BRM Reviews the 4/9/2019 205 Live (MUPRHY VS. NESE!)

[Big Red Machine]

HUMBERTO CARRILLO vs. JACK GALLAGHER- 5.75/10
Gulak is upset a Carrillo for his attempt at high-flying costing them a match recently, so he has set up this match against Jack Gallagher to be a “first-hand lesson” about why it’s better to avoid high-risk moves. They kind of told a story based around this. Eventually Gulak (who was doing guest commentary) shoved Carrillo off the top rope for a DQ, leading to the…

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- not a fan
Gulak beat Carrillo up while shouting at him to listen. I like the ideas in this story, but I think it has played out WAY too fast. And I typed that last sentence BEFORE Gallagher turned babyface to save Carrillo. Where did that come from?

BUDDY MURPHY PROMO- good
He’s determined to win his title back.

TONY NESE PROMO- a mediocre rendition of Generic Babyface Promo #4

DRKAE MAVERICK, ONEY LORCAN, & CEDRIC ALEXANDER BACKSTAGE- fine
Maverick had a meeting scheduled with Oney Lorcan and Cedric crashed it to once again demand a match with Oney Lorcan. Lorcan also wants the match so that he can prove that he is the top dog in the division, and it is apparently booked. Cedric seemed a little less entitled than last week, which was good, but Lorcan seemed like a total babyface here, which was very odd considering he has clearly been the heel in this budding feud.

WWE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Tony Nese(c) vs. Buddy Murphy- 8.75/10
This rematch is being booked because Drake Maverick thinks it is the best way to close out WrestleMania weekend rather than because Murphy is contractually entitled to a rematch. It’s nice to know that someone in the company remembers that they nixed all automatic rematches a mere five months ago. That being said, a more correct way to read this statement is that Hunter wants his guys to be able to put on the match he wanted them to be able to put on at WrestleMania but couldn’t due to time constraints. They succeeded.

This was a good episode of 205 Live, but almost entirely on the strength of the main event. I wasn’t fond of any of the angles or promos they did, but none were offensively bad, either. Buddy Murphy is a beast and Dave Meltzer claiming he rips of New Japan matches just because he does a Kamagoye occasionally is moronic. Dave’s other evidence for this has been that Murphy does a reverse rana which is a move that did not originate in New Japan and is done with any regularity everywhere else. Dave is just a 205 Live hater. If you gave these guys Japanese names Dave would be jazzing in his pants every week. F*ck off, Dave.

[NWK2000]

Buddy Murphy is a beast and Dave Meltzer claiming he rips of New Japan matches just because he does a Kamagoye occasionally is moronic. Dave’s other evidence for this has been that Murphy does a reverse rana which is a move that did not originate in New Japan and is done with any regularity everywhere else. Dave is just a 205 Live hater. If you gave these guys Japanese names Dave would be jazzing in his pants every week. F*ck off, Dave.

Comments like these show just how narrow Dave's scope is, not only about wrestling, but performance art in general. All performance art borrows from other performance art. In wrestling, everyone is an amalgamation of Gorgeous George, that is, an over the top character as opposed to a catch as catch can athlete, but everyone has modified their style to make it work for them, and Buddy's no different.

[cero2k]

Buddy Murphy is a beast and Dave Meltzer claiming he rips of New Japan matches just because he does a Kamagoye occasionally is moronic. Dave’s other evidence for this has been that Murphy does a reverse rana which is a move that did not originate in New Japan and is done with any regularity everywhere else. Dave is just a 205 Live hater. If you gave these guys Japanese names Dave would be jazzing in his pants every week. F*ck off, Dave.

Comments like these show just how narrow Dave's scope is, not only about wrestling, but performance art in general. All performance art borrows from other performance art. In wrestling, everyone is an amalgamation of Gorgeous George, that is, an over the top character as opposed to a catch as catch can athlete, but everyone has modified their style to make it work for them, and Buddy's no different.

so no one can point it out when wrestlers use someone else's moves because it's now theirs? Or is this how we stop saying that the Bucks are devaluing the superkick because they added their style to it? What other wrestling legend or big company has people using Kamigoyes and reverseranas that he can reference? Yeah, no shit, art borrows, and any respectable artist will reference where they get their inspiration, especially when everyone already knows where it came from.

Dave cannot be a 205Hater, he watches it and reports on it every week KNOWING that no one but BRM watches it. There are a ton other far more important promotions he could be watching, but he watches it regardless, and if you all paid attention, he constantly raves about those matches and wishes they'd have a better audience. Hell, he never said 'ripping off', he said that murphy is using a lot of moves from NJPW, that is a fucking compliment if the so call tokyo dome bias was a thing.

if Dave had a bias against WWE, it fails in comparison to ya'lls bias against him.

[NWK2000]

Buddy Murphy is a beast and Dave Meltzer claiming he rips of New Japan matches just because he does a Kamagoye occasionally is moronic. Dave’s other evidence for this has been that Murphy does a reverse rana which is a move that did not originate in New Japan and is done with any regularity everywhere else. Dave is just a 205 Live hater. If you gave these guys Japanese names Dave would be jazzing in his pants every week. F*ck off, Dave.

Comments like these show just how narrow Dave's scope is, not only about wrestling, but performance art in general. All performance art borrows from other performance art. In wrestling, everyone is an amalgamation of Gorgeous George, that is, an over the top character as opposed to a catch as catch can athlete, but everyone has modified their style to make it work for them, and Buddy's no different.

so no one can point it out when wrestlers use someone else's moves because it's now theirs? Or is this how we stop saying that the Bucks are devaluing the superkick because they added their style to it? What other wrestling legend or big company has people using Kamigoyes and reverseranas that he can reference? Yeah, no shit, art borrows, and any respectable artist will reference where they get their inspiration, especially when everyone already knows where it came from.

No one's saying you can't per se, but it's elitist,, like calling a Rock Bottom a Urinage for no other reason than to use a big word because you can. Also it seems kind of unspoken that no move belongs to one specific person, and the people that do call it out are usually the self-important shitheads of the world (See, Randy Orton lifting the Diamond Cutter from DDP, and DDP not saying anything, but Kurt Angle ripping off the RKO put Randy into a tizzy on Twitter)

Dave cannot be a 205Hater, he watches it and reports on it every week KNOWING that no one but BRM watches it. There are a ton other far more important promotions he could be watching, but he watches it regardless, and if you all paid attention, he constantly raves about those matches and wishes they'd have a better audience. Hell, he never said 'ripping off', he said that murphy is using a lot of moves from NJPW, that is a fucking compliment if the so call tokyo dome bias was a thing.

if Dave had a bias against WWE, it fails in comparison to ya'lls bias against him.

BRM watches Raw every week and raises his blood pressure to a worrysome level. Watching a show =/= liking it, which is lunacy in itself but that's another story for another story. And we do know that Dave has a Japanese/PWG bias. Look at how liberally he broke his own rating scale for the Okada/Omega trilogy.

