Sorry that I'm a couple pages late to the star ratings conversation. I don't see myself as someone whose very willing to give a match 5 stars (although I did give Taker/Michaels and The Tag Title Classic matches 5*) as it's relatively rare for me to do so. I can count about a dozen matches from this decade that I thought were 5*. I'm a major mark for intense matches and I don't usually give strictly technical matches 5* at all. In 2007, there were no 5* matches in my opinion. Last year, there were two.
Interestingly enough, I use the 5 star rating for the movies that I've seen and I have over 400 movies put down in a database with a star rating. I've only given the 5* rating to 16 movies. The last one was from 1994. Even then, I'm already debating on why I gave that movie (Shawshank Redemption) 5* when I based it more on emotional response as opposed to a more sound approach. But, meh. I am a very picky person and have a certain criteria when it comes to movies while for wrestling, I'm not so much.
Last edited by New Blood : 07-03-2009 at 11:14 PM.
The last time I thought a match was five star quality was 2005. I said my MOTY is Undertaker vs Michaels at 4 and a half and I would say that was on the same level as my MOTY for last year, which was probably either the KO vs Burning Survival Tag or Nigel vs Danielson. The only matches I can recall from 2007 being close to five stars are Nigel vs Aries and Danielson vs Morishima.
As a rough sidenote: I think American wrestling this decade is vastly superior to US 90's wrestling. Less so this year because WWE have really watered themselves down and ROH has declined in quality a lot, but overall the quality is a lot better. 90's WWF only had a handful of good wrestlers in the first half of the decade (Bret, Perfect, etc) and the attitude era was pretty ass. WCW was more or less the same, ECW was fun but hardly a promotion about match quality. This decade WWE have focused a lot more on matches (well, some times) and have had a lot of great wrestlers in their ranks. You also had the rise of indepandant companies like ROH who pride themselves on producing math quality.
Meanwhile, Japanese wrestling is significantly lower quality than it was in the 90's. 90's All Japan smokes NOAH (and I like NOAH), 90's New Japan was mostly pretty great whereas it's been more bad than good this decade. Toryumon was fun, but Dragon Gate is some seriously awful shit, whereas mid-90's M-Pro was incredible. Hardcore was more of less the same. BJW sucked in the early 00's, FMW sucked in the early 90's, both picked up in the second half. All Japan and Zero-One are pretty shitty these days. Shoot-style only exists in BattlARTS which is only a hybrid promotion wheras in the 90's you had UWF, RINGS, etc.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that I think the people who love on the puro matches should probably seek out more 90's stuff. I mean, I personally hate all these lengthy junior "epic" matches. Guys like Liger, Ohtani, Sasuke, etc all knew their limitations and were better for it, whereas guys like Kaz, Minoru, Marufuji, Nakajima trying to work 30+ minute matches is pretty cringe-worthy. The only puro matches this decade I would even consider giving a five star rating to are Burning vs Sterness from '03 and GoBashi vs Kensuke Office from '05.
I'm sure I had a point somewhere in that rant, kudos if you can pick it out. I'm sure McQueen might get me if he still posts here.
I think American wrestling this decade is vastly superior to US 90's wrestling. Less so this year because WWE have really watered themselves down and ROH has declined in quality a lot, but overall the quality is a lot better.
Don't forget TNA, if any company has declined in quality in the entire world it's Total Non-Stop Action (okay so you only get about 25 to 30 minutes of actual wrestling a week and our pay per views have not consistently delivered since early 2006) Wrestling! p.s. did I mention TNA has worse booking than mid 90's WWF...?
Speaking of TNA Jarrett vs. Angle II gets 3 and 3/4 stars from me because unlike most of the roster Angle can actually make the old guys look good!
Last edited by seancarleton77 : 07-04-2009 at 09:13 AM.
The last time I thought a match was five star quality was 2005. I said my MOTY is Undertaker vs Michaels at 4 and a half and I would say that was on the same level as my MOTY for last year, which was probably either the KO vs Burning Survival Tag or Nigel vs Danielson. The only matches I can recall from 2007 being close to five stars are Nigel vs Aries and Danielson vs Morishima.
As a rough sidenote: I think American wrestling this decade is vastly superior to US 90's wrestling. Less so this year because WWE have really watered themselves down and ROH has declined in quality a lot, but overall the quality is a lot better. 90's WWF only had a handful of good wrestlers in the first half of the decade (Bret, Perfect, etc) and the attitude era was pretty ass. WCW was more or less the same, ECW was fun but hardly a promotion about match quality. This decade WWE have focused a lot more on matches (well, some times) and have had a lot of great wrestlers in their ranks. You also had the rise of indepandant companies like ROH who pride themselves on producing math quality.
