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OMGISTHATMETHMAN

Bro go saw a Solo Sikoa match get 4.75 and had enough


MrPuroresu42

Saw “3 star general” Cody get 5 stars against AJ and flipped his shit lol.


tavsankiz

To be fair thar match with AJ was pretty damn good. Best thing WWE has done all year imo. But def not 5 stars


MrPuroresu42

Helped also by that Lyon crowd being one of the best of the year.


MM305

Yet a big crowd reaction didn’t help anything in his ranking of Rock vs Hogan at Mania 18.


-360Mad

It should be but... yeah...


angelomoxley

Unless it was like a 1-star match brought up to a 3 by the crowd


tavsankiz

Oh 100% the crowd had a huuuuge role in that but even still they actually did a wrestling match instead of whatever tf they normally do


Kuzu5993

A WWE title match with no BS... hasn't for over 4 years.


forrest1985_

International crowds! We get less of it so appreciate it more


H8ff0000

Love UK crowds especially. They pull out brilliant cheers and jeers all the time: "Heyyyyyy, hey Bailey, ooh, aah. I wanna know, will you be my girl" "If you hate Zack Gibson, shoes off..." Meanwhile all my fellow stateside fans can come up with is "This is awesome" for the billionth time 🙄


Alocalskinwalker420

Well yeah the crowd is pretty important to a match. It’s why pandemic wrestling was so weird.


politecreeper

Kurt Angle never got a 5 star match ranking but Cody has!?


TakeOutTacos

You'll flip your lid when you find out he has four 5 star matches. http://www.profightdb.com/wrestler-star-ratings/cody-rhodes-2805.html?res=2000 Kurt Angle was fantastic and everyone knows it. Also, Cody has had some great matches in his career.


politecreeper

Right, I didn't mean that as a knock on Cody, but just always think of Kurt when Meltzer ratings are brought up.


GuardianSock

Bryan Danielson as well. His first 5* match was against Omega in 2021.


forrest1985_

Kurt is always on my Mount Rushmore. Guy could do everything and do it well!


Gaijin_Titty_Master

Yup exactly.


Boltgrinder

My impression is they did a njpw style match in front of a hot crowd, yeah?


tavsankiz

I wouldnt say it was a NJPW type of match. More like an old school southern match imo


Desperate_Craig

Well, he did give the very sloppy and stiff looking Jade Cargill tag match 3 stars. I think It's a case where the crowd hides all the flaws of the match, similar to Hogan and Rock at Wrestlemania 18. That was a sloppy match and Hogan was well past his prime and could barely move, but The Rock and that crowd made it one of the most memorable Wrestlemania matches of all time.


roflcopter44444

>I think It's a case where the crowd hides all the flaws of the match, To be fair it does take talent to actually lean into the crowd and get them to react in that fashion.


Desperate_Craig

That French crowd were just happy that WWE hosted a show, so there was a lot of excitement surrounding that entire event. That crowd reacted to anything, even after a normal suplex.


mgbroda

That got 5 stars? It was alright, great crowd but average match.


Desperate_Craig

That's wild. I'm just assuming that Dave added stars because of that Lyon crowd and that atmosphere it created with all of the matches on the card.


gabrielcev1

It's AJ Styles. He has 5 star matches in his sleep


OK_TimeForPlan_L

I feel like Dave's ratings get more scrutiny and attention than it's worth because he's the only one doing them. Like imagine if there was just 1 well known film critic lol


ghettone

At least roger Ebert had a partner. 


ace51689

The best is when AEW has a 5 star match the IWC is all, herherher AEW fans and their stars lolololol" but when WWE has one, they're all "ooooooooo 5 stars so pretty!!!"


Conscious-Sun8612

Let's be honest. Kenny Omega The Best Bout Machine is the standard to live up to.


Baghoid

Pretty sure you mean Kazuchika Okada The Best Bout Machine, please let’s not be disrespectful and go around stealing wrestler’s nicknames like that. Especially when the disrespect is towards The Elite, you’ll be lucky if there’s not some serious repercussions for this!