And we all have biases. I said that Gargano/Ciampa broke the scale on how I rate matches. But a bias becomes dangerous when people start reporting it as undisputed fact, instead of admitting that someone has a bias and allowing that person's bias to influence your whole opinion instead of evaluating the material being reviewed for yourself

[Big Red Machine]

Buddy Murphy is a beast and Dave Meltzer claiming he rips of New Japan matches just because he does a Kamagoye occasionally is moronic. Dave’s other evidence for this has been that Murphy does a reverse rana which is a move that did not originate in New Japan and is done with any regularity everywhere else. Dave is just a 205 Live hater. If you gave these guys Japanese names Dave would be jazzing in his pants every week. F*ck off, Dave.

Comments like these show just how narrow Dave's scope is, not only about wrestling, but performance art in general. All performance art borrows from other performance art. In wrestling, everyone is an amalgamation of Gorgeous George, that is, an over the top character as opposed to a catch as catch can athlete, but everyone has modified their style to make it work for them, and Buddy's no different.

so no one can point it out when wrestlers use someone else's moves because it's now theirs? Or is this how we stop saying that the Bucks are devaluing the superkick because they added their style to it? What other wrestling legend or big company has people using Kamigoyes and reverseranas that he can reference? Yeah, no shit, art borrows, and any respectable artist will reference where they get their inspiration, especially when everyone already knows where it came from.

Dave cannot be a 205Hater, he watches it and reports on it every week KNOWING that no one but BRM watches it. There are a ton other far more important promotions he could be watching, but he watches it regardless, and if you all paid attention, he constantly raves about those matches and wishes they'd have a better audience. Hell, he never said 'ripping off', he said that murphy is using a lot of moves from NJPW, that is a fucking compliment if the so call tokyo dome bias was a thing.

if Dave had a bias against WWE, it fails in comparison to ya'lls bias against him.

The problem is that Dave is almost dismissive of Murphy as someone who just copies stuff he saw in New Japan, which is completely false. My point with the reverse ranas in particular is that f*cking everyone does them, so using that as evidence of him ripping off New Japan is ridiculous. If Murphy does one signature move from an NJPW guy then that's not copying NJPW the way Dave frames it. And Dave did at one point say that Murphy and Ali pretty much took an Omega vs. Fenix match and mostly copied it.
And if the Tokyo Dome bias were a thing (and it's not a Tokyo Dome bias so much as a general NJPW bias) then Dave not giving Murphy's matches in the ****-****1/2 range is proof that such a bias exists.

[Big Red Machine]

Comments like these show just how narrow Dave's scope is, not only about wrestling, but performance art in general. All performance art borrows from other performance art. In wrestling, everyone is an amalgamation of Gorgeous George, that is, an over the top character as opposed to a catch as catch can athlete, but everyone has modified their style to make it work for them, and Buddy's no different.

so no one can point it out when wrestlers use someone else's moves because it's now theirs? Or is this how we stop saying that the Bucks are devaluing the superkick because they added their style to it? What other wrestling legend or big company has people using Kamigoyes and reverseranas that he can reference? Yeah, no shit, art borrows, and any respectable artist will reference where they get their inspiration, especially when everyone already knows where it came from.

No one's saying you can't per se, but it's elitist,, like calling a Rock Bottom a Urinage for no other reason than to use a big word because you can. Also it seems kind of unspoken that no move belongs to one specific person, and the people that do call it out are usually the self-important shitheads of the world (See, Randy Orton lifting the Diamond Cutter from DDP, and DDP not saying anything, but Kurt Angle ripping off the RKO put Randy into a tizzy on Twitter)

I actually totally disagree with you here. The reason you should call it a Uranage is because the "Rock Bottom" is the Rock's name for his Uranage. It's a branding thing. When WALTER does it it's a Gojira Clutch, when Samoa Joe does it it's a Coquina Clutch and when Shayna Baszler does it it's a Kiramuta Clutch, even though they're all doing the same move.
Some moves often do tend to start "belonging" to one person, (at least for a while). How many people have actually used the Stunner since Austin? Willie Mack- who does it as an Austin impression, and Kevin Owens, who has just started doing it in what seems clearly intneded to be an Austin reference. How many non-Hardy-world people have done the Twist of Fate? You can't do anything resembling the AA without people assuming you're taking a shot at Cena in some way (see Bobby Roode's Roode Bomb, even though nothing like that seemed to be intended at all).

And the Orton example is actually a very bad one to argue because Randy actually called DDP for permission to use the move before he started using it in WWE.

Dave cannot be a 205Hater, he watches it and reports on it every week KNOWING that no one but BRM watches it. There are a ton other far more important promotions he could be watching, but he watches it regardless, and if you all paid attention, he constantly raves about those matches and wishes they'd have a better audience. Hell, he never said 'ripping off', he said that murphy is using a lot of moves from NJPW, that is a fucking compliment if the so call tokyo dome bias was a thing.

if Dave had a bias against WWE, it fails in comparison to ya'lls bias against him.

BRM watches Raw every week and raises his blood pressure to a worrysome level. Watching a show =/= liking it, which is lunacy in itself but that's another story for another story. And we do know that Dave has a Japanese/PWG bias. Look at how liberally he broke his own rating scale for the Okada/Omega trilogy.

And we all have biases. I said that Gargano/Ciampa broke the scale on how I rate matches. But a bias becomes dangerous when people start reporting it as undisputed fact, instead of admitting that someone has a bias and allowing that person's bias to influence your whole opinion instead of evaluating the material being reviewed for yourself

I will admit that I went to far by calling Dave a "hater," but I do think that if you put the same matches with the same crowd reaction in an NJPW ring, Dave would rate it significantly higher. There is no other explanation for the fact that in the past six and a half years Dave has given ***** or higher to 37 NJPW matches- 36 in just the past six years, 33 in the past four and a half, 30 in the past three and a half, and 26 in just the past 27 months- while in that time span giving ***** or higher to a grand total of EIGHT matches from ALL OTHER PROMOTIONS COMBINED during that same six and a half years is ABSURD. Meanwhile you have matches that nearly everyone else in the world who has seen them has given full marks to (the HBK/Taker Mania matches, Dragon vs. Nigel from Unified, Dragon vs. KENTA from GBH V: Night 2, the first Ladder War, the Bucks/Addiction/MCMG Ladder War, some of the All Japan stuff from last year) that Dave somehow just can't seem to go beyond ****3/4 with. Throw in Dave's inability to explain these differences and hypocritical analysis of things (when Ambrose forgets to sell, he's a bad wrestler, but when you do it in New Japan or PWG, that's "fighting spirit," or sh*t like going so far as to ascribe Ishii botching moves to some sort of next-level psychology to make us think he's legit hurt, even when he f*cking no-sells his arm at other points during the match) and I think Dave's bias is painfully clear. Ditto his inability to see the flaws in ROH while his buddies were there. I think at this point we can already say for certain that at least one mach at Double or Nothing will get ***** just because.
Dave has the scoops, but in terms of wrestling an art form and even an analysis of the business side of things, Wade Keller and his team are MUCH better than Dave is. When they like or don't like something, they explain why. They don't just stammer around and say "SOOOO great!"

