys every company that I'm a huge fan of even if they aren't used how they should be 

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I saw a lot of people on Twitter losing it over the Observer Awards, including Wrestling Bios, which disappointed me. I could definitely argue some of the winners, but I don't get all the people getting bent out of shape over the winners. This isn't the Academy Awards, and it's all opinion at the end of the day. What it all really comes down to, IMHO, WWE fans feel like WWE is getting under-served and overshadowed by the upstart AEW. 

And I will give fair play because there were some positive booking moves by WWE in 2020, ie Roman Reigns' heel turn, Sasha Banks and Bayley's feud, etc. But plenty of other bad booking decisions stick out. Not to mention, WWE's presentation and promo style has just become so stale, homogenized, and over-produced, from the camera work, to the promos, to the announcing. I can understand being refreshed by a promotion like AEW offering something different. 

Edited by TheVileOne
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I do think it is kinda funny how people get hung up on these awards (myself included sometimes) as I look at most other awards/award shows that happen for tv, movies, music, video games, books and so forth and I would wager in many situations they end up picking things many either didn't care for or wouldn't consider better than anything else. Some are decided by letting only certain experts vote, some by just going with a straight popularity contest and... well how many times have you went "yes, that was clearly the best movie/show/album/book/game/etc" compared to how many times you went "no way was that the best of the year"?

 

I think the observer awards cause more consternation not because of Meltz himself, but because there is only really Meltz. If you didn't agree with what Ebert thought about movies there were dozens of other top critics who you could find a top 10 of the year from, if Pitchfork kept praising music you didn't care for there were other respected sites or publications that would promote a different view or taste of music. With wrestling only Meltzer is really on that top level of renown and influence, you can find a Segunda Caida that looks for different things in wrestling but there is really no other big/known other figure of that type out there anymore, there were some others at earlier points but they for the most part faded away. In those other media even if the awards seem to go to poor choices there is likely a big enough community that agrees and offers counter options you may find more agreeable, in wrestling these are the only choices and they are being recorded as fact by the main historian of the medium.

 

 

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I can't find it now, but while catching up on my Twitter feed this morning, I stumbled across a random interview with Raven where he talked about how he once mistook chunks of drywall for cocaine and snorted them.

I'm still speechless.

 

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44 minutes ago, Eoae said:

I can't find it now, but while catching up on my Twitter feed this morning, I stumbled across a random interview with Raven where he talked about how he once mistook chunks of drywall for cocaine and snorted them.

I'm still speechless.

 

That's some prime real estate. 

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1 hour ago, Eoae said:

I can't find it now, but while catching up on my Twitter feed this morning, I stumbled across a random interview with Raven where he talked about how he once mistook chunks of drywall for cocaine and snorted them.

I'm still speechless.

 

I remember the first time that I met him. "Hi I'm Scotty, Do you have any pills?" 

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4 hours ago, ka-to said:

I remember the first time that I met him. "Hi I'm Scotty, Do you have any pills?" 

Decent way to end this thread:

Not too long ago, I was listening to a segment from Stone Cold's podcast with Raven talking about the creation of the Raven gimmick. Between Raven casually talking about being on a coke bender before he got the call from Paul to come in, Steve ignoring he just said that, and Raven also saying he went to the wrong high school for the spot show where the character was suppose to officially debut, I can believe just about any Raven drug story that can be told.

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