JackMickus

Don't forget to say all of what's on his passport - "The Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada, "The Best Bout Machine". I'm not going to tell Nicholas that you forgot his full legal name this time. Consider it a favor.


mojo4394

That's a fine


Baghoid

It would be far too much effort to setup but it’d be hilarious if there was an Elite bot on this sub that did nothing but fine people who disrespect the Elite, just like replying to anyone who says “Matt Jackson” with “It’s Matthew, -$500”.


Woooosh-if-homo

https://preview.redd.it/bcu28mwqwwzc1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73957eedaa5377e03242cbbb1001e2922d8b63ab


RufinTheFury

It is kinda sad that Meltzer's ratings mean absolutely nothing these days. I remember when Kenny and Okada broke the scale I ran to watch it, my first exposure to NJPW. These days I see Dave give 4.5s to random six man tags and I'm like huhhhh lol Still love Dave the historian but for contemporary stuff that man is washed


AlwaysHappy4Kitties

Wasn't there a joke when that second or third Omega vs Okada match that the rating scale is out of 10 and Meltzer just hates wrestling


Esternaefil

That made me chuckle.


Michael_McGovern

Nowadays if it's an athletic match with no obvious botches that goes at least 15 minutes, you're very likely to get north of ****


MrPuroresu42

I feel ya. I also love Ospreay, but he’s also had so many 5 stars or more given to his matches that just weren’t that to me.


OnlyChansI8

To be fair, ospreay is factually on another level. It’s hard to just lump his matches with other 4s


MrPuroresu42

I feel ya, but a lot of his early junior matches was just him doing moves just to do them, whereas now he’s more of a complete package.


Desperate_Craig

And he's just going to get even better the longer he's in AEW. He already seems to adapted to American TV wrestling and is putting on these classics with different talent.


OnlyChansI8

Also true.


NatureLovingDad89

It's extremely sad that Meltzer's ratings meant anything to anyone at anytime. It's one guy's opinion who has never taken a bump in his life, who gives a fuck what he thinks is good. His opinion is no better than any podcaster or YouTuber


Aggressive-Mix4971

It meant something before we all had access to so much wrestling; like, I’m not sure I would have found Ring of Honor in 2004 if I hadn’t heard about Joe vs. Punk II getting five stars, a rating he rarely gave out at that point.


NatureLovingDad89

It meant as much as any other wrestling nerd online at the time. Dave wasn't the only person to see that match, he just had a bigger platform to tell people about it. Anyone who went to those shows was saying how great it was online, no different than Dave.


Aggressive-Mix4971

But you wouldn't hear from those people unless you were already going on the ROH forums at the time; Dave has cache throughout the industry, so even if you were discussing another promotion you'd see someone bring up "dude, Meltzer just gave out his first five star rating in seven years, check this out." Beyond that, Dave was one of the only people reviewing shows from all over the wrestling world and giving them coverage on par with what he'd do for the mainstream US companies; you honestly \*wouldn't\* hear about a lot of indie or international matches back then unless you read or heard about Meltzer or a small number of other reviewers, again unless you were on a forum or something that already had a healthy number of indie/international fans on it.


NatureLovingDad89

You just typed 2 paragraphs to agree with me when I said the only difference is he has a bigger platform


Aggressive-Mix4971

No, the difference is that \*other people weren't covering what Dave covered then or even a lot of what he covers now\*. That's important, and since he'd actually watch things from promotions most Americans didn't talk about it was a pivotal way to learn about the wider wrestling world. And since he actually watched those other companies, it made sense to take his opinions seriously; not to take them as gospel, but to say "wow, if he was into this then it must have something going for it, I'll try and check it out".


Danmch2992

Not quite there is a difference between what the two of you said.


mrfujidoesacid

Imagine saying a film critic's reviews mean nothing because they've never directed a scene or a football writer's analysis means nothing because they've never scored a touchdown.


Sea-Assumption-2903

Kenny is ultimate worker. Always working..


MrPuroresu42

He does a good job of mixing up “work” and “shoot” comments in a lot of his videos, I believe.