[NWK2000]

Throw in Dave's inability to explain these differences and hypocritical analysis of things (when Ambrose forgets to sell, he's a bad wrestler, but when you do it in New Japan or PWG, that's "fighting spirit,"

I've always been under the impression that "fighting spirit" is pretty exclusive to puro storytelling. But you're right, fighting spirit should just be considered fighting spirit across the board. I think American wrestling would do well to incorporate fighting spirit into their storytelling.

[Big Red Machine]

Throw in Dave's inability to explain these differences and hypocritical analysis of things (when Ambrose forgets to sell, he's a bad wrestler, but when you do it in New Japan or PWG, that's "fighting spirit,"

I've always been under the impression that "fighting spirit" is pretty exclusive to puro storytelling. But you're right, fighting spirit should just be considered fighting spirit across the board. I think American wrestling would do well to incorporate fighting spirit into their storytelling.

I think it is present in all, but certain people (Dave very much included) are much more willing to include any no-selling as acceptable "fighting spirit" in Japan. "Fighting spirit" is taking a big move, getting back up with a roar or determined, gritty look on your face and firing back. It's not getting dropped on your head and just getting back up or interrupting your wrestling match to play the "calmly take turns hitting each other" game. and more willing to criticize people (particularly in larger American companies) for just stopping selling their leg so they can run around and do flips and dives and sh*t but have no problem with that when they see it in some PWG or NJPW match.

[cero2k]

BRM watches Raw every week and raises his blood pressure to a worrysome level. Watching a show =/= liking it, which is lunacy in itself but that's another story for another story. And we do know that Dave has a Japanese/PWG bias. Look at how liberally he broke his own rating scale for the Okada/Omega trilogy.

And we all have biases. I said that Gargano/Ciampa broke the scale on how I rate matches. But a bias becomes dangerous when people start reporting it as undisputed fact, instead of admitting that someone has a bias and allowing that person's bias to influence your whole opinion instead of evaluating the material being reviewed for yourself

yeah, except Red doesn't rave about RAW while Dave always praises the wrestling of 205. And he also broke it for Cole and Gargano over Okada vs White this weekend, so where is this bias? If anything else, he has a bias for WWE because he keeps saying that things are good and that Ronda is awesome while WWE sucks on a constant basis. Hell, his favorite promotion and crowd is freaking CMLL and he never gives out 5 stars over there.

The problem is that Dave is almost dismissive of Murphy as someone who just copies stuff he saw in New Japan, which is completely false. My point with the reverse ranas in particular is that f*cking everyone does them, so using that as evidence of him ripping off New Japan is ridiculous. If Murphy does one signature move from an NJPW guy then that's not copying NJPW the way Dave frames it. And Dave did at one point say that Murphy and Ali pretty much took an Omega vs. Fenix match and mostly copied it.
And if the Tokyo Dome bias were a thing (and it's not a Tokyo Dome bias so much as a general NJPW bias) then Dave not giving Murphy's matches in the ****-****1/2 range is proof that such a bias exists.

I will admit that I went to far by calling Dave a "hater," but I do think that if you put the same matches with the same crowd reaction in an NJPW ring, Dave would rate it significantly higher. There is no other explanation for the fact that in the past six and a half years Dave has given ***** or higher to 37 NJPW matches- 36 in just the past six years, 33 in the past four and a half, 30 in the past three and a half, and 26 in just the past 27 months- while in that time span giving ***** or higher to a grand total of EIGHT matches from ALL OTHER PROMOTIONS COMBINED during that same six and a half years is ABSURD. Meanwhile you have matches that nearly everyone else in the world who has seen them has given full marks to (the HBK/Taker Mania matches, Dragon vs. Nigel from Unified, Dragon vs. KENTA from GBH V: Night 2, the first Ladder War, the Bucks/Addiction/MCMG Ladder War, some of the All Japan stuff from last year) that Dave somehow just can't seem to go beyond ****3/4 with.

If you suddenly saw, someone like Tye Dillinger, start doing a bunch of moves that you normally just see on wXw, would you not notice it and bring it up on your reviews? Or would you just blindly accept that Tye Dillinger got awesome from one day to another and overlook everything? I'd expect anyone to make the observation, especially with a move like the V-Trigger that suddenly became super famous just before Murphy started using it. We all called out Michelle McCool for using the Styles Clash, why can't we call out Murphy? If you think that is dismissive, then fair, I can't argue against that because it's no different from you dissing someone like Pentagon's moveset.

Ever since he debuted in 205, Murphy has an average Dave rating of 4.0, I fail to see how an average of 4 stars is a bias against him. Dave has ALWAYS said that crowd reactions can make or break a match. Murphy has a 4Star rating average without crowds! That sounds like the dude fucking loves 205Live if you ask me.

You want to argue for NJPW having all those 5 star matches? Were do we start? We already agree that Dave doesn't follow many promotions, so what other 5 star matches is he missing? Go and look at the amount of shows that we have reviewed this year, compare NJPW vs ROH vs WWE, NJPW has almost double what the other two combined have and all those shows have guys like Ospreay, Okada, Tanahashi, or Ishii, it's really not impossible that NJPW has way more 5 star matches when they put on more big shows. And how can you blame Dave for not giving 5 stars to all those matches when you didn't even give a ten to Okada vs Omega IV, which was legit, 98% accepted as the greatest match ever, by fans, analysts, wrestlers, and everyone else? Is it an anti-Omega bias? If it happened in 205Live would had been 11/10?

FYI, Dave has said several times that Taker vs HBK wasn't 5 because he didn't know if Taker had been legit injured and he didn't go back and change it after he find out.

Throw in Dave's inability to explain these differences and hypocritical analysis of things (when Ambrose forgets to sell, he's a bad wrestler, but when you do it in New Japan or PWG, that's "fighting spirit," or sh*t like going so far as to ascribe Ishii botching moves to some sort of next-level psychology to make us think he's legit hurt, even when he f*cking no-sells his arm at other points during the match) and I think Dave's bias is painfully clear. Ditto his inability to see the flaws in ROH while his buddies were there. I think at this point we can already say for certain that at least one mach at Double or Nothing will get ***** just because.
Dave has the scoops, but in terms of wrestling an art form and even an analysis of the business side of things, Wade Keller and his team are MUCH better than Dave is. When they like or don't like something, they explain why. They don't just stammer around and say "SOOOO great!"

Because no selling and fighting spirit are two completely different things. If Dave was arguing that Hogan's Hulk up was no selling, then you'd be right, because Hogan's hulk up IS fighting spirit. Dean no selling is just Dean no selling, he isn't working through the pain, he isn't pushing himself one last breath, he isn't playing mind games that his opponent's offense is weak.

