Vader's Criticism Of Recent New Japan Match

[Jack-Hammer]

On the main page, there's a story regarding a recent bout between high flyers Ricochet and Will Ospreay that took place on day 6 of this year's Best of the Super Juniors tournament.

Vader heavily criticized the match as lacking storytelling, psychology and called the various spots a "gymnastics routine" on Twitter. As is the case in this day and age, Twitter basically blew up with various people defending the match and praising it, which can also been viewed on the main page. Some supporters, such as the Young Bucks, describe that storytelling in wrestling is more than about working a body part and selling a limb and that one of the goals for a wrestler is to stand out, which he says Ricochet and Ospreay did.

I watched the match and I think both sides of things. I respect the athleticism of both men as their athletic ability is insane; I do disagree that there wasn't any storytelling, there was some as it seemed like the match was about a couple of young, cocky studs trying to outdue one another. There wasn't a ton of depth to the storytelling, but there was a little something. While I liked some of the spots, some of them were just too heavily choreographed and there were times it did look like some sort of parkour/gymnastics sort of routine. Some were just done for the sake of doing them and seemed so heavily unnecessary that it took me out of the match for a bit.

It wasn't a mindless spotfest as there was some storytelling going on and at least some degree of selling, yet this isn't something that I'd enjoy watching every time as all the matches would start to look the same after a while.

 

[Wald]

Honestly I watched the match and I thought it was an insult to wrestling to be honest. It was like two guys going out there and making a joke out of all of us who love the business. I don't have much more to say on it bar that, I just thought the whole thing was ridiculous and it made me feel stupid for being a wrestling fan in the same way Hornswaggle or matches like Doink The Clown v Duke The Dumpster Droese used to

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Try watching an entire show of that style. It gets old. You no longer react to any of it. It's just a courtesy clap and "yup, another cool flip".

You have to have a reason why I care about your flips. They aren't inherently bad. They need a place.

In 1997 Rey Mysterio had a sequence against Eddie Guerrero at Halloween Havoc 1997. It was 619 into a head scissors, dragonrana plancha, roll him in, corkscrew body attack. That sounds ridiculous, especially for 1997. Sounds like a pointless spotfest. It wasn't. Eddie had violently reversed anything Rey did because he knew him so well. So Rey had to pull crazy shit out of nowhere to even get an advantage.

Flips for no reason get courtesy claps, flips with a purpose get pops.

 

[peter_midnight]

I did not see the match you are referencing, but a friend posted a clip on Facebook and I am FAIRLY sure this is the exact one you are talking about. I quoted Bill Watts, "It broadcasts to the world that our sport is fake." I stand by that quote and always will. He was referencing why there should be more black world champions and that the lack of black world champions broadcasts to the world that wrestling is fake. I say the same thing about the clip and DQs in the business.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

I did not see the match you are referencing, but a friend posted a clip on Facebook and I am FAIRLY sure this is the exact one you are talking about. I quoted Bill Watts, "It broadcasts to the world that our sport is fake." I stand by that quote and always will. He was referencing why there should be more black world champions and that the lack of black world champions broadcasts to the world that wrestling is fake. I say the same thing about the clip and DQs in the business.

From what I saw, it was a great match. Didn't look fake at all. Besides it was a spot-fest. Not too much story-telling is going to happen.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

I know the Super Juniors tournament has always gotten a decent amount of attention in Japanese wrestling but does that mean every match in it is a spot fest? Are all the participants in the tournament a spotfest monkey? Since the tournament stretches over X amount of dates does the Super Juniors dominate a promotion or is it just a part of it? Lastly, if it is dominated then is there some variety in the talent and matches being shown?

Wrestling has always been about variety, even when wrestling was booked as real they still had silly shit, I promise some of those midget matches from yesteryear were a hell of a lot more silly, ridiculous and unrealistic than what you saw from Ricochet and Ospreay and it was never an issue then.

The thing is different matches have different goals, some are meant to be realistic, some are meant to be bloodbaths, some are meant to be comedy and some are meant to be spot fests, this match was obviously supposed to be a spot fest, the people obviously enjoyed it so no harm no foul.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Normally i'm a big fan of the high flying style of wrestling when it's done right. I use to enjoy watching the cruiserweight in Wcw and WWE. Love watching the x-division when in TNA when they first started and that division matter. They some great talents that would do high spot but would tell a story through those spots. The would also sell when they we're hit with a high spot.

So after reading about this, i thought let try and watch this match to see if it's has good or has bad as some peoples make it up to be. Sadly, i quickly realize that this match would be for me because it didn'T felt organic at all. It felt like 2 guys meet in the back early that morning, pretty put everything they wanted to do on paper then practice it until the match was perfect then did it in front of an audience. It wasn'T a wrestling match but more of a performance and that'S the last thing i want to see when i watch wrestling.

i would pretty much compare it to a match from the jacques rougeau wrestling school. For those that live in quebec, they pretty much know what i'm talking about but for everybody else let'S me explain what i mean. Jacques Rougeau has a wrestling school in montreal where he teaches young kids and adult how to do family style wrestling. They all about wrestling move and high spots but no punch, kicks or brawling outside. A couple times a years he does these wrestling shows were his students wrestles and most time it's a lot of spot that makes no sense like somebody hitting a f-5 on a opponent and following it with a 450 splash and the opponent kick out at 1 and doesn'T sell those move at all. So imagine a whole show of that type of wrestling, it pretty boring and at the end your wondering why you love wrestling so much.

This match reminded me of that, because the fact that their no way any of those move made sense and it didn'T look like a fake wrestling match and not a pro wrestling match.

Yes the fans in japn did like it so it'S not all bad but when you saw guys like rey mysterio, aj styles, christopher daniels and many more do this style of wrestling without making it look like a choreograph, then you watch this and feel like they really need to tone it down a little bit and find a balance between doing high spot and telling a story because these 2 have all the potential in the world to be stars in wrestling but they need to learn psychology and not just base they career on how many spot can they do because if they continue like this, they won'T last 10 years in wrestling.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

From what I saw, it was a great match. Didn't look fake at all. Besides it was a spot-fest. Not too much story-telling is going to happen.

Didn't look fake other than them not selling a single thing.

In a spotfest, you still tell a story. You can do the "anything you can do, I can do better" story. You can, at least, make the highspots seem organic and not just "I'm going to pick you up (instead of covering) and hit another big move". You can SELL a body part so that there is doubt around whether or not you'd even hit a move.

A "spotfest" is not an excuse to be lazy.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Didn't look fake other than them not selling a single thing.

In a spotfest, you still tell a story. You can do the "anything you can do, I can do better" story. You can, at least, make the highspots seem organic and not just "I'm going to pick you up (instead of covering) and hit another big move". You can SELL a body part so that there is doubt around whether or not you'd even hit a move.

A "spotfest" is not an excuse to be lazy.

Again it's a spot-fest. It's just one big move after another. That's the point. No problem with these kind of matches every now and then.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Again it's a spot-fest. It's just one big move after another. That's the point. No problem with these kind of matches every now and then.

Again, you can have a spot-fest and it still make sense. A spot fest for the sake of spots is the most backyard shit there is. Looks unprofessional. There are plenty of youtube videos with daredevil 16 year olds jumping off shit if I want to watch that.

Even the TLC matches, MITB matches, ultimate X matches, etc set up spots to look spontaneous.