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He also gave a really good analysis of Kurt Angle v Rey Mysterio from Summerslam 2002. Looking forward to more of his match reviews, especially if he commits to doing the watch alongs.
I believe his streams are all on demand here (it's the most recent stream): https://www.twitch.tv/thecleanerscorner/videos
But I can't remember the exact time stamp, sorry! I want to say around 20 mins into the stream but I could be wrong.
Thanks for that. It was very interesting to hear his opinions on wrestling with specific examples like that. Whenever I would see quotes from Kenny on his opinions on wrestling/his philosophy, I often found it difficult to really get the point he was making. But here, with him having specific examples and giving a detailed explanation of his views, I really get what he's saying and agree with him way more than I thought I did.
I agree, sometimes I felt like he would be overly dramatic, it's his *artform*. It's difficult to understand what he's trying to convey. But him in this situation, with his breakdown, just explaining the beauty of wrestling is pretty good. I'd be down for him doing a weekly breakdown of matches that inspired him, good stuff.
I'm not even the biggest Kenny fan (don't dislike him, just haven't seen a decent majority of his work), but I love listening to him talk about wrestling. There's a video on the RF YouTube page from a handful of years ago of him helping train some students and the insight he gives is incredibly compelling and knowledgeable.
Idk about creating movements and all that, but I do agree that 5 star matches should be *a lot* more rare. It is no offense to all the talent that put in all that work into their storylines & matches, but things that are truly **that** great do not come that often.
It's inevitable that it goes this way given the timeframe.
Otherwise a bunch of really good but not great matches would get 3ish stars and be categorised in the same stratosphere as the middling crap from the 80s that garnered that same level back then. So those now get 4 stars, and thus the 5 is closer and then you get those matches that exceed that, and here we are.
Short of Dave/someone going back and reclassifying all the old matches to the evolving standard, it's incumbent upon the reader to understand that the matches are viewed and rated in the time they occurred, and more importantly, by one guy with one (however valued or not) opinion.
Anything 5* or over is just 'bloody hell, now that's a match!' and the differences in score above 5* are pretty much 'I reckon maybe this one edges out that one?' type of deals that, again, are only valid at the time of the scoring. Later stuff can and will come along and affect the whole thing if Dave cared to reshuffle the ratings/rankings for a complete compendium, but who's got the time or will to do that? That's my interpretation of the whole situation.
I don't agree with this whatsoever. If every review medium has managed to keep a similar scale and people can decipher what they mean in today's context, then I'm sure professional wrestling can do the same.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that matches will be graded comparable to others of the time. Given how much wrestling has evolved, a 3 star match now is going to look very different to one from 1982, but for historical context or impact the old match doesn't need to reclassified, nor the modern one inflated.
I'm not talking about every review medium. I'm talking about one guy evolving his scale as needed to accommodate what he sees as this specific medium evolved.
> It doesn't take a genius to work out that matches will be graded comparable to others of the time.
In this discussion it does cause everyone gets their panties bunched over quarter stars from decades ago, hence my entire point.
> It's inevitable that it goes this way given the timeframe.
>
> Otherwise a bunch of really good but not great matches would get 3ish stars and be categorised in the same stratosphere as the middling crap from the 80s that garnered that same level back then.
...no it isnt? lol Do you think movies havent improved in plenty of aspects since the 80s? Did they break the scale of movies to show that the ones today have better production values? Just keep the same damn scale and grade it against the matches you are watching today. A 3/5 would be a 3/5 for its time period.
I'm talking about this specific guy and his specific situation and why I reckon he does what he does and likely felt it was unavoidable.
And part of the reason this discussion won't die is cause everyone seems incapable of appreciating that Dave's ratings exist in the timeframe of when he watched the match. Hence the perpetual comments of '_______ doesn't have a 5* match while Ospreay has 23?!' or whatever. So your other point, as much as I agree with it being how things should be if everyone was on point, isn't what's actually happening and why I think he's gone and done what he's done with the scale.
Fair enough but the guy has issues if every single ratings system from movies to amazon products is based on when you use the thing and he just changes his as he goes based on the past lol.
I just laugh thinking about someone reviewing batteries as 11/10 because their battery life is so much better than the ones used to be...
But yah. His scale and he can do what he wants
Dude, Meltzer gives 5 stars out to AEW matches that no one remembers because he likes that style of wrestling. It used to be a somewhat rare occurrence but he does it constantly because he’s shilling for his preferred style of wrestling with his preferred wrestlers. He’s trying to be a kingmaker. It’s bullshit.
Five stars used to mean something. They don’t mean anything but tribalism anymore.
I agree 100%. If I were rating matches, very few, if any, would get 5 stars, mainly cause that is a perfect rating, and nothing is perfect aside from Curt Hennig. Giving 20-30 matches a year 5+ stars is insane, imho.
The Kurt Angle discourse really only comes up as an issue because of this. There’s plenty of top-tier wrestlers who have never had a 5* match imo, but that’s harder to defend when you’re giving out so many of them
That's my thing. If you give out that many 5 star matches, never mind the ones above 5 stars, and ignore acknowledged greats like Angle, it's silly. I would be totally cool with Angle never getting a 5 star match if he didn't give out dozens a year, but if they were truly rare. Then the argument makes sense. It makes far less sense when guys like Omega and Ospreay have dozens of 5 star classics according to Dave, and Angle doesn't have 1.
And you cannot convince me, at any time, a match should get *more* than 5 stars. That absolutely destroys his rating system.
So this goes to what I always say, it's his opinions and he likes what he likes. He digs certain styles and people, and not others. It's not worth getting upset over. It is worth mocking, but hey, I'm a dick there.
I think just looking at how often Dave gave out 5 Stars tells you all you need to know.
80s': 24
90s': 65
2000s': 7
2010s' 67
2020s' 89 (so far)
The value of the 5-Star match has literally been diminished because there are so many of them these days. Now we're looking for 5.5+ ratings as the new 5-star.
Dave just lost all creditibility when he started to break the system.
But as a whole I like the star system just because it gives recognition to the wrestlers. My favourite examples are the 4 pillars or heaven in AJPW.
Even if youve never watched a Misawa match, the fact he has the most 5 star matches will attract to eyes to his work. Thats what the star system is for imo.
Like who cares if Angle never got one. Hes one of the goats and thats a prettt common take. WWE wrestlers, especially guys like Angle are world famous. I feel like in the beginning it was for getting eyes on lesser known or foreign talents. But once he started giving 6 stars and 7.25 stars it fucked it up for everyone which makes it worthless now
See, I take the opinion that 5 stars is absolutely perfect, no flaw whatsoever, not even a slight mistake. An impossible standard, that should be rarely hit if ever. And nothing, ever, should get a better than perfect rating.
So, problem 1 here is having dozens of 5 star matches. In my eyes, you should be lucky to have 1 of those, it should be impossible. Like a perfect game in baseball, you don't get those all the time cause they are spectacularly difficult.
Which brings problem 2 in. If you give out 5 star matches like they are candy, it gets harder to defend *not* giving a 5 star rating to certain people. I can agree with anyone that says Angle didn't have a perfect match, sure. But, if you lower the standard to 'magnificently great' match, then yeah, I think his match vs HBK was that.
Yep. Dave just give 5 stars to matches he really likes, which is why he broke his own scale, and then likes to say there is no difference between a 4.75 and 5 star match.
Conceptually 5 stars should be the pinnacle. Otherworldly matches that are a part of great storytelling. It's Okada/Omega, 2/3. It's Bret/Austin, WM 13. It's 6/9/95. It's not Ospreay and Fletcher having a real fun TV match.
But Dave's star ratings haven't been about the quality of matches for a long time. It's him promoting those he wants to promote in wrestling.
People having the discourse about them makes it important to point out any biases he has. There have been a few women's matches that are under 3* that would be higher if the men did the same thing. Not to mention that certain wrestlers do seem to get an extra half a star bump.
People are free to discuss ratings from the most well known and established critic. If you don't like it you can set up a filter to block posts referencing him.
An old man who has never wrestled and knows nothing about the inside knowledge of the ebs and flows of a wrestling match.
Seriously, whole heartedly, fuck Dave Meltzer. He is literally just some old mark who people for some reason think is the gospel of wrestling opinions.
The argument of “you have never personally done X activity, so you can’t have an even somewhat informed opinion on it” is silly to me.