I you really need an explanation from him why he rates the things he rates, just email him a friendly email asking to go in depth on it. mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

[Big Red Machine]

BRM watches Raw every week and raises his blood pressure to a worrysome level. Watching a show =/= liking it, which is lunacy in itself but that's another story for another story. And we do know that Dave has a Japanese/PWG bias. Look at how liberally he broke his own rating scale for the Okada/Omega trilogy.

And we all have biases. I said that Gargano/Ciampa broke the scale on how I rate matches. But a bias becomes dangerous when people start reporting it as undisputed fact, instead of admitting that someone has a bias and allowing that person's bias to influence your whole opinion instead of evaluating the material being reviewed for yourself

yeah, except Red doesn't rave about RAW while Dave always praises the wrestling of 205. And he also broke it for Cole and Gargano over Okada vs White this weekend, so where is this bias? If anything else, he has a bias for WWE because he keeps saying that things are good and that Ronda is awesome while WWE sucks on a constant basis. Hell, his favorite promotion and crowd is freaking CMLL and he never gives out 5 stars over there.

Dave's reviews of 205 Live don't do a good job of getting over what's so great about the show. It's not just work-rate but it's the pure basic logic of the booking. Wins and losses have consequences, people (usually) get upset for completely human reasons, the GM feels like someone whose job is to put on the best show possible and maintain the integrity of the competition on his show, there is always a reason for the camera to be where it is... and all of this with 95% clean finishes. 205 Live is everything people have been saying they want WWE to be!

As for Gargano vs. Cole getting over *****... that's the first time anything other than an NJPW match has gotten it (in the confirmed modern era, so I'm not counting the rumored *****+ Flair/Steamboat house show matches or that one Misawa Kawada match from 94 or some of those All Japan Women matches that Dave may or may not have gone over ***** for but no one is sure and Dave himself can't remember), and NJPW has been getting several over it a year. I don't think it's unfair to say that the moment Dave went over ***** for that first Omega vs. Okada match, he opened the floodgates for a lot more matches breaking it, and a lot more matches getting ***** because ***** wasn't special anymore. One time doesn't mean Dave isn't still biased towards NJPW, and Dave was complaining about G1 Supercard being too long, so that might have played a factor as well.

The problem is that Dave is almost dismissive of Murphy as someone who just copies stuff he saw in New Japan, which is completely false. My point with the reverse ranas in particular is that f*cking everyone does them, so using that as evidence of him ripping off New Japan is ridiculous. If Murphy does one signature move from an NJPW guy then that's not copying NJPW the way Dave frames it. And Dave did at one point say that Murphy and Ali pretty much took an Omega vs. Fenix match and mostly copied it.
And if the Tokyo Dome bias were a thing (and it's not a Tokyo Dome bias so much as a general NJPW bias) then Dave not giving Murphy's matches in the ****-****1/2 range is proof that such a bias exists.

I will admit that I went to far by calling Dave a "hater," but I do think that if you put the same matches with the same crowd reaction in an NJPW ring, Dave would rate it significantly higher. There is no other explanation for the fact that in the past six and a half years Dave has given ***** or higher to 37 NJPW matches- 36 in just the past six years, 33 in the past four and a half, 30 in the past three and a half, and 26 in just the past 27 months- while in that time span giving ***** or higher to a grand total of EIGHT matches from ALL OTHER PROMOTIONS COMBINED during that same six and a half years is ABSURD. Meanwhile you have matches that nearly everyone else in the world who has seen them has given full marks to (the HBK/Taker Mania matches, Dragon vs. Nigel from Unified, Dragon vs. KENTA from GBH V: Night 2, the first Ladder War, the Bucks/Addiction/MCMG Ladder War, some of the All Japan stuff from last year) that Dave somehow just can't seem to go beyond ****3/4 with.

If you suddenly saw, someone like Tye Dillinger, start doing a bunch of moves that you normally just see on wXw, would you not notice it and bring it up on your reviews? Or would you just blindly accept that Tye Dillinger got awesome from one day to another and overlook everything? I'd expect anyone to make the observation, especially with a move like the V-Trigger that suddenly became super famous just before Murphy started using it. We all called out Michelle McCool for using the Styles Clash, why can't we call out Murphy? If you think that is dismissive, then fair, I can't argue against that because it's no different from you dissing someone like Pentagon's moveset.

If Tye Dillinger started doing more armbars and lariats and less "TEN! TEN! TEN!" bullsh*t, I'd be ecstatic. The V-Trigger is just a running knee. I have no problem with someone seeing a move they like elsewhere and starting to use it, because moves aren't just about execution but timing and facial expressions and psychology and how you build the match. The most comparable move to Goto's headbutt in wrestling isn't someone else's headbutt, it's Alexa Bliss!'s big punch because of the role they fill in the match. If I saw Tye Dillinger rip off all of the signature spots from Dragon vs. Nigel at Unified or if he suddenly started doing all seven of Pentagon Jr.'s moves and nothing but, that'd be one thing, but if you're just taking a move or two and incorporating it into your own match, then that's fine.

If I remember correctly, I was quite happy when McCool started using the Styles Clash because it a woman in WWE finally doing something more than the usual "Diva finishers." I was also going gaga over her and Tiffany trading armbars on Main Event because when was the last time women were doing that in WWE?

Ever since he debuted in 205, Murphy has an average Dave rating of 4.0, I fail to see how an average of 4 stars is a bias against him. Dave has ALWAYS said that crowd reactions can make or break a match. Murphy has a 4Star rating average without crowds! That sounds like the dude fucking loves 205Live if you ask me.

Dave's thing about crowds has always been BS. I've seen TNA crowds that were super-hot for *** matches and Dave gave them ***. If hot crowds mattered then you'd think that at least one ECW match would have gotten *****, or that Bobby Gunns/Ija Dragunov match to crowd the interim champion last fall where the crowd was chanting for the entire match, or the similar situation in the main event of night 2 of this year's 16 Carat Gold weekend. You want crowd heat? Find me better crowd heat than Dragon vs. Hero at Hell Freezes Over, the ROH vs. CZW main event at the 100th Show, or the Cage of Death from DBD VI. Or how about Cena vs. RVD from One Night Stand 2006? Crowd heat is just a thing Dave uses to justify giving his high ratings when he wants to give them, and something he ignores when he doens't want to give such a high rating.

You want to argue for NJPW having all those 5 star matches? Were do we start? We already agree that Dave doesn't follow many promotions, so what other 5 star matches is he missing? Go and look at the amount of shows that we have reviewed this year, compare NJPW vs ROH vs WWE, NJPW has almost double what the other two combined have and all those shows have guys like Ospreay, Okada, Tanahashi, or Ishii, it's really not impossible that NJPW has way more 5 star matches when they put on more big shows. And how can you blame Dave for not giving 5 stars to all those matches when you didn't even give a ten to Okada vs Omega IV, which was legit, 98% accepted as the greatest match ever, by fans, analysts, wrestlers, and everyone else? Is it an anti-Omega bias? If it happened in 205Live would had been 11/10?

