This is Dave Meltzer... or rather, the gentleman in the middle is. You know, the one not wearing impressive golden shoes or the shirt of a fictional UFC competitor.
A short rant written by: Josh Rushinock
Edited kindly by: Jacob Stachowiak
I don't dislike Dave Meltzer as a human being. He's not prone to overreaction, nor is he a douchebag of any kind. Sure, he's had his share of rants, but who among us hasn't? As a matter of fact, I'm rather fond of the man. I do, however, contest the idea that he is somehow this one hundred percent foolproof and reliable source for the logical rating of wrestling matches.
Edited kindly by: Jacob Stachowiak
I don't dislike Dave Meltzer as a human being. He's not prone to overreaction, nor is he a douchebag of any kind. Sure, he's had his share of rants, but who among us hasn't? As a matter of fact, I'm rather fond of the man. I do, however, contest the idea that he is somehow this one hundred percent foolproof and reliable source for the logical rating of wrestling matches.
I don't think he's always been hugely off the mark; in fact, I'd say I've agreed with him more often than not in the past. The problem, however, is that he has a specific kind of match he likes, and that completely clouds his judgement the older he gets.
He enjoys companies that use the same three-to-five guys and switches them up on the regular to have just enough different matchups to keep you interested when a match happens again. The problem with this, however, is that he's prone to mood swings and favoritism with how he treats said matches.
Let's look at the biggest series of matches Meltzer loves, that I also love as well: the '90s All Japan Pro Wrestling style main event match. Those were matches that lived and breathed on being able to present a completely new match every time. Two men faced each other by doing one simple, yet dangerous, thing: raising the stakes to ridiculous levels.
The four top guys of the time, Taue, Kawada, Misawa, and Kobashi, each had discernable gimmicks and styles. They also had about six finishers each which they would use about five of per match. They would sort of build them up in use against each other until a super finisher, a finisher they only used when wrestling each other. They totally deserve the ten years of five star matches they earned themselves.
However, Meltzer remembers these matches just a little bit too fondly, to the point where he often criticized the same men for not doing the same thing in Pro Wrestling NOAH (when most of them left AJPW following Baba's death). Now, the reasons they did this were simple: they were getting older and didn't want that style to be what highlighted Japanese wrestling for generations to come.
They all really walked away the worse for wear because of those matches, yet Meltzer went as far as to dismiss ninety percent of the NOAH roster and even KENTA for not being able to live up to that style. Kobashi and Misawa had come to an agreement when training their respective proteges and roster to not do that because it wasn't sustainable. Because of that, even as NOAH main evented the Tokyo Dome, only KENTA and Mrufuji got his love because KENTA had three to four finishes and Marufuji was an experimental wrestler who has never maintained and kept the same finisher throughout his career (while also inventing a ton of moves along the way).
Now, Meltzer misses those All Japan days and likes to keep an eye out for any promotion who attempts something similar, but he's easily fooled by what he sees.
In the mid-2000s, he compared both the X-Division in TNA and the main event scene in ROH to that style of wrestling, and, if you look at the match ratings from 2003-2008, you'll see his love for both wane. In TNA's case, he immediately started grading their shows lower the moment that Daniels, Joe, and Styles were split up, saying on record that they could have been 'milked' for years. He even expressed annoyance when Nigel McGuiness walked into the main event of ROH shows but loved Morishima to death because he was a "big hoss Japanese guy" stereotype.
And yeah, it's not unfair to say he leans in favor of Japanese wrestling in his ratings because those are usually the only ratings he gives that are logical. For example, he gave both Michaels/Undertaker matches 4.5s, but the moment Punk mirrored Misawa against Cena, a five star was given. Michael Elgin has three five star matches in ROH, and two of those matches were against Davey Richards who had been working extensively in Japan at the time. Plus Elgin never kept it a secret he based his style off of the hoss side of Kobashi.
While Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn can never get respective five stars bothers me, what bothers me far more is that I have lost a lot of trust in his ratings of Japanese matches.
See, the last four WrestleKingdoms have had really special matches that he's overlooked, and I'm not even talking about annual slap the shit out of each other matches. I'm talking co-main events. The best match at WK VII was easily Nagata/Suzuki if you ask a fan, yet it was Okada/Tanahashi that got the five star rating. Which was cool because it was new at the time, no biggie, completely understandable.
Then, however, Naito and Okada stole the show at WK VIII, but the five star match went to Nakamura/Tanahashi who, if I'm being honest, didn't have as good a match there as they've had elsewhere. He would even go on to give those two a five star match for a lesser match later on down the line.
The match that easily stole the show at WK IX was Ibushi/Nakamura, and, while the Okada/Tanahashi match that main evented that show was easily the the best of their three, it was not on par with the match that went on before it. Even Jim Ross noticed this at commentary and questioned it. And then at WK X, Styles and Nakamura had the best bout - there was nothing even close to that match's quality - yet Okada/Tanahashi III got a five star rating while Styles/Nakamura got a 4.75.
Dave Meltzer is a man who enjoys his long series of matches that main event above everyone else that I feel didn't exactly warrant the high ratings. He's looking for All Japan in all the wrong places because these matches don't even really compare to that style of match. They're a completely different beast. And yet, these matches are getting some of the highest ratings he's ever given to New Japan as a company.