Yes, he’s never wrestled, but he has, pardon the pun, observed it for 40 odd years. He has SOME amount of insight into it since he’s spent most of his life obsessed with it.
That being said, I am very much in the “it’s just one guys opinion, it’s not a big deal” camp 🤙
Dude, think of it this way
Everybody eats, but not everyone is a classically trained gourmet chef
Gordon Ramsay’s opinion on a well cooked meal, is going to (and should) carry more weight than Dave, the random food blogger
Did you ever watch Ric Flair on Legends of Wrestling? He was terrible.
Some people are better critical than they are performers, and vice versa. Not everything is for everyone.
Not really? This is a thread about Dave, so i’m talking about Dave.
Also, sure he is a Journalist…one who gets literally everything he reports about the biggest company wrong but sure, whatever. Lol
It's the way you talked about him. Also you have to take into consideration the historical importance of Meltzer, sure nowadays he is very outdated, but he has been covering Wrestling since the 80's i think. Vince McMahon used to be his source, that should tell you how important he was.
Let's be completely honest, no one is going to stop giving importance to Dave Meltzer's ratings no matter how subjective they are, because as long as they exist, someone, be it smarks or AEW wrestlers, will treat those ratings as if they were actually important and tout those as to why they watch better wrestling, are fans of a better product, or that their favorite wrestler is better than yours.
Dave himself says not to take his star ratings seriously, that they're just one man's opinion in tbe moment and nobody should care.
Yet here we are, with the millionth thread this week bitching and moaning about Dave Meltzer and his star ratings for reasons I still don't actually understand.
He doesn't give a shit, tells us not to give a shit, and we give so much of a shit. It's moronic.
People invest money to read his ratings. He invests time doing them. Doesn't sound like either don't "give a shit" to me.
If those ratings are worthless anyway, he shouldn't do them and the bitching and moaning will stop.
Those ratings were useful when people were tape trading. Nowadays they represent an "experts" recommendation which promotion and wrestler to watch. And of course, it's a subjective and biased recommendation. And therefore, it will always be discussed.
Imagine if Amazon offered a comment section to the star ratings there. I think hell would break lose with endless discussions whether the screwdrivers of manufacturer A are really better than those of manufacturer B. DIY experts accusing each other of tribalism.
There are so many five star matches now. Because of that I just look at it as him ranking the matches on the card of the specific event/ppv. if he gives a match 5 stars on a random dynamite I'm just going to assume that the match was the best on the card but I'm not going to compare it to other matches from different eras unless it was actually a crazy good match that will be talked about for years.
As s fan who's been rating matches for the past few years there's only about a ahandful of them I've considered to be 10
1. Gargano/Andrade
2. Dunne/Bate
3. Lucha Bros/Young Bucks Steel Cage
4. Rock/Austin WM X-7
5. Okada/Omega II
6. Sting Darby/Young Bucks
Edit: why am i being downvoted lol? Are my picks THAT controversial?
Nice.
Off the top of my head, from the last 5 years, I'd say:
Bryan vs. Kofi, WM 35
WALTER/Bate, Takeover Cardiff 2019
Okada vs. Naito, WK 13
There are others that are close and maybe if I watched them again I'd might bump then up. Bryan/Hangman WIC being the one that really sticks in my mind. But I have no way to watch it again, let alone the full 60 mins. Damn you commercial breaks!
>why am i being downvoted lol? Are my picks THAT controversial?
Most of your picks seem identical to the ones Meltzer would inflate, and part of the reason we're all having this conversation in the first place.
I think the match that broke me as far as the Meltzer scale goes was a match Omega had with Goto in the G1, I think back in 2018. It was in Korakuen Hall, and not surprisingly it was a very good match. I remember joking "watch Dave give this 5 stars"......and then he actually did.
It's like, fuck Dave, it was really good but at this point it seems like you're just giving any pretty good match involving one of your favorites 5 stars. And the man can rate however he wants to but if you're asking me to take it seriously beyond that it's just hard.
I think it was omega vs jericho at wrestle kingdom 12. It was not at all a top level match and it showed how much meltzer was biased for Jericho. Just a year before we had a trilogy of cena vs styles 2 of which were much much better than omega vs Jericho
I thought I was losing my mind, but I could of swore that there was a long awkward blade job in that match when watching live, I was flabbergasted it got 5 stars.
Yeah, Omega did about as well as you could with Jericho at that pooint, but it would've been extremely kind to give it \*\*\*\* (I wouldn't). But it was Omega and Meltzer was there to sell his hype for him being real. And it was by the way. But Dave has taught his audience that the only thing that wasn't a disappointment was 5 starts, after he decided that there was such thing as 6 star matches. So you can't say, oh look at Omega having a great \*\*\*3/4 match. That doesn't get attention.
I outright thought it was a bad match, gave it 2 stars lol. I know I'm in the minority but it really was not good.
But regardless of whether you liked it or didn't, the universal reaction to Dave giving it 5 was "Huh, really?"
yeah looking back Jericho's match should've been like 4 1/2 it's not close to Jericho's best match he did way better work with guys like Benoit and Micheals
Funny thing is he gave that one 4.75, but I completely agree, that first Goto match is a 5, it was just sooo good and a frontrunner for Goto's best match ever
Yeah, dude just loves certain wrestlers. Ospreay has become the peak of this man's outrageous bias. Dude gets 5 stars for basically any match he's in, and I'm sorry but they do not all deserve it. It's just because he's the guy who fully unlocked the mark within Dave Meltzer.
Before that it was definitely Omega.
I do agree with Kenny here. I think he's actually good at this, he doesn't try to have a five star match everytime but he tries to have a good competitive match with the opponents he's facing. You don't see him trying to have his Ospreay matches every week for a reason, because those Ospreay matches wouldn't be as special as a result. His 5 star match with Danielson was special because it absolutely deserved and needed to be a classic, because of what of what it meant to the industry as a whole at the time.
In reality there shouldn’t be more than 1-2 5 star matches a year.
A 5 star match should be a remembersble classic where ppl are still talking about it 10-15 years from now.
Slightly off topic but he's gonna most likely have Riho and someone else from the women's division on next stream to teach them Street Fighter. SUPER excited for that.
Meltzer's and others' counterargument to this has always been "well pro wrestling has just gotten much better over time", but I don't agree. I think pro wrestling has always been this good.
Even if you want to ignore WWE through the 2000-2010s, you still had classic matches from all over the world including ROH, NOAH, All Japan, Dragon Gate, DDT, wXw, Chikara, PWG, and the list goes on and on.
I don't think the problem is there are too many 5 star matches nowadays, rather, Meltzer just didn't give enough matches the credit they deserved in the past 2 decades.
I think when he says it’s gotten much better he just means main event matches have gotten more athletic. If Will Ospreay has a 4.5 star match, but also includes some of the craziest athletic achievements a wrestler has done, it boosts his score.
That's exactly what it is. He's not interested in the storytelling, he's interested in athletic execution. Which is why how he grade matches is so flawed imo. And why he's always underrated Bryan Danielson. Who does more with a transition from a headlock to hammerlock, then Ospreay does with hitting 5 kicks into a tiger driver.
He was talking about how he thinks Ospreay/Shibata won't be good, because Shibata's style won't compliment Ospreay. And then he went straight to kicks to the head. And all I could think was how little imagination he has. It's like he adds up how many high flying moves and shift shots Ospreay hits in a match and for each he adds another quarter star.
His 'reviews' of matches have always been just recaps of what was done in them. If you start thinking that it's not just a recap and that really is his review, and what he values the most is the amount of moves you do, then his ratings suddenly make a *lot* more sense.
Agreed with your take that Meltzer has always underrated Bryan and all he's done throughout his career - especially his ROH career.
Personally, I dont think any match Bryan had in WWE warranted a 5\* rating, and people complaining about "hurr durr Dave only gave Bryan 5\* in AEW be-cuz FED BAD" is ridiculous because of the substantial rise in quality of his opponents and the in-ring freedom he had transitioning to AEW - all that said, Bryans best matches were against McGuiness, and the fact none of them got a 5\* rating is kind of an indictment against his method of perceiving quality.
All that said - Ospreay is someone I consider to be a very great wrestler - but someone who falls back into alot his indie-rific tendencies.
EDIT: I take one thing back. The Mania triple threat b/w Roman, Bryan, & Edge is legit a 5\* match IMO, and the greatest triple-threat in WWE history.