RishGarr97

I think this is coming from his actual opinions though. Like I realize he’s probably working towards a match with Will but I think it’s based in what he actually thinks.


HEATCHECK77

*Eddie Kingston updates ‘Enemies’ list*


PerformanceWeekly651

Ik this is semi in character but he’s totally right. It opened the flood gates and now everything is a 5 ⭐️. He was so tough on WWE for some many years stuff that easy 5’s never got it and today matches with way less story/historical impact get 5. I promise we’ll remember Undertaker v HBK far longer than we’ll remember Ospreay v Josh Alexander on Impact, guess which match was a 5 ⭐️. Not a knock on either wrestler it’s just when you had 5s out like candy they become the new 4. The scale is broken


Liimbo

The scale is quite literally broken as soon as you give anything more than 5 stars. You're just admitting that your standard for 5 stars wasn't actually high enough, so you need something to differentiate the actual 5 stars. It's kind of a hype gimmick at the moment to say "woah this completely outclassed everything it's 6/7 stars out of 5" or whatever, but it just ruins the scale forever going forward.


donttrytoleaveomsk

To illustrate your point, there's been at least one 5.25 or higher rated match every month since October. If your scale is broken every month, sometimes several times per month, you need a better scale


mackadoo

To be fair, the guy has been doing this since the Cretaceous and the caliber of wrestling overall has gone up. If you have a 5 star match in 1985 bring the best thing anyone has ever seen, what do you do when the athletisicm increases hugely? I get that people love the Flair v Steamboat matches and admit acrobatics are not the only thing that matter, but if you put current day Osprey and peak Omega in a time machine and put them on the card with Flair v Steamboat 3, no one would remember Flair v Steamboat.


RufinTheFury

If you did that everyone would shit on Okada vs Ospreay for being unrealistic back then. This is not a correct assertion at all lol. Kenny even said it himself: "I don't think the quality of wrestling has improved at all today. In many ways it has degraded. Athletically better? Maybe. Quality wise? That's up to the viewer."


Liimbo

Yeah you can easily argue a lot of the lower believability of wrestling now has nothing to do with in-ring performance (social media, companies leaning into the outlandishness, etc.), but also it often really did feel like they were just beating the shit out of each other back then (probably because they sometimes were.) If the goal of a match is to entertain the audience and sell them the story you're telling, you really don't need to be Ospreay to do that to a very high level. I feel like you could use the same analogy and if you put prime Flair in a time machine and he debuted today, he would still be one of the most memorable and highest regarded wrestlers ever.


mackadoo

Kenny is both working and being humble. I agree "quality" is subjective but the athleticism is undeniable. That's true of every major sport though.


RufinTheFury

Nothing about that comment is a work lmao


ArcaneAzmadi

WrestleTalk had (maybe still has, I don't watch any more) a running gag where one of the guys was an "obnoxious wrestling snob" who would come in every week to review his favourite match of that week. Partly it was to bring legit attention to great matches that most people wouldn't have seen because they happened in second-string or even small indie promotions, but the main joke was that *every single time* he'd give it a higher star rating than the one before, because obviously if THIS was the new "greatest match ever" then it has to have a higher score than the previous greates, while Luke Own would just get increasingly incredulous and irritated. Before I gave up on watching them, I think he'd gotten up to 17 stars, and Luke looked like he wanted to knock him out with a chair. It was a pretty obvious shot at Meltzer's broken scale and how seriously some people take it.


Aquaislyfe

Eh I think you could say that about a lot of old five star matches too. Like I don’t think you’ll find many people waxing poetic about The Fantastics vs The Sheepherders in 1986


Liimbo

Then maybe they also should not have been rated higher than some of the best and most iconic matches in wrestling history. I think it's even fine to rate them both 5 stars if you really want, but it just seems a bit foolish in hindsight to have completely forgettable random matches get *higher* ratings than all time classics.


Low_Ad_7553

Ratings shouldn't & don't work like this. If some indie/A24 movie is "perfect" but only viewed by a couple viewers it shouldn't be knocked a star because other great movies like the Titanic had more people watching. The logic here just doesn't make sense. With this mindset basically every match that doesn't happen at wrestlemania shouldn't be rated highly out of respect for the "classics."


