[Damian Rey 2.0]

Originally Posted by Noid This will be interesting. Are you alleging that something needs to be modern to be good? You surely wouldn't make the case that Funk/Lawler or Bret/Austin weren't great matches would you? I don't want to put words into your mouth though, so please explain this point about age. Is it just that there isn't anything modern on it? I've heard Cornette praise quite a bit of modern stuff -- Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards, the work of Adam Cole, Jay Lethal, The Briscoes, Cesaro, American Alpha, DIY, The Revival, etc.

No, I'm not. In saying that when Cornette talks he does so in a way that favors 80s rasslin as if it was the right way to do things. I'm sure he likes modern stuff. I'm not saying he doesn't. What I'm saying is he has a clear bias when all but one of the matches he considers 5 stars were in the 80s. It's obvious he favors the era and that his wrestling.

He shits on him because of his personal interactions with him and the fact that he was a shitty, shitty wrestler.

The Interaction is fine. The shitting on him as a wrestler based on seeing him 10 years ago when he was apparently green as fuck and watching two comedy bits is ridiculous. Think about that. Cornette is holding onto an opinion that's a decade old with zero idea, seemingly, of how good an in ring performer the guy is.

Cornette praised the athleticism. He praised Okada's dropkick and said that the spots were crisp. He praised the accuracy of the bump through the table. Sorry, but this is just incorrect.

He made 3 nice comments on a match even the guy he's doing the show with loved and admitted to getting into. Just because he tosses in a few compliments doesn't negate the other nonsense he's going on about, like the ultimate warrior comparison. He literally nit picked the whole thing. They over sold, they laid around a lot, it was just a match with moves, etc. Granted I'm sure he hasv zero idea of what's going on in the promotion. But that makes him look sillier as he's trying to critique something He has no idea of outside of it being a match.

This is probably a large part of what holds wrestling back today, to be honest. People know it is a work, but they don't believe in anything or anyone. People knew that wrestling was fake when Stone Cold was around, but they still believed in him. Expectations have been lowered A LOT.

I think expectations are higher. It takes more nowadays to suck people in. If expectations were low, you and I would be on the WWE bandwagon praising everything they do, much like CyNick. We don't. Because we expect better and when we don't get it we walk away.

This match had two year long stories meeting in a culmination of character growth and development. The fans were into it. You could tell with how they responded to the final 4 matches that the in ring performances enhanced stories that had been building up over time. It's part of what made them great for those who have followed NJPW enough to know what was going on.

This would be a fair point, except to say that I don't think it wouldn't work now. I think it would. I don't think what "works" now actually works as well as people think it does (hence why wrestling is in a hole) and that it certainly wouldn't have worked back then. People use the word "evolves" but I think it's a trend in the opposite direction. You have so many guys getting hurt and breaking their necks for nobody. It's gotten a lot stupider, even if it acts like it's less carny and more sophisticated. It's less art and more white noise bullshit.

I think the basics of wrestling storytelling still works. How it is presented is way changes. What worked for Vince in the 80s didn't work in the 90s, and so on and so forth. I agree with the guys breaking their bodies for nobody, but that has more to do with the stories behind the matches, or lack thereof. I urge you to follow NJPW, Noid. I think we have similar tastes in wrestling. I love what they're producing. It has direction, long term booking, character development and great in ring matches. I think you'd love it.

I think you're right that Cornette doesn't like that wrestling has changed. I don't think you're right that he hasn't accepted it. He even says in that video something like "I guess that's what people want to see these days" or something like that. But his current hobby is tearing the holes in it open. I think he's accepted it just fine -- he just doesn't want it to be the case.

Him saying that's what people want to see is not accepting it. It's just acknowledging an obvious fact. Maybe he hasv accepted it but I'm not buying it based on how he presents his views on things.