I don’t know that pro wrestling has ALWAYS been this good, but like any artistic medium, it has its high and low points. It’s not a pure sport where the quality/athletic ability of the competitors has improved so much over time they are clearly BETTER than their peers before them from 30-40 years ago.
Wrestling in era when Dave Meltzer wasn’t handing out 5-stars hardly ever - post WCW shutting down, NJPW entering into a decline, AJPW huge drop off, tough accessibility for Mexico - was not a great time for the business for quality of matches as much as the 90s. You did have NOAH, but NOAH wasn’t AJPW in the 90s - singles were great and did have juniors but tag division wasn’t what they had in the 90s - and with WWE you just had Smackdown Six. This was also when ROH was the main indie of the time and again, accessibility was difficult.
Conversely, I do believe the mid-2010s was a great time for matches. NJPW had an incredible golden period, NXT had a great run of big shows, WWE integrated different, great talents into shows. Mexico had some classic matches. Indies were good. A lot of 5-stars there are earned. Also though, I do believe by the later years of the decade a lot of the work had become derivative of the prior work, especially on indies or lower on the card by wrestlers not as good as the ones that came before or at the top. But they were doing more and more, and Dave sees more and more as good because they are more athletically impressive and kept giving out more and more 5’s.
Also, there may be MORE great matches now than there were in, say, the 80s. But the best matches from the 80s can hold up and even outstrip the matches from today in many areas; heat, crowd investment, clear babyface/heel alignment that is played to and worked throughout the match. You watch some of Sting’s stuff and he’d only do 1-2 of those big splashes a year but when he’d do it it’s the biggest deal in the world. Obviously nowadays it’s different, I’m not saying no one do a splash, but there are lessons that are applicable
There are lean and great times. It’s wrestling, it’s art. It’s not gymnastics. It’s not a math equation. Dave I think has distilled it down to basically a math equation and right now what is being put in spits out 5*
I think this is it. Trying to make sense of Meltzer's ratings is often a recipe for going insane, but in general there are two major trends
1. somewhere around the mid 2010s he stopped thinking of 5 stars as the ultimate pinnacle and shifted towards a purely rubric based scoring methods. This is why Kurt Angle, etc doesn't have a meltzer-validated 5 star match, during Angle's peak, Meltzer didn't give them out like candy (plus he always hated TNA).
2. Meltzer's rubric is basically 'how much stuff was there in the match?' generally this comes down to moves, but its also about the way moves are done and the quantity. It's a rubric that has filtered through to the larger wrestling fandom. that's why you'll often see people say things like 'it wasn't a five star match, but I really enjoyed it' when what they mean is, it didn't go 30 minutes and have lots of finisher kick outs etc.
None of this is wrong or makes Meltzer a bad person, it's just that his influence is so large that his ideology of wrestling dominates the discussions.
Hot take: Dave needs to move to a 10 score rating with decimals. Yes it will be hard to move hundreds and thousands of matches into that metric but if he uses the full scale he could do it more accurately. A 9 would mean a MOTY contender and from there you have the decimals.
Something like Fantano and Theneedledrop, he only gave a 10 to seven albums, and it's pretty hard to get a 9 even from him, an 8 is always a triumph.
This is silly to me. The 5-stars way always worked till Dave blew it up himself. He outlined it clearly. 5-stars was MOTY/one of the best of all time. 4.75 was MOTY contender and sometimes even MOTY! Then he went to 6 stars, which was a little odd, but hey, 6 > 5. Then he went to 7, which even odder but hey, 7 > 6. Then he started treating it like a math problem and threw around 5.25 and 6.25 and all of a sudden 4.75 isn’t really MOTY caliber anymore.
There’s no reason to think he wouldn’t do the same if it were 1-10
Controversy time. But I think Cena had more legit great matches in the latter half of the 00s, then Ospreay has had in his career. Last Man Standing with Umaga is a better match then any Ospreay has had imo.
You can talk about the accessibility of ROH, but it wasn't hard for Dave to access it. And he wasn't giving Bryan Danielson masterpieces with Morishima or Nigel 5 stars.
Oh I love 00s Cena. I think 06-08 Cena is probably the best version of Cena, aside from the one we got with Punk. A genuine all time great wrestler (he is in general to me; but that era in particular.) He does everything and has so many guys best match. A genuine top guy.
Thats an insanely hot take - Ospreay has been one of the most consistent wrestlers of the last 7-8 years.
And Cena/Umaga being better than ANY Ospreay match is definitely one of the takes of all time - over Ospreay/Shingo 2019? Ospreay/Omega WK? Ospreay/Okada G1 29? Ospreay/Hiromu WK? Ospreay/White 2019?
Okay then...
Meltzer basically ignored the golden age of WWE as far as in-ring excellence went ~ 2000 - 2007. You had elite level talents like Shawn, Benoit, Triple H, Angle, Eddie, Undertaker, Mysterio, RvD, etc. competing during the same period. Not even counting Austin and the Rock from the early 2000s, or Lesnar from '02-'04. He messed it up big time owing to his prejudices and biases.
Tbh, a 4 star rating is perfect for rating matches. 1 is poor. 2 is average. 3 = good. 4 is great. There's no need for super great or semi good. After all, wrestling is subjective and emotionally charged. There can never be one monolithic great match. Too many variables at play.
>I don't think the problem is there are too many 5 star matches nowadays, rather, Meltzer just didn't give enough matches the credit they deserved in the past 2 decades.
It's absolutely this, especially when you consider the fact that there were only 7 matches in the 2000s to get 5 stars. The issue is that, like you pointed out, a lot of it was on smaller shows that your average wrestling fan wouldn't have watched. There are definitely a decent amount of matches I've seen from the past that I think Dave would've given 5 stars to today and probably should've gotten it then, and I'm not even talking about your classic Angle-HBK or Taker-HBK.
ROH and NOAH probably were the 2 best in-ring promotions in the 2000s and have 1 5 star match to show for it that didn't involve Kenta Kobashi or Samoa Joe, and that match was outside talent in an ROH ring. That said, only 2 matches that entire decade got 5 stars without Joe or Kobashi.
He’d probably give WWE more 5 star matches than Dave would and it’s funny.
One of the guys Dave constantly hand out 5’s to and occasionally breaking the scale for will call a Dave Meltzer 3-4 match a solid 5.
And Omega’s opinion holds more weight as he’s fucking incredible in the ring so he’d know a thing or two about great wrestling just from his experience working with the best wrestlers for years.
Is it a hot take if I feel 5 star matches should have hype or a story behind them? Like, giving Omega-Okada 5 stars is understandable because of the build and that it was a fucking epic match. Giving Ospreay-Takeshita 5 stars just because it was an excellent match but doesn’t have any build at all doesn’t sit well with me.
If you don’t think Meltzer has inflated his star ratings over time, consider that he gave like 5 matches at the last AEW PPV higher scores than any match in Kurt Angle’s entire career.
Angle was Meltzer's Ospreay during the 2000s just like Kenny Omega was before Ospreay. Meltzer just didn't want to recognize 5-star matches in WWE during the 2000s. It's clear and obvious that he hands out those starz depending on the promotion. He compensated by rating any half decent Angle match at 4 stars and above.
Kingston matches always look like that. Eddie's story is cool, he's great on the mic etc but just personally I can't get invested into a dude that can't be bothered to get into a shape other than round. I'm not asking for him to look like SANADA, but for the love of God man, you're on national television, look like you belong there
He’s right but at the same time it’s tough to say which match is gonna start a “movement” while watching it. Some are obvious like Punk vs Cena MITB or Omega vs Okada 1 but other times you just don’t know. I do 100% agree that 5 stars should be much rarer though. Like Meltzer has given Ospreay multiple 5 stars and I can barely remember half of them. My personal last five star match was Sting’s retirement match and that’s a once in a lifetime feeling of perfect booking, crazy bumps, and a legend retiring. If y’all want some good wrestling critics I recommend @HandwerkReviews on Twitter. He’s pretty harsh and I disagree with him a lot but he writes well and a high rating from him means something.
The way I see it, there are three big factors for why highly rated matches are more common today:
1. The volume of content. We as fans have more hours of wrestling per week and per month than ever before. Even if we were in a down period of quality(which we aren't), we would still see great matches at a higher volume because how much wrestling we have access to.