I have a strict rule that I stick to for situations like that, and even keep an entire rating separate for matches that would have been perfect if not for some small disqualifying flaw because when I saw "perfect" I mean "perfect." Dave, on the other hand, will bury TNA for overbooking or things not making sense but won't lift a finger when someone does something that should obviously be a DQ or a count-out but isn't if it happens in New Japan. I'm consistent. Dave just watches Dragon vs. KENTA, shrugs his shoulders and says "eh. Not quite good enough to be ****3/4."

What I'm saying is that I find it ridiculous that Dave will give more ***** ratings to NJPW in a single year than he did to every single f*cking promotion in the entire world for the during the entire stretch of 2000-2011. I think Dave decided he liked New Japan in a way he hasn't for any other promotion other than maybe 90s All Japan and just let the floodgates open up. I find it ridiculous that he honestly finds Tanahashi, Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Ishii, Suzuki, and pals to be that much f*cking better than Dragon, KENTA, Marufuji, Angle, HBK, Roddy, Triple H, Benoit, Nigel, Low Ki, Hero, etc.

FYI, Dave has said several times that Taker vs HBK wasn't 5 because he didn't know if Taker had been legit injured and he didn't go back and change it after he find out.

Well then what the f*ck is he waiting for? GO BACK AND CHANGE IT! He might as well go back and rate the first Ladder War, too, as him not rating it did absolutely nothing to stop people from trying to top it.

Throw in Dave's inability to explain these differences and hypocritical analysis of things (when Ambrose forgets to sell, he's a bad wrestler, but when you do it in New Japan or PWG, that's "fighting spirit," or sh*t like going so far as to ascribe Ishii botching moves to some sort of next-level psychology to make us think he's legit hurt, even when he f*cking no-sells his arm at other points during the match) and I think Dave's bias is painfully clear. Ditto his inability to see the flaws in ROH while his buddies were there. I think at this point we can already say for certain that at least one mach at Double or Nothing will get ***** just because.
Dave has the scoops, but in terms of wrestling an art form and even an analysis of the business side of things, Wade Keller and his team are MUCH better than Dave is. When they like or don't like something, they explain why. They don't just stammer around and say "SOOOO great!"

Because no selling and fighting spirit are two completely different things. If Dave was arguing that Hogan's Hulk up was no selling, then you'd be right, because Hogan's hulk up IS fighting spirit. Dean no selling is just Dean no selling, he isn't working through the pain, he isn't pushing himself one last breath, he isn't playing mind games that his opponent's offense is weak.

I agree with you. I just find him much more forgiving of someone doing the Ambrose thing in New Japan (which happens often, and particularly in Tanahashi matches), and more willing to accept sh*t that doesn't make sense as fighting spirit like the Ishii-style no-selling BS as fighting spirit because it happens in Japan. The "playing mind games to make your opponent think his offense is weak" stuff is moronic because there is no reason for the opponent to give you the chance back, no reason for the opponent to not take advantage of your free shot in a completely legal way like a full-force shot to the face when you're looking to get chopped, and even if you're asking for that full-force shot in the face, I find it to be dumb psychology for someone to be constantly no-selling pull-force shots to the f*cking face. It stops being two guys trying to wrestle and starts being two guys doing stuff that they know will pop the crowd and hopefully convince Uncle Dave to give them more snowflakes for.

I you really need an explanation from him why he rates the things he rates, just email him a friendly email asking to go in depth on it. mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

Dave writes giant paragraphs in his Newsletter that I read and spends minutes upon minutes on his radio show that I listen to and does not adequately explain these things to me, so why would he do any better of a job of it in an e-mail?

And I actually did once ask Dave (or anyone else on that forum) to explain Ishii's psychology to me. Dave's response was something along the lines of "I don't understand calculus, therefore my calculus professor must be a dumb sh*t" (in other words that the psychology was clearly being laid out in front of me by Ishii in his matches and I was getting angry at Ishii for being so much smarter than me that I couldn't follow along).

[cero2k]

Dave's reviews of 205 Live don't do a good job of getting over what's so great about the show. It's not just work-rate but it's the pure basic logic of the booking. Wins and losses have consequences, people (usually) get upset for completely human reasons, the GM feels like someone whose job is to put on the best show possible and maintain the integrity of the competition on his show, there is always a reason for the camera to be where it is... and all of this with 95% clean finishes. 205 Live is everything people have been saying they want WWE to be!

As for Gargano vs. Cole getting over *****... that's the first time anything other than an NJPW match has gotten it (in the confirmed modern era, so I'm not counting the rumored *****+ Flair/Steamboat house show matches or that one Misawa Kawada match from 94 or some of those All Japan Women matches that Dave may or may not have gone over ***** for but no one is sure and Dave himself can't remember), and NJPW has been getting several over it a year. I don't think it's unfair to say that the moment Dave went over ***** for that first Omega vs. Okada match, he opened the floodgates for a lot more matches breaking it, and a lot more matches getting ***** because ***** wasn't special anymore. One time doesn't mean Dave isn't still biased towards NJPW, and Dave was complaining about G1 Supercard being too long, so that might have played a factor as well.

Is that the whole problem? Dave doesn't say the things i want him to say and doesn't put the product i like over? boo hoo dude, at least he talks about it. There are a TON of promotions he doesn't talk about at all. He agrees that Impact is better than Raw and Smackdown and doesn't cover them either. I know the power he has when he talks about something, but i'm not gonna start a grudge because he doesn't put my show over. Cream rises to the top, if 205 was something the fans wanted to see, they'd see it

Then maybe other promotions should pick it up if they want more 5star+ matches.

If Tye Dillinger started doing more armbars and lariats and less "TEN! TEN! TEN!" bullsh*t, I'd be ecstatic. The V-Trigger is just a running knee. I have no problem with someone seeing a move they like elsewhere and starting to use it, because moves aren't just about execution but timing and facial expressions and psychology and how you build the match. The most comparable move to Goto's headbutt in wrestling isn't someone else's headbutt, it's Alexa Bliss!'s big punch because of the role they fill in the match. If I saw Tye Dillinger rip off all of the signature spots from Dragon vs. Nigel at Unified or if he suddenly started doing all seven of Pentagon Jr.'s moves and nothing but, that'd be one thing, but if you're just taking a move or two and incorporating it into your own match, then that's fine.

If I remember correctly, I was quite happy when McCool started using the Styles Clash because it a woman in WWE finally doing something more than the usual "Diva finishers." I was also going gaga over her and Tiffany trading armbars on Main Event because when was the last time women were doing that in WWE?

it's not about using generic moves, or whether you like the moves or not, it's about if you're going to be fair and say, this is such and such's move at the moment. It's not like the V-Trigger is an indie kid's move, it's Omega's second biggest move.