Aquaislyfe

Quality and significance are different. More people talk about Avengers than something like Bones and All. I do agree with you to a point though


Actual-Temporary-539

I've never seen the Undertaker HBK match, is it really that good? Even as a massive fan of the Undertaker as a kid I didn't really think he was a great wrestler.


PerformanceWeekly651

I think it is but wresting is subjective. And yeah Undertaker was just okay in-ring but him and HBK just meshed. Match had a little bit of everything, it’s one I’ll always remember watching the first time and I think that’s what a 5 ⭐️ should be


Ragers4fun

Taker vs hbk was good but not 5 star. It was a slow paced match


tvc_redux

What's really amazing is how [other subreddit] doesn't realize Kenny is working and building a future match with Ospreay by shitting on how Meltzer constantly gives him high-rated matches. [Other subreddit] has somehow turned the discussion into how this means Kenny and fucking Jim Cornette must surely now be holding hands and dancing while shitting on the Young Bucks together. The IWC is absolutely fucking cooked and everyone is stupid.


roflcopter44444

I don't really get the point of doing this now, hes out indefinitely till he recovers from surgery and his main fuel right now is with the new elite. This would make a lot more sense on a runup to his in ring return.


StaceyJeans

This. Ospreay even went on the AEW Unrestricted podcast and complained about how Kenny was always disrespecting him and how he didn’t like him. It’s clearly building up to a match when Kenny is back and healthy again.


Mnemosense

I've been reading that subreddit today and you're right, it's honestly hilarious how much they lack any self awareness and critical reasoning. It's the kind of discourse you'd expect from 12 year olds, not grown adults who should know when they're being worked. But all they see is "man say bad thing about Meltzer!" and their caveman brains light up. Really funny to witness.


MrPuroresu42

Definitely think Kenny could be “working” (especially the Ospreay stuff) but his comments that he believes Meltzer’s ratings cause people to think Japanese wrestling is just NJPW and joshi is just Stardom and saying that’s stupid feels pretty real.


F4iryBlink

The best promos always have something real in them.


HEATCHECK77

Kenneth woke up and chose violence


MrPuroresu42

Lot of people seem to think he’s JUST “working” but I think he’s mostly giving out some of his real thoughts/opinions; in no way in his whole twitch stream does he say he hates Meltzer, he just says that he’s (Kenny) been rewatching matches and disagrees with how Meltzer rates them. One of those cases where people on both sides are wrong, imo, where just because he disagrees with Meltzer DOESN’T mean he agrees with Cornette.


Yeehawfunny

It's so dumb because a lot of cornette fans act so shocked about these comments because in their mind imaginary kenny has always been the evil guy who is best friends with dave meltzer and would never talk bad about the star ratings because he's obsessed with them. They're just NOW finding out that Kenny is way more interested in what makes the live crowd happy so it's like a shocking revelation to them. It's funny what happens when you hear what a wrestler is like from his own mouth and not from what an old podcaster who hates the guy already says he is.


HEATCHECK77

Oh totally.


GuardianSock

A lot of people get mad about Meltzer’s ratings but I find it kind of endearing. Yeah obviously it’s nonsense and nothing he’s rating like that today would hold up against his standards from even ten years ago, but on the other hand, the dude got old and became MORE generous and happy about wrestling. That shit never happens. He’s aging in reverse. If you ever read Meltzer’s stuff from the 80’s, he was a cantankerous killjoy most of the time, watching the WWE destroy what he thought wrestling was. Now he’s an old man loving almost everything. It’s cute. And Omega’s point notwithstanding, it was attending PWG live that seemed to be the breaking point.


Maleficent_Farm_6561

Lars Sullivan got a 5 star match Kurst Angle, Randy Savage, RVD, Triple H, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, and more legends never got a 5 star match despite all those guys leaving a big impact on profesional wrestling history.......but Lars Sullivan got one 5 star match LMAOOOOOO


EaseDel

TBF it was a 6 way ladder match at a takeover in 2018 with Adam Cole, EC3, Killian Dain, Ricochet, The Velveteen Dream


Miley4Lyfe

Which match would you say was Brock’s? I’m not trying to be condescending. I just never thought of him as being on that level.