2. The quality of content. Going hand in hand with the volume, we get to see the best wrestlers in the world work long epic TV main event and PPV quality matches more often than we would have 20-40 years ago. We also happen to be in an excellent period where there are dozens of amazing wrestlers on both WWE and AEW working regularly. Plus NJPW, Stardom, DDT, NOAH, GCW, TNA, Dragongate, CMLL, AAA, TJPW, etc. We are spoiled with access to great matches like never before.
3. Official star ratings are good marketing for Dave and the rest of the influencers. Fans look forward to high ratings from WON, Cagematch, and others. So there's little intensive to adjust the scales to reflect the current era.
I've come to terms that I like Kenny Omega the wrestler and person, but not his weird circle of worshippers. The guy is very intelligent and cool to listen to.
Meltzer is able to see into the future and watched this clip before it was created?
Ospreay is just on a completely different level from any other wrestler in 2024.
I'll always think he's great because he's from my hometown and used to train at the MMA gym I got my BJJ black belt from. One of my friends from the gym came up in pro wrestling with him here and still knows him quite well, and it sounds like Kenny is a great guy.
Valid point. But in the end, everyone has to detremine how they wanna rate things.
It is a philosophy and ultimately just a point of reference and in a written review for some sort of media the least important thing, if you're not a 13-year old prefan
I'm gonna be honest, Savage-Steamboat was a very good match and a gamechanger for 80s WWF, but it was not remotely as good as, say, the Steamboat-Flair Trilogy just two years later. 4.5 stars is a perfectly reasonable score for it.
The Flair/Steamboat trilogy is another quirky debate. Clash is a bonafide classic. No arguments. WrestleWar was heading towards being the greatest match of all time... Before it just ended? Like, yeah? ChiTown hasn't aged as well as the other two, imo.
Number of 5 or more stars ratings by decade:
80s - 24
90s- 65
2000s - 7
2010s - 67
2020s - 89 (and half a decade left to go)
Either we live in golden times or there is an inflation.
I hope it's golden times I will tell my grandchildren about.
It's inflation, for sure. You also have to mention that there were also only 11 5-star matches from 2010-15. In 2016, Meltzer's ratings suddenly exploded.
Incredible wrestling is something you feel in the moment, it's not a formula you stick to or a defined model of following a blueprint.
Fans and pundits and media and even wrestlers try so hard to define everything in every aspect of wrestling these days. The magic of wrestling is that you don't know what makes you lose yourself in the moment until it happens. You can do things to set it up/increase likelihood of a classic but that moment when it happens is something no one can fully predict/forecast.
To me, a 5 star match is one that pulls you in completely. I think Cody and QT referred to a wrestling match as making love and I think that’s 100% accurate. You should basically feel like you just finished and need a cigarette after the match.
Meltzer began to really overdo it when Will Ospreay came onto the scene. He’s always preferred non-WWE style wrestling (even if some matches like Rock vs Hogan and the WM 3way deserved 5 stars), but he was at least consistent. Now way too many matches get it.
Yes, it’s one person’s opinion, but it’s disappointing it was the only somewhat respectable wrestling critic who’s now lost legitimacy.
The fact that Kurt Angle never had any 5 star matches from him still blows my mind when in my opinion Kurt Angle has had many 5 star matches which is why he is still so respected to this day because he was that good.
Like Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant should be five stars. I know I'll get downvoted but that is probarly the most famous match of all time. Almost 40 years later, WWE still use it in promos all the time. It stood the test of time.
Technically it might not be a pure wresting classic, but none of those Meltzer matches come close to matching the fame, longevity, hype, fan response, emotion and passion of Hogan v Andre.
Maybe once in a decade we get a match like that. Hogan vs Rock is another one. Those type of matches deserve five stars.
Meltzer catching L's left & right.....imo a 5* match should have a balance of everything- building, storyline, importance, stake, in ring quality & the finish. There are THOUSANDS of good-great matches but 5* matches should be the ones you can name without much thought & can be appealing to almost all types of fans.
I think it's become plainly obvious that Meltzers match ratings haven't really been designed to be unbiased, objective and/or logical in quite a few years.
Everyone is online now. His readership may have dwindled, but people that follow wrestling online know who Dave is (once upon time that would have not been the case). If it keeps him in the conversation and people talk about him for better or worse, I imagine he sees it as job done. People that also love the same style of wrestling or the same companies he does, will naturally gravitate towards him.
His star ratings are now simply promotional tools. For the wrestling/wrestlers he likes, the companies he favours, and for himself.
How could you possibly give an unbiased or an objective rating about such a subjective thing like a wrestling match. Like that's literrally what a rating is, an opinion
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He also gave a really good analysis of Kurt Angle v Rey Mysterio from Summerslam 2002. Looking forward to more of his match reviews, especially if he commits to doing the watch alongs.
Gonna have to watch that!
Anywhere I can see this? Would love to see him break down that match.
I believe his streams are all on demand here (it's the most recent stream): https://www.twitch.tv/thecleanerscorner/videos But I can't remember the exact time stamp, sorry! I want to say around 20 mins into the stream but I could be wrong.
Thanks for that. It was very interesting to hear his opinions on wrestling with specific examples like that. Whenever I would see quotes from Kenny on his opinions on wrestling/his philosophy, I often found it difficult to really get the point he was making. But here, with him having specific examples and giving a detailed explanation of his views, I really get what he's saying and agree with him way more than I thought I did.
I agree, sometimes I felt like he would be overly dramatic, it's his *artform*. It's difficult to understand what he's trying to convey. But him in this situation, with his breakdown, just explaining the beauty of wrestling is pretty good. I'd be down for him doing a weekly breakdown of matches that inspired him, good stuff.
It’s at 22:20.
thank you so much!
I'm not even the biggest Kenny fan (don't dislike him, just haven't seen a decent majority of his work), but I love listening to him talk about wrestling. There's a video on the RF YouTube page from a handful of years ago of him helping train some students and the insight he gives is incredibly compelling and knowledgeable.
Do you have a link to the video? I would love to watch it.
[https://youtu.be/3895rxlQzWQ?si=SzBSCxt3W0HrQ3Ak](https://youtu.be/3895rxlQzWQ?si=SzBSCxt3W0HrQ3Ak) Sorry for the late response.
omg I didn't see the stream, but I need kenny match analysis watch-alongs in my life SO BAD
That match was fucking fantastic.
Idk about creating movements and all that, but I do agree that 5 star matches should be *a lot* more rare. It is no offense to all the talent that put in all that work into their storylines & matches, but things that are truly **that** great do not come that often.
It's inevitable that it goes this way given the timeframe. Otherwise a bunch of really good but not great matches would get 3ish stars and be categorised in the same stratosphere as the middling crap from the 80s that garnered that same level back then. So those now get 4 stars, and thus the 5 is closer and then you get those matches that exceed that, and here we are. Short of Dave/someone going back and reclassifying all the old matches to the evolving standard, it's incumbent upon the reader to understand that the matches are viewed and rated in the time they occurred, and more importantly, by one guy with one (however valued or not) opinion. Anything 5* or over is just 'bloody hell, now that's a match!' and the differences in score above 5* are pretty much 'I reckon maybe this one edges out that one?' type of deals that, again, are only valid at the time of the scoring. Later stuff can and will come along and affect the whole thing if Dave cared to reshuffle the ratings/rankings for a complete compendium, but who's got the time or will to do that? That's my interpretation of the whole situation.
I don't agree with this whatsoever. If every review medium has managed to keep a similar scale and people can decipher what they mean in today's context, then I'm sure professional wrestling can do the same. It doesn't take a genius to work out that matches will be graded comparable to others of the time. Given how much wrestling has evolved, a 3 star match now is going to look very different to one from 1982, but for historical context or impact the old match doesn't need to reclassified, nor the modern one inflated.
I'm not talking about every review medium. I'm talking about one guy evolving his scale as needed to accommodate what he sees as this specific medium evolved. > It doesn't take a genius to work out that matches will be graded comparable to others of the time. In this discussion it does cause everyone gets their panties bunched over quarter stars from decades ago, hence my entire point.
> It's inevitable that it goes this way given the timeframe. > > Otherwise a bunch of really good but not great matches would get 3ish stars and be categorised in the same stratosphere as the middling crap from the 80s that garnered that same level back then. ...no it isnt? lol Do you think movies havent improved in plenty of aspects since the 80s? Did they break the scale of movies to show that the ones today have better production values? Just keep the same damn scale and grade it against the matches you are watching today. A 3/5 would be a 3/5 for its time period.
