Like many of you I am a subscriber to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and website, in addition to being a patron of post wrestling.
I’ve noticed an uptick in recent years to the number of 5 star (*****) matches awarded by meltzer. Last year was a watershed moment with Dave awarding a number of six star or better ratings for Kenny omega/Okada matches. I agree with Dave that these matches (especially the first two) deserve higher than the best.
In some cases I Disgree with Dave. As an evaluator,if there is any discrepancy or something that takes away from the match that’s not five stars that’s four and aND three quarters Let’s compile all the five star matches from 2018.
Chris Jericho vs Omega -Y2Js first 5 star match. Well deserved. Hard hitting and perfect as a brawl not a technical classic.
Almas vs gargano from NXT Takeover Philadelphia - my moty right now. Exceptional storytelling, Wrestling and emotion.
Marty Scurrl vs Will Osprey from Sakura Genesis- Awesome hard hitting match. Should the injury to Osprey hurt the star rating or did it help the realism to the match. I agree with this rating.
Golden Lovers vs Young Bucks from Strong Style Evolved- superb storytelling and acting from all participants. Many memorable spots. I actually don’t think this is a five star match due to the Ibushi botch and the finish wasn’t as epic as other five star matches imo.
Ladder match from NXT Takeover NOLA - one of the best ladder matches I ever saw. I give it five stars for all the stuff they did and no serious injuries. Tons of OMG moments and star making performances for both Ricochet and Adam.Cole. Agreed on five stars.
Gargano vs Ciampa from NXT Takeover NOLA -this was the real main event. Glad it went on last. I liked the ending to the title match on the same card more and felt some of Ciampas stuff was too pre planned and obvious. The crowd was so good in their reaction and gargano made this five stars for me but barely.
I can argue the aleister black and almas match should also be five stars but Dave didn’t so it’s not on the list.
What did I miss ? I’m sure I did. Please add to this list and discuss rankings with me.
I’m not holding this man Meltzers opinion as some sort of gauge of what quality is. It’s just his opinion…there isn’t no metric to use for his ratings. It’s his subjective opinion.
It’s like taking Roger Eberts opinion as gospel and missing out on all the movies he originally. hated and had to retract his original reviews over his long career.
Seems like the overwhelming majority of people that take his star ratings as gospel are the people that complain about them. Meltzer himself says their just opinion and it’s funny that people argue so much.
Having said that, I’ll seek out a Meltzer rated 4.75 star match over a Meltzer rated 3 star match, so there’s some relevance to them for me.
A review is inherently subjective. I admitted to disagreeing often with him like I would anyone but he’s doing this longer than anyone and I respect him.
Hopefully, this post eventually gets discussion on the matches themselves.
Personally, i couldn’t cares less about Meltzer or his opinions. He’s pretty much just a fan like we all are, with the difference being that he’s making a living off this. So for me, i don’t care if he like something or not because 9 times out of 10, what i found that entertain me is something he hated. So the fun thing with Meltzer for me is how fucking entertaining he is because you know that most of the time, he’s just speculating on something and my fun his to see how WWE will make a fool out of him.
Also…Omega/Jericho doesn’t come close to Jericho/HBK ladder match or even the Mania 19 match. The fact that this is Jericho’s first 5 star match from Meltzer says it all for me.
How can I make a list of matches that I love and he hated since I don’t read his newsletter.
But here some of the matches that I loved over the years that proberbly didn’t rate high in his newsletter.
John cena vs Roman reigns
DDP vs Goldberg
Sting vs HHH
The whole strowman vs reigns feud
Sting vs Luger
Hogan vs flair
Goldberg vs lesnar at mania last year
That’s just a shortlist of matches that I actually enjoyed over the year.
All that data is easily accessible online. I thought ddp goldberg was a great match. Why would you assume matches you like a professional journalist wouldn’t like as well?
Also, I’ll change the title of this post. I wanted to discuss 5 star matches this year, 2018. I don’t think any of the matches you listed were current.
I was just replying to somebody else post with that list. Personally I don’t care about Meltzer or his newsletter. To me he’s just another one of those guy that ruin wrestling by exposing everything so I’m not gonna go out of my way to search his opinion on matches.
In my list I had a couple of matches from last year which I thought was really good.
But I do want to talk about his 2018 five star list. The one thing that all theses have is that they involves guy that are willing to do high spots for the sake of high spots
I can’t comment on any matches that weren’t on NXT or wwe because Indy wrestling isn’t my cup of tea.
But I can’t comment on the three nxt matches.
almas vs gargano, I thought was a good match with too many false finish and in no way I could by that gargano had a chance in hell of winning the title. I would give it between 3 and a half to 4 star at max.
The ladder match was way too long for my taste with way too many high spots. It got to a point that we’re i just wanted somebody to grab that belt so that the match could end. I would rate this match 3 stars at best.
Gargano vs ciampa was a series of good matches because like cornette told in his review of this match, you had 3 or 4 matches within this one match. While I loved the story being told in this, the one thing that did bug me outside of the multiple false finishes is that gargano finally expose himself as far as how bad he is as expressing emotion and it take me out of the match. I would give it between 4 and 4 and a half star for this one.
In my opinion the one match that I would have given 5 stars this year is the rousey/angle vs hhh/Stephanie match or maybe asuka vs Charlotte. These were great matches without too many high spots or false finish and they told a great story.
I also do not like the idea of a anything being rated higher then then the scale. if your rating is from 0-5 then 5 is the most you can give. Same thing with percentages you can give 100% not 110%.
Chris Jericho vs Omega - great match but not a fan of the weapons, I enjoyed the main event better. 4.5*
Gargano vs Ciampa - Not a fan of weapons 4.75*
Almas vs Gargano from NXT Takeover Philadelphia - Great match, but the story telling didn’t do it for me. I just didn’t buy into Gargano being a legit threat to for Almas. He already lost to Almas 2 PPV’s prior then lost to Pete Dunn the PPV before this one. - 4.5*
I have no problems with Dave giving any of the above matches 5*, I just have slightly different tastes than he does.