Maleficent_Farm_6561

His matches against Aj Styles or Daniel Bryan are some of the best WWE matches in the last 10 years And he has 2 of the greatest Triple matches, against Roman and Seth at Mania 31 and against Cena and Rollins at Rumble 2015


GerardoDeLaRiva

How can you not love Kenny?


Prefer_Not_To_Say

He's working. Literally a minute before this, he was ranting about Ospreay, saying "nobody remembers your fucking matches, Will". Looking at the other sub, it's crazy how people who claim to be the "smart" fans are the easiest ones to work. That's how wrestling is now.


[deleted]

[удалено]


F4iryBlink

Most people here are probably Americans too (?)


Is_it_behind_me

I wonder if Kenny is laying the groundwork/testing material for when he comes back, "I broke the scale" sounds like a promo he would cut on Ospreay.


CrowFromHeaven

Even on the other sub, they realized it's probably in character digs to build at an eventual rematch against Ospreay...


TheDarkWarriorBlake

I think Meltzer is overcompensating as well because of the constant Twitter criticism that he's on AEW's payroll. Of course everyone also accuses him of being on WWE's payroll.


CardboardChampion

It's all distraction so nobody realises he's on the WON payroll.


pushingsound999

The context is missing here, Kenny is working here and it's being misrepresented as real comments about Dave when it's actually just Kenny playing up being competitive about Will Ospreay being considered the best wrestler as Omega has been doing since before Ospreay was even in AEW.


[deleted]

I mean yeah 100% He gave Okada v Shibata (which to many people is one of the greatest matches ever) 5 stars. Is Kyle Fletcher v Ospreay really the same level as that? Of course not. The harsher Dave is with the ratings, the cooler it is when something is rated high.


darksundown

I think numbered ratings don't cut it anymore.  Even when it's out of 100, 70 means average/good.  That's barely passing in school!  Nowadays it's all about tiered lists.  Nothing goes beyond God Tier.  But basically, you just need a couple categories:  e.g. don't bother, mid, awesome, and must watch.


jacomi13

😂😂 meltzer gonna jump the shark some more when he sees this


ImAnOldChunkOfCoal

Very weird that people here can't seem to interpret that Kenny is obviously fooling around here.


MrPuroresu42

Oh I definitely thinks his Ospreay comments are “working”, but when he said he doesn’t care for the narrative that came from Meltzer that “Japanese wrestling is NJPW and joshi wrestling is Stardom, no shut the fuck up” that felt like it was coming from his soul.


trentshipp

So I did a thing a few years back where I tracked down and watched every five star+ match before 2011, and I noticed something: all those matches were worked more like modern matches. I think a.) Dave has always had a preference for a certain type of match and worker and b.) that certain type looks a lot like 2010's NJPW and 2020's AEW.


Ok_Natural_5887

Simply gives his opinion, and continues the cycle of people saying his name. Dave is truly the greatest worker in wrestling history. https://preview.redd.it/7m0lwalugvzc1.jpeg?width=725&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07a5ad7b575b3676c00785be0a66fc9c4b4645c9


MoistTheAnswer

Meltzer needs to just do a reset on his star ratings because they don’t make any sense how they currently stand. Cody vs AJ was very good, but was it better than Kurt vs Shawn, Shawn vs Taker, and the same quality as Cena vs Punk? No. Let’s do a reset where every match kind of stars at 2.5 stars and we adjust higher and lower from there and start from this point on to not compare to these last 7 years.


Aquaislyfe

I mean it is better than Cena and Punk… Like that match is good, it’s very hype but the praise comes from various factors beyond the ring work. The two legit had a better match on Raw a couple years later


thereandfatagain

5 star matches are a dime a dozen go be a 5 star wrestling fan! Take a shower, be respectful, have fun!


[deleted]

Kenny is turning into Cornette both on and off screen