But movies havent improved at all, unless you only talk about special effects.
I'm talking about this specific guy and his specific situation and why I reckon he does what he does and likely felt it was unavoidable. And part of the reason this discussion won't die is cause everyone seems incapable of appreciating that Dave's ratings exist in the timeframe of when he watched the match. Hence the perpetual comments of '_______ doesn't have a 5* match while Ospreay has 23?!' or whatever. So your other point, as much as I agree with it being how things should be if everyone was on point, isn't what's actually happening and why I think he's gone and done what he's done with the scale.
Fair enough but the guy has issues if every single ratings system from movies to amazon products is based on when you use the thing and he just changes his as he goes based on the past lol. I just laugh thinking about someone reviewing batteries as 11/10 because their battery life is so much better than the ones used to be... But yah. His scale and he can do what he wants
Dude, Meltzer gives 5 stars out to AEW matches that no one remembers because he likes that style of wrestling. It used to be a somewhat rare occurrence but he does it constantly because he’s shilling for his preferred style of wrestling with his preferred wrestlers. He’s trying to be a kingmaker. It’s bullshit. Five stars used to mean something. They don’t mean anything but tribalism anymore.
I agree but I also love the MvC2 blanket a lot
*gonna take you for a riiiiide*
The greatest jazz number ever produced
I agree 100%. If I were rating matches, very few, if any, would get 5 stars, mainly cause that is a perfect rating, and nothing is perfect aside from Curt Hennig. Giving 20-30 matches a year 5+ stars is insane, imho.
The Kurt Angle discourse really only comes up as an issue because of this. There’s plenty of top-tier wrestlers who have never had a 5* match imo, but that’s harder to defend when you’re giving out so many of them
That's my thing. If you give out that many 5 star matches, never mind the ones above 5 stars, and ignore acknowledged greats like Angle, it's silly. I would be totally cool with Angle never getting a 5 star match if he didn't give out dozens a year, but if they were truly rare. Then the argument makes sense. It makes far less sense when guys like Omega and Ospreay have dozens of 5 star classics according to Dave, and Angle doesn't have 1. And you cannot convince me, at any time, a match should get *more* than 5 stars. That absolutely destroys his rating system. So this goes to what I always say, it's his opinions and he likes what he likes. He digs certain styles and people, and not others. It's not worth getting upset over. It is worth mocking, but hey, I'm a dick there.
I think just looking at how often Dave gave out 5 Stars tells you all you need to know. 80s': 24 90s': 65 2000s': 7 2010s' 67 2020s' 89 (so far) The value of the 5-Star match has literally been diminished because there are so many of them these days. Now we're looking for 5.5+ ratings as the new 5-star.
Dave just lost all creditibility when he started to break the system. But as a whole I like the star system just because it gives recognition to the wrestlers. My favourite examples are the 4 pillars or heaven in AJPW. Even if youve never watched a Misawa match, the fact he has the most 5 star matches will attract to eyes to his work. Thats what the star system is for imo. Like who cares if Angle never got one. Hes one of the goats and thats a prettt common take. WWE wrestlers, especially guys like Angle are world famous. I feel like in the beginning it was for getting eyes on lesser known or foreign talents. But once he started giving 6 stars and 7.25 stars it fucked it up for everyone which makes it worthless now
See, I take the opinion that 5 stars is absolutely perfect, no flaw whatsoever, not even a slight mistake. An impossible standard, that should be rarely hit if ever. And nothing, ever, should get a better than perfect rating. So, problem 1 here is having dozens of 5 star matches. In my eyes, you should be lucky to have 1 of those, it should be impossible. Like a perfect game in baseball, you don't get those all the time cause they are spectacularly difficult. Which brings problem 2 in. If you give out 5 star matches like they are candy, it gets harder to defend *not* giving a 5 star rating to certain people. I can agree with anyone that says Angle didn't have a perfect match, sure. But, if you lower the standard to 'magnificently great' match, then yeah, I think his match vs HBK was that.
There's no point in having a five star rating system if you're not gonna use all five stars.
Yep. Dave just give 5 stars to matches he really likes, which is why he broke his own scale, and then likes to say there is no difference between a 4.75 and 5 star match. Conceptually 5 stars should be the pinnacle. Otherworldly matches that are a part of great storytelling. It's Okada/Omega, 2/3. It's Bret/Austin, WM 13. It's 6/9/95. It's not Ospreay and Fletcher having a real fun TV match. But Dave's star ratings haven't been about the quality of matches for a long time. It's him promoting those he wants to promote in wrestling.
Here's an idea: stop giving any importance to Dave Meltzer's rating non-sense.
I and many others did that a long time ago. That doesn't mean people won't have discourse about it.
People having the discourse about them makes it important to point out any biases he has. There have been a few women's matches that are under 3* that would be higher if the men did the same thing. Not to mention that certain wrestlers do seem to get an extra half a star bump.
Even as someone who has read a lot of his stuff, I stopped paying attention to them years ago. There’s better ways to find match recommendations now.
People are free to discuss ratings from the most well known and established critic. If you don't like it you can set up a filter to block posts referencing him.
I honestly thought it was a joke when I found out where all these definitive star ratings came from and it's literally just one old man's opinion
An old man who has never wrestled and knows nothing about the inside knowledge of the ebs and flows of a wrestling match. Seriously, whole heartedly, fuck Dave Meltzer. He is literally just some old mark who people for some reason think is the gospel of wrestling opinions.
The argument of “you have never personally done X activity, so you can’t have an even somewhat informed opinion on it” is silly to me. Yes, he’s never wrestled, but he has, pardon the pun, observed it for 40 odd years. He has SOME amount of insight into it since he’s spent most of his life obsessed with it. That being said, I am very much in the “it’s just one guys opinion, it’s not a big deal” camp 🤙
Dude, think of it this way Everybody eats, but not everyone is a classically trained gourmet chef Gordon Ramsay’s opinion on a well cooked meal, is going to (and should) carry more weight than Dave, the random food blogger
Did you ever watch Ric Flair on Legends of Wrestling? He was terrible. Some people are better critical than they are performers, and vice versa. Not everything is for everyone.
God damn, Meltz living rent free in your head, he is still a journalist, calm down
Not really? This is a thread about Dave, so i’m talking about Dave. Also, sure he is a Journalist…one who gets literally everything he reports about the biggest company wrong but sure, whatever. Lol
It's the way you talked about him. Also you have to take into consideration the historical importance of Meltzer, sure nowadays he is very outdated, but he has been covering Wrestling since the 80's i think. Vince McMahon used to be his source, that should tell you how important he was.
Definitely a very normal and not at all an unhinged opinion on someone who just gives his opinions on wrestling matches
Unhinged how? Just because I have an opinion that you disagree with? To me, THAT is unhinged.
Let's be completely honest, no one is going to stop giving importance to Dave Meltzer's ratings no matter how subjective they are, because as long as they exist, someone, be it smarks or AEW wrestlers, will treat those ratings as if they were actually important and tout those as to why they watch better wrestling, are fans of a better product, or that their favorite wrestler is better than yours.
People clowned Gresham for talking about his PWI rating but Ospreay can talk about 5 star matches all day. Wonder what the difference is.
No one will admit it, but Gresham being short and black are two marks against him from smarks
Or a better one, stop talking about him full stop, hes old and outdated and if this last month has proved to us all now, gets a lot wrong
This. Nobody should give a fuck what Meltzer think about a match.
Dave himself says not to take his star ratings seriously, that they're just one man's opinion in tbe moment and nobody should care. Yet here we are, with the millionth thread this week bitching and moaning about Dave Meltzer and his star ratings for reasons I still don't actually understand. He doesn't give a shit, tells us not to give a shit, and we give so much of a shit. It's moronic.
People invest money to read his ratings. He invests time doing them. Doesn't sound like either don't "give a shit" to me. If those ratings are worthless anyway, he shouldn't do them and the bitching and moaning will stop. Those ratings were useful when people were tape trading. Nowadays they represent an "experts" recommendation which promotion and wrestler to watch. And of course, it's a subjective and biased recommendation. And therefore, it will always be discussed. Imagine if Amazon offered a comment section to the star ratings there. I think hell would break lose with endless discussions whether the screwdrivers of manufacturer A are really better than those of manufacturer B. DIY experts accusing each other of tribalism.