Meanwhile, Japanese wrestling is significantly lower quality than it was in the 90's. 90's All Japan smokes NOAH (and I like NOAH), 90's New Japan was mostly pretty great whereas it's been more bad than good this decade. Toryumon was fun, but Dragon Gate is some seriously awful shit, whereas mid-90's M-Pro was incredible. Hardcore was more of less the same. BJW sucked in the early 00's, FMW sucked in the early 90's, both picked up in the second half. All Japan and Zero-One are pretty shitty these days. Shoot-style only exists in BattlARTS which is only a hybrid promotion wheras in the 90's you had UWF, RINGS, etc.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that I think the people who love on the puro matches should probably seek out more 90's stuff. I mean, I personally hate all these lengthy junior "epic" matches. Guys like Liger, Ohtani, Sasuke, etc all knew their limitations and were better for it, whereas guys like Kaz, Minoru, Marufuji, Nakajima trying to work 30+ minute matches is pretty cringe-worthy. The only puro matches this decade I would even consider giving a five star rating to are Burning vs Sterness from '03 and GoBashi vs Kensuke Office from '05.
I'm sure I had a point somewhere in that rant, kudos if you can pick it out. I'm sure McQueen might get me if he still posts here.
EDIT - Rant was longer than expected!
Very compelling argument and very true. At least someone else realizes that the Attitude Era was more inflated with hype. With WCW, the only thing that made it tolerable to watch was the Cruiserweight division which still didn't hold a candle to the lucha libre promotions and the juniors wrestling in Japan.
New Japan was onto something as they had the juniors wrestling also have real psychology and the NJPW vs. UWFi feud was nothing short of amazing.
It also makes me look differently at how I rate matches and makes me want to go back and look at matches that I gave 5* to and think if it really deserves that rating.
TNA were pretty good from '04-early '06 but otherwise they are easily one of the worst companies to ever exist. Atleast we have companies like ROH, IWA:MS, etc making up for them.
I thought Angle/Jarrett was the only good TNA match I've seen all year, and even then it was nothing special. The body of the match was great with loads of hatefilled brawling and some incredible selling from Jarrett, but the finishing stretch was the same old suplex, suplex, suplex, ankle lock attempt x1,000 nonsense shit in the every modern Angle match. The ref bump just added to the cliche soap opera-ness of it.
Angle/Jarret wasn't even the best match on the PPV imo let alone best TNA match this year. I prefered Sabin/Shelley tbh. I still stand by what I said at the start of the year that all TNA's MOTYC's will involve Angle or MCMG. Angle, Sabin & Shelley are the only decent thing TNA has going for them which looking at the roster is a dire shame.
Current top 10 fwiw.
1) American Wolves vs Bryan Danielson & Tyler Black - ROH Tag Title Classic- ***** 2) Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker - WrestleMania 25- ****1/2+ 3) Go Shiozaki & KENTA vs Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima - NOAH 22.06- ****1/2+ 4) Raw Elimination Chamber - No Way Out- ****1/2 5) Rey Mysterio vs Chris Jericho - The Bash- ****1/2 6) KENTA & Tyler Black vs Katsuhiko Nakajima & Austin Aries - ROH Take No Prisoners- ****1/2 7) KENTA vs Davey Richards - ROH Supercard Of Honor- ****1/4+ 8) Nigel McGuinness vs Tyler Black - ROH Injustice- ****1/4+ 9) Nigel McGuinness vs KENTA - ROH 7th Anniversary Show- ****1/4 10) Young Bucks vs Motor City Machine Guns - PWG 99- ****1/4
If you're only looking at match quality, then sure, the Attitude Era was total shit. But what made it great was that people actually wanted to see the matches, because they cared about the characters. They cared more about the result than the match quality. If Stone Cold and somebody like Dean Malenko put on a 45-minute masterpiece, which ended with Malenko winning, nobody would be talking the next morning about how great of a match it was, what they'd be talking about is that Malenko won.
Now, if you look at a promotion like ROH, nobody really cares about the result of the match, they only care how good it is. The apparently universally loved A Cut Above main event ended in the guy the fans wanted to win losing, but nobody really cared, because he looked great in defeat and the fans got to see a good match.
The 2009 MOTYC Thread
Re: The 2009 MOTYC Thread