Dave's thing about crowds has always been BS. I've seen TNA crowds that were super-hot for *** matches and Dave gave them ***. If hot crowds mattered then you'd think that at least one ECW match would have gotten *****, or that Bobby Gunns/Ija Dragunov match to crowd the interim champion last fall where the crowd was chanting for the entire match, or the similar situation in the main event of night 2 of this year's 16 Carat Gold weekend. You want crowd heat? Find me better crowd heat than Dragon vs. Hero at Hell Freezes Over, the ROH vs. CZW main event at the 100th Show, or the Cage of Death from DBD VI. Or how about Cena vs. RVD from One Night Stand 2006? Crowd heat is just a thing Dave uses to justify giving his high ratings when he wants to give them, and something he ignores when he doens't want to give such a high rating.

Dude, it's not a matrix that he fills out, it's a whole package, if you thought it was a 5 star, then it's a 5 star to you. If he likes a crowd more than another, then so what? you also keep bringing up moves from beyond 10 years, people change, you didn't use to mind fighting spirit and now you're giving Tanahashi/Ospreay vs Suzuki-gun a 2 because fighting spirit. Crowds alone don't just make up for botches or a boring match or shitty gimmicks.

I have a strict rule that I stick to for situations like that, and even keep an entire rating separate for matches that would have been perfect if not for some small disqualifying flaw because when I saw "perfect" I mean "perfect." Dave, on the other hand, will bury TNA for overbooking or things not making sense but won't lift a finger when someone does something that should obviously be a DQ or a count-out but isn't if it happens in New Japan. I'm consistent. Dave just watches Dragon vs. KENTA, shrugs his shoulders and says "eh. Not quite good enough to be ****3/4."

What I'm saying is that I find it ridiculous that Dave will give more ***** ratings to NJPW in a single year than he did to every single f*cking promotion in the entire world for the during the entire stretch of 2000-2011. I think Dave decided he liked New Japan in a way he hasn't for any other promotion other than maybe 90s All Japan and just let the floodgates open up. I find it ridiculous that he honestly finds Tanahashi, Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Ishii, Suzuki, and pals to be that much f*cking better than Dragon, KENTA, Marufuji, Angle, HBK, Roddy, Triple H, Benoit, Nigel, Low Ki, Hero, etc.

And what you consider Perfect, I don't, and Dave doesn't, and tons of people don't, and you know who's wrong? no one is. We all grade differently. I find it ridiculous that you give Tana/Will vs SZKG a 2 when you're giving Triple vs Batista an 8, but you know what, you write your own reviews and I do mine and Dave does his. He went years without giving a 5 star, but he just didn't care about what was going down, just like i give zero fucks about watching that midget Gargano and his developmental feuds. It's like if I said, why is Red giving all those big ratings to the EVOLVE geeks and not guys like Okada and Tanahashi and Suzuki. He thinks Gargano to be "that much f*cking better than Okada, Tanahashi, Omega, etc"

Well then what the f*ck is he waiting for? GO BACK AND CHANGE IT! He might as well go back and rate the first Ladder War, too, as him not rating it did absolutely nothing to stop people from trying to top it.

Why!? what's so important that he would go back and change it? Who lives in the past so much that he needs that rating changed? He has way more important things to do that go change a rating to serve some disgruntled fans.

I agree with you. I just find him much more forgiving of someone doing the Ambrose thing in New Japan (which happens often, and particularly in Tanahashi matches), and more willing to accept sh*t that doesn't make sense as fighting spirit like the Ishii-style no-selling BS as fighting spirit because it happens in Japan. The "playing mind games to make your opponent think his offense is weak" stuff is moronic because there is no reason for the opponent to give you the chance back, no reason for the opponent to not take advantage of your free shot in a completely legal way like a full-force shot to the face when you're looking to get chopped, and even if you're asking for that full-force shot in the face, I find it to be dumb psychology for someone to be constantly no-selling pull-force shots to the f*cking face. It stops being two guys trying to wrestle and starts being two guys doing stuff that they know will pop the crowd and hopefully convince Uncle Dave to give them more snowflakes for.

Do you honestly believe that guys like Ishii and Suzuki give a single fuck in the world about Dave's ratings? c'mon, leave that to the indie wrestlers, even nxt wrestlers, but we're talking about old veterans that don't even care about the whole United States.

And at the end of the day, getting pops is the name of the business, not 'simulated wrestling'. it's 2019, WM was built on pops. If those spots and pops gets people on seats, than that's it.

Dave writes giant paragraphs in his Newsletter that I read and spends minutes upon minutes on his radio show that I listen to and does not adequately explain these things to me, so why would he do any better of a job of it in an e-mail?

And I actually did once ask Dave (or anyone else on that forum) to explain Ishii's psychology to me. Dave's response was something along the lines of "I don't understand calculus, therefore my calculus professor must be a dumb sh*t" (in other words that the psychology was clearly being laid out in front of me by Ishii in his matches and I was getting angry at Ishii for being so much smarter than me that I couldn't follow along).

then why do you keep giving him your money? Just accept that he doesn't talk to you and move on. If you don't get Ishii's psychology then stop watching Ishii matches, just like Dave doesn't watch the sci-fi stuff from Impact, just like i don't watch Kofi Kingston matches. I don't get why matches need to be anally by the rule, and that's ok, doesn't mean that i can't enjoy it when it happens and I won't rate them better because they never left the ring and broke at 4 all the time.

[Big Red Machine]

Dave's reviews of 205 Live don't do a good job of getting over what's so great about the show. It's not just work-rate but it's the pure basic logic of the booking. Wins and losses have consequences, people (usually) get upset for completely human reasons, the GM feels like someone whose job is to put on the best show possible and maintain the integrity of the competition on his show, there is always a reason for the camera to be where it is... and all of this with 95% clean finishes. 205 Live is everything people have been saying they want WWE to be!

As for Gargano vs. Cole getting over *****... that's the first time anything other than an NJPW match has gotten it (in the confirmed modern era, so I'm not counting the rumored *****+ Flair/Steamboat house show matches or that one Misawa Kawada match from 94 or some of those All Japan Women matches that Dave may or may not have gone over ***** for but no one is sure and Dave himself can't remember), and NJPW has been getting several over it a year. I don't think it's unfair to say that the moment Dave went over ***** for that first Omega vs. Okada match, he opened the floodgates for a lot more matches breaking it, and a lot more matches getting ***** because ***** wasn't special anymore. One time doesn't mean Dave isn't still biased towards NJPW, and Dave was complaining about G1 Supercard being too long, so that might have played a factor as well.

Is that the whole problem? Dave doesn't say the things i want him to say and doesn't put the product i like over? boo hoo dude, at least he talks about it. There are a TON of promotions he doesn't talk about at all. He agrees that Impact is better than Raw and Smackdown and doesn't cover them either. I know the power he has when he talks about something, but i'm not gonna start a grudge because he doesn't put my show over. Cream rises to the top, if 205 was something the fans wanted to see, they'd see it

Then maybe other promotions should pick it up if they want more 5star+ matches.