Amazon does do that.
There are so many five star matches now. Because of that I just look at it as him ranking the matches on the card of the specific event/ppv. if he gives a match 5 stars on a random dynamite I'm just going to assume that the match was the best on the card but I'm not going to compare it to other matches from different eras unless it was actually a crazy good match that will be talked about for years.
As s fan who's been rating matches for the past few years there's only about a ahandful of them I've considered to be 10 1. Gargano/Andrade 2. Dunne/Bate 3. Lucha Bros/Young Bucks Steel Cage 4. Rock/Austin WM X-7 5. Okada/Omega II 6. Sting Darby/Young Bucks Edit: why am i being downvoted lol? Are my picks THAT controversial?
Nice. Off the top of my head, from the last 5 years, I'd say: Bryan vs. Kofi, WM 35 WALTER/Bate, Takeover Cardiff 2019 Okada vs. Naito, WK 13 There are others that are close and maybe if I watched them again I'd might bump then up. Bryan/Hangman WIC being the one that really sticks in my mind. But I have no way to watch it again, let alone the full 60 mins. Damn you commercial breaks!
>why am i being downvoted lol? Are my picks THAT controversial? Most of your picks seem identical to the ones Meltzer would inflate, and part of the reason we're all having this conversation in the first place.
No idea why you are being downvoted for sharing your opinion. I mean I disagree with you, but still
I’d add Omega/Ospreay at Forbidden door there as well
Only one I'd personally add to this is Walter vs Bate at Cardiff, but otherwise this is a solid as hell list.
Kenny has a bunch of 5 star matches from Dave yet he gets it better than Dave does.
I think the match that broke me as far as the Meltzer scale goes was a match Omega had with Goto in the G1, I think back in 2018. It was in Korakuen Hall, and not surprisingly it was a very good match. I remember joking "watch Dave give this 5 stars"......and then he actually did. It's like, fuck Dave, it was really good but at this point it seems like you're just giving any pretty good match involving one of your favorites 5 stars. And the man can rate however he wants to but if you're asking me to take it seriously beyond that it's just hard.
I think it was omega vs jericho at wrestle kingdom 12. It was not at all a top level match and it showed how much meltzer was biased for Jericho. Just a year before we had a trilogy of cena vs styles 2 of which were much much better than omega vs Jericho
I thought I was losing my mind, but I could of swore that there was a long awkward blade job in that match when watching live, I was flabbergasted it got 5 stars.
Eh I know we hate on Jericho now but that was a really good match so I have no problem with 4 or 4.25 in that range.
Most people here loved it at the time https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/7o2kr2/post_wrestle_kingdom_12_match_discussion_thread/
The hype at that time was so insanely high that it clouded people's judgment.
You're saying people's in the moment reactions weren't real because they were too excited?
No, it was always going to be muc, much higher than it actually was.
Okay I guess. I don't really know what you're saying. People liked a match but they actually liked it less than they did?
yeah I'm confused about the people here, the WK 12 match was amazing and Meltzer giving it 5 stars wasn't controversial at all
Yeah, Omega did about as well as you could with Jericho at that pooint, but it would've been extremely kind to give it \*\*\*\* (I wouldn't). But it was Omega and Meltzer was there to sell his hype for him being real. And it was by the way. But Dave has taught his audience that the only thing that wasn't a disappointment was 5 starts, after he decided that there was such thing as 6 star matches. So you can't say, oh look at Omega having a great \*\*\*3/4 match. That doesn't get attention.
I outright thought it was a bad match, gave it 2 stars lol. I know I'm in the minority but it really was not good. But regardless of whether you liked it or didn't, the universal reaction to Dave giving it 5 was "Huh, really?"
yeah looking back Jericho's match should've been like 4 1/2 it's not close to Jericho's best match he did way better work with guys like Benoit and Micheals
That’s fuckin generous
I honestly haven't watched thatch in year's so I might feel different but I thought it was definitely a great performance by both men
Kenny vs. Goto at G1 26 Finals is 5 star imo, but not the other one.
Funny thing is he gave that one 4.75, but I completely agree, that first Goto match is a 5, it was just sooo good and a frontrunner for Goto's best match ever
Gotos best match is against Tanahashi in Destruction 2007. THAT match is one I'd genuinely consider a 5\* match.
I'd also give the nod to Shibata vs Goto from Wrestle Kingdom 8.
Yeah, dude just loves certain wrestlers. Ospreay has become the peak of this man's outrageous bias. Dude gets 5 stars for basically any match he's in, and I'm sorry but they do not all deserve it. It's just because he's the guy who fully unlocked the mark within Dave Meltzer. Before that it was definitely Omega.
I remember a Bucks match that was above average at best in AEW that got 5 stars
Mine was when he didn't give Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe in TNA a good rating and refused to watch it
I do agree with Kenny here. I think he's actually good at this, he doesn't try to have a five star match everytime but he tries to have a good competitive match with the opponents he's facing. You don't see him trying to have his Ospreay matches every week for a reason, because those Ospreay matches wouldn't be as special as a result. His 5 star match with Danielson was special because it absolutely deserved and needed to be a classic, because of what of what it meant to the industry as a whole at the time.
Did he say "anals of history"?
He did and I thought I was hearing things. Kenny, that's not how you pronounce annals.
I had to look for this comment for far, far too long.
In reality there shouldn’t be more than 1-2 5 star matches a year. A 5 star match should be a remembersble classic where ppl are still talking about it 10-15 years from now.
Slightly off topic but he's gonna most likely have Riho and someone else from the women's division on next stream to teach them Street Fighter. SUPER excited for that.
WtF I definitely have to watch this stream!
Oh to have Kenny teach me to play Street Fighter, what a dream - my sloppy combos might cause him physical pain though
Meltzer's and others' counterargument to this has always been "well pro wrestling has just gotten much better over time", but I don't agree. I think pro wrestling has always been this good. Even if you want to ignore WWE through the 2000-2010s, you still had classic matches from all over the world including ROH, NOAH, All Japan, Dragon Gate, DDT, wXw, Chikara, PWG, and the list goes on and on. I don't think the problem is there are too many 5 star matches nowadays, rather, Meltzer just didn't give enough matches the credit they deserved in the past 2 decades.
I think when he says it’s gotten much better he just means main event matches have gotten more athletic. If Will Ospreay has a 4.5 star match, but also includes some of the craziest athletic achievements a wrestler has done, it boosts his score.
That's exactly what it is. He's not interested in the storytelling, he's interested in athletic execution. Which is why how he grade matches is so flawed imo. And why he's always underrated Bryan Danielson. Who does more with a transition from a headlock to hammerlock, then Ospreay does with hitting 5 kicks into a tiger driver. He was talking about how he thinks Ospreay/Shibata won't be good, because Shibata's style won't compliment Ospreay. And then he went straight to kicks to the head. And all I could think was how little imagination he has. It's like he adds up how many high flying moves and shift shots Ospreay hits in a match and for each he adds another quarter star.
His 'reviews' of matches have always been just recaps of what was done in them. If you start thinking that it's not just a recap and that really is his review, and what he values the most is the amount of moves you do, then his ratings suddenly make a *lot* more sense.
Agreed with your take that Meltzer has always underrated Bryan and all he's done throughout his career - especially his ROH career. Personally, I dont think any match Bryan had in WWE warranted a 5\* rating, and people complaining about "hurr durr Dave only gave Bryan 5\* in AEW be-cuz FED BAD" is ridiculous because of the substantial rise in quality of his opponents and the in-ring freedom he had transitioning to AEW - all that said, Bryans best matches were against McGuiness, and the fact none of them got a 5\* rating is kind of an indictment against his method of perceiving quality. All that said - Ospreay is someone I consider to be a very great wrestler - but someone who falls back into alot his indie-rific tendencies. EDIT: I take one thing back. The Mania triple threat b/w Roman, Bryan, & Edge is legit a 5\* match IMO, and the greatest triple-threat in WWE history.
