Meltzer sees himself as the elder statesman of wrestling fans. All the marks quoting him over the years has gone to his head making him believe he's some kind of scientist practicing a mysterious science or alchemy.
As someone who's been watching wrestling since the early 80s and knows more about wrestling than your average fan considering that I've been in the wrestling business, I never listened to Meltzer considering that he's never been in the wrestling business.. I don't understand why people listens to Meltzer considering he's full of shit
@maxwelljacobfreedom Fauci is a qualified professional with a lifetime of work behind him. Meltzer is an author who has never formally trained as a wrestler. Crap analogy.
A modern pace basically means you cut out all of the time that is wasted doing dumb things like locking up, wrestling holds, and selling moves, so you have more time to do exciting things like diving over the ropes, doing flips that almost make contact, and building constructs out of random furniture… Cause professional wrestling shouldn’t look like two guys struggling for control… it should just be guys running around like they’re on meth, wrecklessly throwing their bodies around until they’re paralyzed!
Selling is WAY more important for the storytelling in a match than the moves. People bash Hulk but him selling, practically begging for mercy before hulking up doing a few moves and his bad finisher has emotional impact, something you don't get in current era matches.
Except that's exactly what's wrong with most forms of entertainment today. Everything is explosions and mindless action with no dialog There's no emotional relation to the characters, and if no-one cares about the characters the outcome is meaningless
One of the top 5 best Professional Wrestling Matches I've ever seen live in person, was Al Snow vs Val Venis. It was the main event on an independent card at The Grand Casino here in Minnesota. The best part, bar none, had to be their rope work.
"Ropework - The skill of using, maintaining, and repairing ropes. It's used by climbers, seafarers and military personnel. Ropework includes tying knots, splicing, making lashings, whipping and making proper usage and storing of ropes" Dave Meltzer must have seen the wrestlers make the ring ropes prior to the match when putting my the ring together. He's so thorough that he incorporates this into the final rating of their matches.
Me as a current day wrestling fan that is always for the current thing always likes matches that involve a solid workrate, good ropework and a modern pacing. That is when my wifes boyfriend let's me watch wrestling.
"Modern Pace" = Too fast for the casual fan to process what you're doing. As a booker myself, one of the last things I want to see out of a wrestler is a so-called "modern pace". Slow down and get over, instead.
Modern pace to me sounds like the hollywood term for "modern audiences" every hack writer uses to excuse there film from being God awful, Dave Meltzer to me is the woke equivalent of wrestling, it's a shame that wrestling is in such a bubble that no one watches it and that these "wrestlers" are all padding themselves on the back constantly for doing horribly in the ratings and in the ring.
Tajiri, Les Kellett and The Undertaker had awesome rope work. :P I really miss when wrestlers would get tied up in the ropes by the arms or hanging by the neck. That was some 5 star rope work. :P I would argue that Dave isn't an average fan... he is a nob head. PS. Justice for turnbuckles!
I remember as a kid watching Andre tie Hogan to the ropes using his ripped vest pieces. It was so obvs fake but my grandad was genuinely disgusted saying "arrrghh!".
Omega and Bucks probably talk to Meltzer about "rope work" all the time so he repeats it... Bucks don't do wrestling they do gymnastics into their opponent's waiting arms maybe it is a gymnastic expression.
It’s like Corny says Dave was bitter the wrestlers didn’t like him for years and now the younger ones worship him, he’s got to make shit up for them to look good.
Everyone looks up to him because the marks who sat at home fantasizing about wrestling; playing the video games; and running e-fed's got into the business and became wrestlers and promoters. Now, no one cares about drawing money. All they want to do is make friends, have fun, and live out their fantasies and expect other people to pay to see them jerk each other off.
It should be “I couldn’t care less about this guy” “Could care less” means you actually care about him a little bit. And we all don’t give a shit about DM!
I'm still not entirely sure what workrate is supposed to mean tbh. Back in the day, it was considered to be this weird average of how many moves were performed in a match's runtime but I think even Meltzer backed off on that concept given how ridiculous it is.
Yeah I don't get it. I was almost sucked into it around the ecw era, but to me working is maximum crowd involvement, preferably with minimal filler and maximum efficiency so to me, high workrate would be getting alot out if nothing
So Ray Fenix does a lot of stuff where he’ll run on the top rope or springboard from the middle to the top rope and stuff like that in super creative ways. Not everybody’s cup of tea but it’s fairly impressive. I actually don’t mind making up a new term for it, because I’ve never seen anyone who uses the ropes like he does. I personally wouldn’t bury someone for 9 minutes because he called it “rope work,” but I’ve never laced up a pair of boots. Basically if Russo had watched the match, or almost any Ray Fenix match, he’d know exactly what Meltzer meant. (This is my first time hearing the term as well, and it was easy enough for me to figure out.) So not sure about the choice to act like Meltzer burned down the Sistine Chapel live on air without bothering to watch the match he was talking about.
Couldn't agree more.. I understood exactly what Meltzer was meaning with that term.. They haven't seen the match and I'd love to hear what term they would use for Reys style on the ropes? But according to Al snow i wouldn't have a clue because i never wrestled.. lazy argument
When you have lads who reckom they dont neer to listen to advice it makes you think how much of the art is being lost. Sad how much will be left in 50 years.
Every supposed smart mark is just a mark nowadays. Hearing how some of them talk about wrestling, even the journos, they don't come across as if they know wrestling at all.
I tried out Dynamite for the first time and it was SO SO BORING. All super long matches for no reason and no character work or storylines. I fell asleep watching, no joke. I really wanted to like it as well. The only match that was interesting was a Jarrett match due to heat and a backstory from other federations 😂 and i have never even liked JJ in TNA
Given the wrestler Dave was talking about, I'd assume he's talking about the way he walks and jumps all over the ropes in the corner to execute his moves. If Al or Russo have a better description of what he's doing, I'd love to hear it. It's not traditional use of the ropes.
"modern" style and work just means fastr paced. For better pr worse everything is faster now. The 12 minute larry zybyzko stalling t the beginging of every awa match wouldnt fly anymore. Stuff eveolves. And at some point itll go back around and slow back down.
Seriously AsspieDave as a fixation on the LuchaCrap "wrestling." I'm going to be spicy with this, but Mexico and Japan never got it right, or understood, what the U.S. guys were trying to teach them. Instead, they took in the information and bastardized the crap out of it by forgetting what psychology is and how to actually work a match. So they took the idea of pro wrestling, then infused it with their "warrior pride" bullshit (Aztec/Samurai crap). It turned it into either,. a circus stunt show where everyone is doing flips and twists and crap at full speed, with no idea of psychology and selling (Lucha), or they legitimately beat each other with strikes and drop each other on their heads , again at full speed, with no idea of psychology or selling (Puro). And because AsspieDave and his ButtBuddyBrian are overly pushing this narrative as both being the be all and end all, not only people getting brainwashed on this propaganda, but this is also resulting in guys/gals actually doing the work risking life, limb, and eyesight on trying to imitate that, honestly, niche garbage from Mexico or Japan. Meanwhile normal guys are either watching WWE or the old stuff.
I don’t think he ever said it was an official “insider term” or something. And I think anyone with a brain (not the people in this video) would understand that he meant the work Fenix was doing from off the ropes.
There is zero chance that Dave wasn't communicating with some geek, who used this monstrosity of a term, and Dave, being the king of internet wrestling shilllords, took it for himself and nobody is a better example than Rey Fenix, so it just works for the goobers. It's just another moment in pathetic internet wrestling fandom.