My contention with Dave is what appears to be a hypocrisy. Maybe he's just bad at explaining things, but all he seems to be able to say about NJPW matches is "it was so amazing" instead of explaining what he liked and what he didn't, whereas he is generally able to find things he doesn't like in others and articulate them well... but then doesn't find fault with similar situations in NJPW.

And it's not just the wrestling, either. If Dave spent anywhere near the time scrutinizing NJPW's booking that he does on WWE's booking or that he used to on TNA's booking, Gedo wouldn't be winning Booker of the Year every year.

As for the whole "the cream rises to the top" argument, that's been proven not true. By that logic, 2010 TNA was better than 2010 ROH, and current Raw is better than current Impact, NXT or 205 Live. Availability for free and exposure are the keys. If f*cking useless shows like Main Event did good numbers then I'm certain that 205 Live or NXT would do fantastic numbers, even without giving it a prominent time-slot like one of Raw's hours. Dave has influence. He should be talking about Impact and others, and if he himself doesn't have time to watch them, he should be should be hiring people to do so. Hell, I'm sure there are tons of people out there who would do a TNA or MLW or LU or Honor Club or wXw or PROGRESS or AJPW podcast for free on the site, just for the exposure. But instead we've got Jim Valley talking about f*cking Portland Wrestling.

If Tye Dillinger started doing more armbars and lariats and less "TEN! TEN! TEN!" bullsh*t, I'd be ecstatic. The V-Trigger is just a running knee. I have no problem with someone seeing a move they like elsewhere and starting to use it, because moves aren't just about execution but timing and facial expressions and psychology and how you build the match. The most comparable move to Goto's headbutt in wrestling isn't someone else's headbutt, it's Alexa Bliss!'s big punch because of the role they fill in the match. If I saw Tye Dillinger rip off all of the signature spots from Dragon vs. Nigel at Unified or if he suddenly started doing all seven of Pentagon Jr.'s moves and nothing but, that'd be one thing, but if you're just taking a move or two and incorporating it into your own match, then that's fine.

If I remember correctly, I was quite happy when McCool started using the Styles Clash because it a woman in WWE finally doing something more than the usual "Diva finishers." I was also going gaga over her and Tiffany trading armbars on Main Event because when was the last time women were doing that in WWE?

it's not about using generic moves, or whether you like the moves or not, it's about if you're going to be fair and say, this is such and such's move at the moment. It's not like the V-Trigger is an indie kid's move, it's Omega's second biggest move.

If you point at the guy with the gun figners and do it when he's on the ropes then fine, but Roddy was doing a running/jumping knee as a major spot from 2015-2016 and no one accused Omega of stealing Roddy's move. It's a f*cking running knee. The point is that Dave can't even put someone else over without sucking some AEW or NJPW person's dick in the process. Just based off of Dave's own ratings, Buddy Murphy improved an INSANE amount in 2018, but I don't hear Dave heaping anywhere near the praise on Murphy that he does on f*cking Chase Owens.

Dave's thing about crowds has always been BS. I've seen TNA crowds that were super-hot for *** matches and Dave gave them ***. If hot crowds mattered then you'd think that at least one ECW match would have gotten *****, or that Bobby Gunns/Ija Dragunov match to crowd the interim champion last fall where the crowd was chanting for the entire match, or the similar situation in the main event of night 2 of this year's 16 Carat Gold weekend. You want crowd heat? Find me better crowd heat than Dragon vs. Hero at Hell Freezes Over, the ROH vs. CZW main event at the 100th Show, or the Cage of Death from DBD VI. Or how about Cena vs. RVD from One Night Stand 2006? Crowd heat is just a thing Dave uses to justify giving his high ratings when he wants to give them, and something he ignores when he doens't want to give such a high rating.

Dude, it's not a matrix that he fills out, it's a whole package, if you thought it was a 5 star, then it's a 5 star to you. If he likes a crowd more than another, then so what? you also keep bringing up moves from beyond 10 years, people change, you didn't use to mind fighting spirit and now you're giving Tanahashi/Ospreay vs Suzuki-gun a 2 because fighting spirit. Crowds alone don't just make up for botches or a boring match or shitty gimmicks.

Because I find it illogical that one's opinion on the importance of crowds to a wrestling match should change that much, and especially coming from a guy who used to go to Tokyo and rave about the hot crowds at All Japan and All Japan Women shows in the early nineties. Then you get stuff like ECW and TNA that he doesn't care for so the burning hot crowd is irrelevant, then Dave starts going to PWG and likes it and the crowd there is hot so Dave all of a sudden likes crowds again? Come on!
Crowds are a thing that Dave seems happy to use as a bonus to prop up stuff he already likes, but won't extend the same courtesy to stuff he doesn't like.

I didn't give that match a 2 because of fighting spirit. I gave it a 2 because of it's off-brand industrially processed fighting spirit-product. Fighting spirit is good when it makes sense in a match and is sold well by the wrestlers, not when it's done just to do it. And I don't think I've ever been an advocate of fighting spirit. Just go read my review of every Ishii match ever. In fact, I think I blamed Dave giving Ishii vs. Shibata ***** for ruining pro wrestling.

I have a strict rule that I stick to for situations like that, and even keep an entire rating separate for matches that would have been perfect if not for some small disqualifying flaw because when I saw "perfect" I mean "perfect." Dave, on the other hand, will bury TNA for overbooking or things not making sense but won't lift a finger when someone does something that should obviously be a DQ or a count-out but isn't if it happens in New Japan. I'm consistent. Dave just watches Dragon vs. KENTA, shrugs his shoulders and says "eh. Not quite good enough to be ****3/4."

What I'm saying is that I find it ridiculous that Dave will give more ***** ratings to NJPW in a single year than he did to every single f*cking promotion in the entire world for the during the entire stretch of 2000-2011. I think Dave decided he liked New Japan in a way he hasn't for any other promotion other than maybe 90s All Japan and just let the floodgates open up. I find it ridiculous that he honestly finds Tanahashi, Okada, Omega, Naito, Ibushi, Ishii, Suzuki, and pals to be that much f*cking better than Dragon, KENTA, Marufuji, Angle, HBK, Roddy, Triple H, Benoit, Nigel, Low Ki, Hero, etc.

And what you consider Perfect, I don't, and Dave doesn't, and tons of people don't, and you know who's wrong? no one is. We all grade differently. I find it ridiculous that you give Tana/Will vs SZKG a 2 when you're giving Triple vs Batista an 8, but you know what, you write your own reviews and I do mine and Dave does his. He went years without giving a 5 star, but he just didn't care about what was going down, just like i give zero fucks about watching that midget Gargano and his developmental feuds. It's like if I said, why is Red giving all those big ratings to the EVOLVE geeks and not guys like Okada and Tanahashi and Suzuki. He thinks Gargano to be "that much f*cking better than Okada, Tanahashi, Omega, etc"

I'm not saying Dave can't have his own opinions. I just think it's dishonest for someone to not be consistent with his/her opinions. If there is one thing I think I've been, it's consistent. If something should have been a DQ but wasn't, or the wrestlers were outside for so long that they should have been counted out but weren't, I will give that match a 9.75/10 no matter who is in the match or where it takes place, unless they give me an EXTREMELY compelling reason for why such a thing shouldn't happen that ties in with the story of the match (I think has only ever happened in Lethal vs. Cole from London). And "boy, it would be a shame for this match to end on a DQ/count-out" is not a good enough reason.