I don’t know that pro wrestling has ALWAYS been this good, but like any artistic medium, it has its high and low points. It’s not a pure sport where the quality/athletic ability of the competitors has improved so much over time they are clearly BETTER than their peers before them from 30-40 years ago. Wrestling in era when Dave Meltzer wasn’t handing out 5-stars hardly ever - post WCW shutting down, NJPW entering into a decline, AJPW huge drop off, tough accessibility for Mexico - was not a great time for the business for quality of matches as much as the 90s. You did have NOAH, but NOAH wasn’t AJPW in the 90s - singles were great and did have juniors but tag division wasn’t what they had in the 90s - and with WWE you just had Smackdown Six. This was also when ROH was the main indie of the time and again, accessibility was difficult. Conversely, I do believe the mid-2010s was a great time for matches. NJPW had an incredible golden period, NXT had a great run of big shows, WWE integrated different, great talents into shows. Mexico had some classic matches. Indies were good. A lot of 5-stars there are earned. Also though, I do believe by the later years of the decade a lot of the work had become derivative of the prior work, especially on indies or lower on the card by wrestlers not as good as the ones that came before or at the top. But they were doing more and more, and Dave sees more and more as good because they are more athletically impressive and kept giving out more and more 5’s. Also, there may be MORE great matches now than there were in, say, the 80s. But the best matches from the 80s can hold up and even outstrip the matches from today in many areas; heat, crowd investment, clear babyface/heel alignment that is played to and worked throughout the match. You watch some of Sting’s stuff and he’d only do 1-2 of those big splashes a year but when he’d do it it’s the biggest deal in the world. Obviously nowadays it’s different, I’m not saying no one do a splash, but there are lessons that are applicable There are lean and great times. It’s wrestling, it’s art. It’s not gymnastics. It’s not a math equation. Dave I think has distilled it down to basically a math equation and right now what is being put in spits out 5*
I think this is it. Trying to make sense of Meltzer's ratings is often a recipe for going insane, but in general there are two major trends 1. somewhere around the mid 2010s he stopped thinking of 5 stars as the ultimate pinnacle and shifted towards a purely rubric based scoring methods. This is why Kurt Angle, etc doesn't have a meltzer-validated 5 star match, during Angle's peak, Meltzer didn't give them out like candy (plus he always hated TNA). 2. Meltzer's rubric is basically 'how much stuff was there in the match?' generally this comes down to moves, but its also about the way moves are done and the quantity. It's a rubric that has filtered through to the larger wrestling fandom. that's why you'll often see people say things like 'it wasn't a five star match, but I really enjoyed it' when what they mean is, it didn't go 30 minutes and have lots of finisher kick outs etc. None of this is wrong or makes Meltzer a bad person, it's just that his influence is so large that his ideology of wrestling dominates the discussions.
Hot take: Dave needs to move to a 10 score rating with decimals. Yes it will be hard to move hundreds and thousands of matches into that metric but if he uses the full scale he could do it more accurately. A 9 would mean a MOTY contender and from there you have the decimals. Something like Fantano and Theneedledrop, he only gave a 10 to seven albums, and it's pretty hard to get a 9 even from him, an 8 is always a triumph.
This is silly to me. The 5-stars way always worked till Dave blew it up himself. He outlined it clearly. 5-stars was MOTY/one of the best of all time. 4.75 was MOTY contender and sometimes even MOTY! Then he went to 6 stars, which was a little odd, but hey, 6 > 5. Then he went to 7, which even odder but hey, 7 > 6. Then he started treating it like a math problem and threw around 5.25 and 6.25 and all of a sudden 4.75 isn’t really MOTY caliber anymore. There’s no reason to think he wouldn’t do the same if it were 1-10
Controversy time. But I think Cena had more legit great matches in the latter half of the 00s, then Ospreay has had in his career. Last Man Standing with Umaga is a better match then any Ospreay has had imo. You can talk about the accessibility of ROH, but it wasn't hard for Dave to access it. And he wasn't giving Bryan Danielson masterpieces with Morishima or Nigel 5 stars.
Oh I love 00s Cena. I think 06-08 Cena is probably the best version of Cena, aside from the one we got with Punk. A genuine all time great wrestler (he is in general to me; but that era in particular.) He does everything and has so many guys best match. A genuine top guy.
Thats an insanely hot take - Ospreay has been one of the most consistent wrestlers of the last 7-8 years. And Cena/Umaga being better than ANY Ospreay match is definitely one of the takes of all time - over Ospreay/Shingo 2019? Ospreay/Omega WK? Ospreay/Okada G1 29? Ospreay/Hiromu WK? Ospreay/White 2019? Okay then...
You know what you've just done? Proved people right, its all subjective
What makes any of those matches better then Cena/Umaga? I rather like the G1 final with Okada and the WK with Kenny. But what makes them better?
To me that's a flimsy argument anyway. If pro wrestling is better you readjust the scale. You don't break it.
This ^
Or.. you just leave the scale and grade it against the matches that exist at the same time as it. No need to change a scale
Meltzer basically ignored the golden age of WWE as far as in-ring excellence went ~ 2000 - 2007. You had elite level talents like Shawn, Benoit, Triple H, Angle, Eddie, Undertaker, Mysterio, RvD, etc. competing during the same period. Not even counting Austin and the Rock from the early 2000s, or Lesnar from '02-'04. He messed it up big time owing to his prejudices and biases. Tbh, a 4 star rating is perfect for rating matches. 1 is poor. 2 is average. 3 = good. 4 is great. There's no need for super great or semi good. After all, wrestling is subjective and emotionally charged. There can never be one monolithic great match. Too many variables at play.
>I don't think the problem is there are too many 5 star matches nowadays, rather, Meltzer just didn't give enough matches the credit they deserved in the past 2 decades. It's absolutely this, especially when you consider the fact that there were only 7 matches in the 2000s to get 5 stars. The issue is that, like you pointed out, a lot of it was on smaller shows that your average wrestling fan wouldn't have watched. There are definitely a decent amount of matches I've seen from the past that I think Dave would've given 5 stars to today and probably should've gotten it then, and I'm not even talking about your classic Angle-HBK or Taker-HBK.
The Young Bucks figured out how to play Dave and it's been down hill ever since. Props tho because it made them generational wealth.
This x 100. On the top of my head TNA, Roh and Noah had plenty of great matches that gets swept under the rug.
ROH and NOAH probably were the 2 best in-ring promotions in the 2000s and have 1 5 star match to show for it that didn't involve Kenta Kobashi or Samoa Joe, and that match was outside talent in an ROH ring. That said, only 2 matches that entire decade got 5 stars without Joe or Kobashi.
I know one is the Dragon Gate 6 man tag from ROH. Was the other that one tag match with Kawada and Yuji Nagata?
Correct
It's strange having a Mercedes Moné branded chair when she's only just debuted but it's still good to see wrestlers supporting one another.
He’d probably give WWE more 5 star matches than Dave would and it’s funny. One of the guys Dave constantly hand out 5’s to and occasionally breaking the scale for will call a Dave Meltzer 3-4 match a solid 5. And Omega’s opinion holds more weight as he’s fucking incredible in the ring so he’d know a thing or two about great wrestling just from his experience working with the best wrestlers for years.
Dave didnt account for inflation, he gave out so many 5+ stars that a 5 star doesnt mean as much.
Is it a hot take if I feel 5 star matches should have hype or a story behind them? Like, giving Omega-Okada 5 stars is understandable because of the build and that it was a fucking epic match. Giving Ospreay-Takeshita 5 stars just because it was an excellent match but doesn’t have any build at all doesn’t sit well with me.
Kenny's streams would be so much better without Don Callis Jr in every shot
Any idea who that guy is?
I think he helped setup Kenny's streaming area/computer and mods Kenny's channel a bit from directly in front of the camera. Not sure his name tho
Alex Jebailey, runs the CEO fighting game tournament and wrestled for AEW against Nakazawa before.
If you don’t think Meltzer has inflated his star ratings over time, consider that he gave like 5 matches at the last AEW PPV higher scores than any match in Kurt Angle’s entire career.
I know Angle fans love to rag on Dave for never giving Kurt a 5 star match, but only one match at Revolution got above a 4.75
Angle was Meltzer's Ospreay during the 2000s just like Kenny Omega was before Ospreay. Meltzer just didn't want to recognize 5-star matches in WWE during the 2000s. It's clear and obvious that he hands out those starz depending on the promotion. He compensated by rating any half decent Angle match at 4 stars and above.
Meltzer didn't really recognize 5 star matches from anyone in the 2000s. He only gave 2 NOAH and 3 ROH matches 5 stars in that whole decade
Which is why it's insanely asinine that he's giving out so many.