I am of the opinion that Meltzer has gotten to a point in his career where he looks for a specific type of match to give out his five stars to, and, if it's not that kind of match from the outset, it doesn't get it. I do question why we even pay attention to these things anymore if such incredibly awkward and obvious favoritism is the norm in his ratings.
Isn't it time to start looking at some of these so-called critical ratings with a bit of a criticism ourselves?
He enjoys companies that use the same three-to-five guys and switches them up on the regular to have just enough different matchups to keep you interested when a match happens again. The problem with this, however, is that he's prone to mood swings and favoritism with how he treats said matches.
Let's look at the biggest series of matches Meltzer loves, that I also love as well: the '90s All Japan Pro Wrestling style main event match. Those were matches that lived and breathed on being able to present a completely new match every time. Two men faced each other by doing one simple, yet dangerous, thing: raising the stakes to ridiculous levels.
The four top guys of the time, Taue, Kawada, Misawa, and Kobashi, each had discernable gimmicks and styles. They also had about six finishers each which they would use about five of per match. They would sort of build them up in use against each other until a super finisher, a finisher they only used when wrestling each other. They totally deserve the ten years of five star matches they earned themselves.
However, Meltzer remembers these matches just a little bit too fondly, to the point where he often criticized the same men for not doing the same thing in Pro Wrestling NOAH (when most of them left AJPW following Baba's death). Now, the reasons they did this were simple: they were getting older and didn't want that style to be what highlighted Japanese wrestling for generations to come.
They all really walked away the worse for wear because of those matches, yet Meltzer went as far as to dismiss ninety percent of the NOAH roster and even KENTA for not being able to live up to that style. Kobashi and Misawa had come to an agreement when training their respective proteges and roster to not do that because it wasn't sustainable. Because of that, even as NOAH main evented the Tokyo Dome, only KENTA and Mrufuji got his love because KENTA had three to four finishes and Marufuji was an experimental wrestler who has never maintained and kept the same finisher throughout his career (while also inventing a ton of moves along the way).
Now, Meltzer misses those All Japan days and likes to keep an eye out for any promotion who attempts something similar, but he's easily fooled by what he sees.
In the mid-2000s, he compared both the X-Division in TNA and the main event scene in ROH to that style of wrestling, and, if you look at the match ratings from 2003-2008, you'll see his love for both wane. In TNA's case, he immediately started grading their shows lower the moment that Daniels, Joe, and Styles were split up, saying on record that they could have been 'milked' for years. He even expressed annoyance when Nigel McGuiness walked into the main event of ROH shows but loved Morishima to death because he was a "big hoss Japanese guy" stereotype.
And yeah, it's not unfair to say he leans in favor of Japanese wrestling in his ratings because those are usually the only ratings he gives that are logical. For example, he gave both Michaels/Undertaker matches 4.5s, but the moment Punk mirrored Misawa against Cena, a five star was given. Michael Elgin has three five star matches in ROH, and two of those matches were against Davey Richards who had been working extensively in Japan at the time. Plus Elgin never kept it a secret he based his style off of the hoss side of Kobashi.
While Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn can never get respective five stars bothers me, what bothers me far more is that I have lost a lot of trust in his ratings of Japanese matches.
See, the last four WrestleKingdoms have had really special matches that he's overlooked, and I'm not even talking about annual slap the shit out of each other matches. I'm talking co-main events. The best match at WK VII was easily Nagata/Suzuki if you ask a fan, yet it was Okada/Tanahashi that got the five star rating. Which was cool because it was new at the time, no biggie, completely understandable.
Then, however, Naito and Okada stole the show at WK VIII, but the five star match went to Nakamura/Tanahashi who, if I'm being honest, didn't have as good a match there as they've had elsewhere. He would even go on to give those two a five star match for a lesser match later on down the line.
The match that easily stole the show at WK IX was Ibushi/Nakamura, and, while the Okada/Tanahashi match that main evented that show was easily the the best of their three, it was not on par with the match that went on before it. Even Jim Ross noticed this at commentary and questioned it. And then at WK X, Styles and Nakamura had the best bout - there was nothing even close to that match's quality - yet Okada/Tanahashi III got a five star rating while Styles/Nakamura got a 4.75.
Dave Meltzer is a man who enjoys his long series of matches that main event above everyone else that I feel didn't exactly warrant the high ratings. He's looking for All Japan in all the wrong places because these matches don't even really compare to that style of match. They're a completely different beast. And yet, these matches are getting some of the highest ratings he's ever given to New Japan as a company.
I am of the opinion that Meltzer has gotten to a point in his career where he looks for a specific type of match to give out his five stars to, and, if it's not that kind of match from the outset, it doesn't get it. I do question why we even pay attention to these things anymore if such incredibly awkward and obvious favoritism is the norm in his ratings.
Isn't it time to start looking at some of these so-called critical ratings with a bit of a criticism ourselves?
BUT, then again... haters gonna hate. Especially haters outside the fandoms social norms who still hold a grudge for a certain Robert Sapp fellow getting a certain award by a certain critic in 2003 that he certainly didn't deserve. I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN, MELTZER!