Also, for the record, I really haven't given more high marks to EVOLVE or wXw or whoever than to New Japan, even per capita. Maybe I have with NXT, but that seems to be pretty universal. I seem to rate NXT women's title matches higher than many, but that's about it.

Well then what the f*ck is he waiting for? GO BACK AND CHANGE IT! He might as well go back and rate the first Ladder War, too, as him not rating it did absolutely nothing to stop people from trying to top it.

Why!? what's so important that he would go back and change it? Who lives in the past so much that he needs that rating changed? He has way more important things to do that go change a rating to serve some disgruntled fans.

I agree with you. I just find him much more forgiving of someone doing the Ambrose thing in New Japan (which happens often, and particularly in Tanahashi matches), and more willing to accept sh*t that doesn't make sense as fighting spirit like the Ishii-style no-selling BS as fighting spirit because it happens in Japan. The "playing mind games to make your opponent think his offense is weak" stuff is moronic because there is no reason for the opponent to give you the chance back, no reason for the opponent to not take advantage of your free shot in a completely legal way like a full-force shot to the face when you're looking to get chopped, and even if you're asking for that full-force shot in the face, I find it to be dumb psychology for someone to be constantly no-selling pull-force shots to the f*cking face. It stops being two guys trying to wrestle and starts being two guys doing stuff that they know will pop the crowd and hopefully convince Uncle Dave to give them more snowflakes for.

Do you honestly believe that guys like Ishii and Suzuki give a single fuck in the world about Dave's ratings? c'mon, leave that to the indie wrestlers, even nxt wrestlers, but we're talking about old veterans that don't even care about the whole United States.

Suzuki? Hell no. Ishii? Maybe. I don't think he's an idiot, so I think he's definitely taken note of the fact that his career finally took off after seventeen years of mediocrity because Dave Meltzer started to like his matches.

And at the end of the day, getting pops is the name of the business, not 'simulated wrestling'. it's 2019, WM was built on pops. If those spots and pops gets people on seats, than that's it.

See... I completely disagree with this idea that "at the end of the day, getting pops is the name of the business" and think it's a dangerous misinterpretation of what drives the business. WrestleMania wasn't built on pops. Getting pops is relatively easy... but there are only so many times you can see someone do a cool flip or get hit with a chair or get put through a table before you get desensitized to it and the pops go away. Compare indy wrestling in 2001 to indy wrestling in 2007 to indy wrestling now. We've gone from all hardcore stuff and anyone who could do a flip getting a pop to a lot less flippage and hardcore and a lot more wrestling, to more flippers but mostly by guys who are talented storytellers (though some of them have turned into lazy flippers like Penta, but he also has charisma out the ass to set him apart from some Special K dork), with about the same amount of technical wrestling, and hardcore stuff has gone back to being this kind of novelty. Kitsch is in now, but that will eventually go away, too, and if you can't adapt, you fall, unless you're the biggest of the big (look at CZW's place in wrestling in the early 2000s as opposed to now, or TNA's inability to escape the desire to be the Attitude Era for the large majority of their existence).
Remember when everyone suddenly cared about Tye Dillinger because of his goofy chant? And less than two years later the guy was so useless they let him out of his contract at a time when they've had more (seemingly) stable promotions looking to challenge them than they ever have before. Because he had one goofy thing that people liked about him and instead of making an effort to use that as a springboard to develop him, they just focused on that one thing until people stopped caring, because that thing was goofy and thus unsustainable. Ditto for Rusev and "Rusev Day." The thing that the Elite guys (but the Bucks in particular) have done better than anyone else is stay ahead of the curve and reinvent themselves before they get stale.

WrestleMania (and pro wrestling in general, really) were built on stories. The pops are just the end result of those stories either being paid off or hitting some other big moment. That's a large part of the problem with WWE's current approach. Every time they say "what a WrestleMania moment!" they expect us to be popping huge, but they completely fail at telling the story to make us care enough to pop huge. They think they can have Hawkins go on this losing streak which they treat like a joke, then hook him up with Ryder and they say they're going to turn their careers around, and then not do anything with that story for months... then give them a title match in an internet segment after the go-home show and still expect us to pop huge when they win the titles. Or look at the Becky thing. If they had just sat back and let her and Ronda cut promos on each other it would have been great, but instead they tried to write this story to make Becky the rebellious one so she could do things to get pops every week, and it wound up cooling her off because they were just writing for the pop rather than writing a competent story.
You can book and do stuff in your matches to get pop all you want, but if I want to see flips I can see the same flips in NXT that I can see in NJPW or ROH or PWG or AAW or TNA or LU or any random indy show. Telling stories is what gets people caring about the wrestlers in your universe, and is the thing that you can do to ensure that someone feels the need to watch/buy a ticket to/buy a subscription for your show rather than someone else's, because only you can offer them your storyline, and even if they try to copy it/leech off of it (like everyone booking Punk vs Raven in 2003 after it caught fire in ROH) the emotion and investment won't be there like they will be on your show.

Dave writes giant paragraphs in his Newsletter that I read and spends minutes upon minutes on his radio show that I listen to and does not adequately explain these things to me, so why would he do any better of a job of it in an e-mail?

And I actually did once ask Dave (or anyone else on that forum) to explain Ishii's psychology to me. Dave's response was something along the lines of "I don't understand calculus, therefore my calculus professor must be a dumb sh*t" (in other words that the psychology was clearly being laid out in front of me by Ishii in his matches and I was getting angry at Ishii for being so much smarter than me that I couldn't follow along).

then why do you keep giving him your money? Just accept that he doesn't talk to you and move on. If you don't get Ishii's psychology then stop watching Ishii matches, just like Dave doesn't watch the sci-fi stuff from Impact, just like i don't watch Kofi Kingston matches. I don't get why matches need to be anally by the rule, and that's ok, doesn't mean that i can't enjoy it when it happens and I won't rate them better because they never left the ring and broke at 4 all the time.

I haven't left the Observer for two reasons:
1. Because Dave has the news that others don't and his obituaries and HOF pieces are interesting
2. Because there is no way to stop giving Dave my money without also ceasing to give my money to Bryan Alvarez and pals. I like Bryan, Vinny, Craig, Lance, and some of the others they have. Alan4L taking his crew to the Torch was a big factor in me deciding to sign up over there.

As for the rules thing, the rules are an inherent part of the premise of the fictional universe, and breaking them without an explanation other than "because we wanted to" is immersion-breaking. It exposes the thing as a play-acting fiction, which is not something I want rubbed in my face while I'm watching the show- and that applies to any show I watch, be it pro wrestling or Star Trek or anything else.