Uncle Dave Refuses To Rate WrestleMania

[Jack-Hammer]

For the first time, Dave Meltzer has stated that he won't provide his controversial star ratings for any of the matches presented for WrestleMania this year. He put out a statement:

"Anyway, rating empty arena taped and heavily edited matches, let alone produced movies, as pro wrestling matches is ridiculous. Pro wrestling matches don?t have the benefit of reshooting moves, having cuts in filming and redoing things that don?t look good, special effects after the fact, taking out slow spots (granted they for whatever reason should have but failed to do that with Orton vs,. Edge). It?s both unfair to wrestlers in certain matches because some of these bouts with a crowd would have been great. And it?s unfair to the guys who are rated based on one-take pro wrestling and their ability to do their moves and tell their stories and feed off reactions, to compare what they do to produced skits with cuts and multiple takes, or matches with two weeks of being able to edit anything negative out of. There were matches that were stopped and re-shot after moves were missed."

I see where he's coming from with this. After all, you know that some of the matches were re-shot and that's almost certainly true for the Boneyard Match.

Still, I wonder if Dave will show some consistency 6 weeks from now IF AEW tapes Double or Nothing in an empty arena.

[EnviousDominous]

So basically, 0 stars as a professional wrestling event.

Meh, I've never respected Dave enough to have any kind of significant reaction toward his star ratings. I might react with a "Oh, well would you look at that" when he gives a 5.25 (?) star rating, mainly because it's in line with the majority of public opinion and it's neat-o to have a famous prowrestling journalist agree with you.

Dave Meltzer is Dave Meltzer because he's Dave Meltzer. Tomorrow he might grant two dogs fighting over a pork chop a star rating, and then the next day he'll write a book about why someone of his caliber can't sully his reputation by honoring WrestleMania 36 with a star rating.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

I'm just glad I did not need to pay $11.99 a month for that insight!

[Storm Trooper]

Can't wait for AEW Double Or Nothing (AKA Double In Front Of Nothing) next month, he'll (over)rate that I bet. It's the same fucking thing but because it isn't done by Vince McMahon he will love it.

[Slyfox696]

It?s both unfair to wrestlers in certain matches because some of these bouts with a crowd would have been great. And it?s unfair to the guys who are rated based on one-take pro wrestling and their ability to do their moves and tell their stories and feed off reactions, to compare what they do to produced skits with cuts and multiple takes, or matches with two weeks of being able to edit anything negative out of.

My God, this man's ego is ridiculous. It's "unfair to wrestlers" for him to arbitrarily assign one of his notoriously biased ratings to the matches at the biggest wrestling show of the year?

What a joke Meltzer is. Of course, the bigger joke are those who think his ratings as the end-all, be-all of pro wrestling.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

I agree with Meltzer. Pro wrestling taped with no audience isn't fair to judge.

There's plenty of reasons to dislike Meltzer and think he's a joke, but I think people are reaching here.

[Fallout]

I don't even dislike Meltzer. He's entitled to his opinion, and he's clearly well-read on wrestling history. There's definite areas of disagreement I have with him, but that's the nature of wrestling, people are going to have varying opinions.

The people I can't stand are the sycophants, who never question his opinions and treat everything he says as gospel because they're too frightened to think for themselves. I'm rather sick of the institutionalised thinking in wrestling circles where you have to like or dislike a certain performer, or you don't get wrestling, and they throw Meltzer as the be-all, end-all authority on the subject matter.

Thankfully, this line of thinking seems to be dying down a bit, but there was a dark time during the mid-2000's until recently where most everyone merely regurgitated what the WON had to say on a subject matter. Meltzer's not an awful human being or anything, but I'd honestly trust someone like KB a hell of a lot more, and that's actually where I go to get my updates and analysis on wrestling nowadays.