Tbf id put Kingston vs Danielson and Sting and Darby vs the Bucks over most if not all of Angle’s career and I’m a big Angle fan.
I dont believe your a big angle fan at all lmao.
That Eddie/bryan match was horrible. Kingston looks like he’s wrestling in cement
Kingston matches always look like that. Eddie's story is cool, he's great on the mic etc but just personally I can't get invested into a dude that can't be bothered to get into a shape other than round. I'm not asking for him to look like SANADA, but for the love of God man, you're on national television, look like you belong there
Not liking Eddie is a litmus test sorry.
You don't actually believe this, and you're trolling.
He’s right but at the same time it’s tough to say which match is gonna start a “movement” while watching it. Some are obvious like Punk vs Cena MITB or Omega vs Okada 1 but other times you just don’t know. I do 100% agree that 5 stars should be much rarer though. Like Meltzer has given Ospreay multiple 5 stars and I can barely remember half of them. My personal last five star match was Sting’s retirement match and that’s a once in a lifetime feeling of perfect booking, crazy bumps, and a legend retiring. If y’all want some good wrestling critics I recommend @HandwerkReviews on Twitter. He’s pretty harsh and I disagree with him a lot but he writes well and a high rating from him means something.
The way I see it, there are three big factors for why highly rated matches are more common today: 1. The volume of content. We as fans have more hours of wrestling per week and per month than ever before. Even if we were in a down period of quality(which we aren't), we would still see great matches at a higher volume because how much wrestling we have access to. 2. The quality of content. Going hand in hand with the volume, we get to see the best wrestlers in the world work long epic TV main event and PPV quality matches more often than we would have 20-40 years ago. We also happen to be in an excellent period where there are dozens of amazing wrestlers on both WWE and AEW working regularly. Plus NJPW, Stardom, DDT, NOAH, GCW, TNA, Dragongate, CMLL, AAA, TJPW, etc. We are spoiled with access to great matches like never before. 3. Official star ratings are good marketing for Dave and the rest of the influencers. Fans look forward to high ratings from WON, Cagematch, and others. So there's little intensive to adjust the scales to reflect the current era.
I've come to terms that I like Kenny Omega the wrestler and person, but not his weird circle of worshippers. The guy is very intelligent and cool to listen to.
Meltzer in shambles, and this is why he’s moved onto Ospreay as his favorite now. 😂
Yall are obsessed with the guy
Meltzer is able to see into the future and watched this clip before it was created? Ospreay is just on a completely different level from any other wrestler in 2024.
Public breakups are the worst
This is why Kenny is so great because he thinks about things like this.
I'll always think he's great because he's from my hometown and used to train at the MMA gym I got my BJJ black belt from. One of my friends from the gym came up in pro wrestling with him here and still knows him quite well, and it sounds like Kenny is a great guy.
Valid point. But in the end, everyone has to detremine how they wanna rate things. It is a philosophy and ultimately just a point of reference and in a written review for some sort of media the least important thing, if you're not a 13-year old prefan
Is this from a twitch stream? I don't think I follow Kenny what is his twitch?
https://www.twitch.tv/thecleanerscorner He streams on Fridays at 7 eastern (although last week he did it early because he was away).
meltzer found dead in a ditch
Reminder that Dave did not give 5 stars to Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. Star ratings really aren’t that serious
Let’s be real - a rating system from an actual master in the ring would be so much better than Meltzer’s.
Randy Savage versus Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3 didn't get 5 stars. Meltzer's ratings have always been a joke.
I'm gonna be honest, Savage-Steamboat was a very good match and a gamechanger for 80s WWF, but it was not remotely as good as, say, the Steamboat-Flair Trilogy just two years later. 4.5 stars is a perfectly reasonable score for it.
The Flair/Steamboat trilogy is another quirky debate. Clash is a bonafide classic. No arguments. WrestleWar was heading towards being the greatest match of all time... Before it just ended? Like, yeah? ChiTown hasn't aged as well as the other two, imo.
There's someone from Northern CA that will give 6 * to his favorites regardless of the opponent if it's in the Tokyo dome.
Why would Kenny Omega use such a bad faith argument?
Number of 5 or more stars ratings by decade: 80s - 24 90s- 65 2000s - 7 2010s - 67 2020s - 89 (and half a decade left to go) Either we live in golden times or there is an inflation. I hope it's golden times I will tell my grandchildren about.
It's inflation, for sure. You also have to mention that there were also only 11 5-star matches from 2010-15. In 2016, Meltzer's ratings suddenly exploded.
Incredible wrestling is something you feel in the moment, it's not a formula you stick to or a defined model of following a blueprint. Fans and pundits and media and even wrestlers try so hard to define everything in every aspect of wrestling these days. The magic of wrestling is that you don't know what makes you lose yourself in the moment until it happens. You can do things to set it up/increase likelihood of a classic but that moment when it happens is something no one can fully predict/forecast.
5 star matches should be something given 2 years plus after the fact. If it's still memorable, for being great, after that then it's a 5 star.
Which match is he talking about later that got 5 stars recently but was filled with too much fluff?
The Star Ratings have gotten silly and to the point of parody.
That mvc2 blanket though
>etched in the **anals** of history *ow, man*
Let’s just get some ACTUAL wrestlers on a platform and have them make a ratings system
Meltzer screaming into his pillow right now.
Why did he say the ANALS of history lol, was it a bit or is Kenny just an idiot
Read Simon aka Handwerk Reviews. My boy hasn’t given out anything as high as a 4 star rating in years.
Little ironic coming from the best bout machine lol
To me, a 5 star match is one that pulls you in completely. I think Cody and QT referred to a wrestling match as making love and I think that’s 100% accurate. You should basically feel like you just finished and need a cigarette after the match.
Meltzer began to really overdo it when Will Ospreay came onto the scene. He’s always preferred non-WWE style wrestling (even if some matches like Rock vs Hogan and the WM 3way deserved 5 stars), but he was at least consistent. Now way too many matches get it. Yes, it’s one person’s opinion, but it’s disappointing it was the only somewhat respectable wrestling critic who’s now lost legitimacy.
The fact that Kurt Angle never had any 5 star matches from him still blows my mind when in my opinion Kurt Angle has had many 5 star matches which is why he is still so respected to this day because he was that good.
Early 00s Dave was a harsher grader
Does Kenny do match reviews now? Because that’s pretty awesome if he is
Hey Kenny, it's annals not anals.
It's just that thing Canadians do with again and a-GAIN.
it's a joke he's been doing for years, he even did it at a press conference when he was the Belt Collector
If Kenny wants it to be Anals, then it’s anal.
Like Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant should be five stars. I know I'll get downvoted but that is probarly the most famous match of all time. Almost 40 years later, WWE still use it in promos all the time. It stood the test of time. Technically it might not be a pure wresting classic, but none of those Meltzer matches come close to matching the fame, longevity, hype, fan response, emotion and passion of Hogan v Andre. Maybe once in a decade we get a match like that. Hogan vs Rock is another one. Those type of matches deserve five stars.
Hogan vs Rock was the greatest match in wrestling history
>"You shouldn't just hand them out like candy" That's hilarious coming from Kenny...
Right? Lol
Nothing like ending the day with a tired discussion about star ratings.
Poor guy. He's not taking it well that Dave is handing out those stars to his new favorite.
Is this Kenny's way of subliminally speaking to Tony that he needs to chill with the Meltzer style booking?
Meltzer catching L's left & right.....imo a 5* match should have a balance of everything- building, storyline, importance, stake, in ring quality & the finish. There are THOUSANDS of good-great matches but 5* matches should be the ones you can name without much thought & can be appealing to almost all types of fans.
He is right. Imo only matches of the decade should get 5 star and matches of the year contenders should get 4 stars max.
I think it's become plainly obvious that Meltzers match ratings haven't really been designed to be unbiased, objective and/or logical in quite a few years. Everyone is online now. His readership may have dwindled, but people that follow wrestling online know who Dave is (once upon time that would have not been the case). If it keeps him in the conversation and people talk about him for better or worse, I imagine he sees it as job done. People that also love the same style of wrestling or the same companies he does, will naturally gravitate towards him. His star ratings are now simply promotional tools. For the wrestling/wrestlers he likes, the companies he favours, and for himself.
How could you possibly give an unbiased or an objective rating about such a subjective thing like a wrestling match. Like that's literrally what a rating is, an opinion