IT'S YER HOMEWORK
Some people say professional wrestling is subjective. In the sense that there are no 'wrong' or 'right' ways to do things, and that there's only 'entertaining' and 'not entertaining' ways. You're free to agree or disagree with that; I believe it holds merit in certain things, however I firmly believe that's mostly wrong. Wrestlers are trained for months or years, learn how to execute moves 'correctly' from veterans who have trained for upwards of decades themselves. I mean, there's a correct way to kick a football, there's a correct way to execute moves.
As there is a correct way to execute a character, right? Actors don't pop up out of nowhere, they don't earn acclaim by... not doing it right, do they? It's the same thing. Most of us can be in agreement that wrestlers are, at least in a sense, actors, therefore everything they do follows a standard which is considered correct. And I'm sure most of us if not all of us know this.
Allow me to explain the point of all of that.
The fact there are 'correct' ways to do things would, in a bit of a weird way, possibly imply there's somehow an archetype of a perfect wrestling match which would require an abundance of things (I'll try to list everything I can think of); like perfect execution of manoeuvres (not necessarily the complete lack of botches, sometimes they make it better); good booking and 'psychology' in the ring; a creative, well thought-out and performed story leading up to the match; a continuation of that story within the match; physical, emotional and verbal representation of characters; environment and atmosphere; and spots. You know, those things everyone loves... But only kinda?
A match I and many people consider an example of that archetype is the second Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker match at WrestleMania. That match had it all. Anything you can believe makes a good match, it was there.
So why do we settle on matches that, are in their own right, good, but comparatively not close to perfect, and pull a Cornette/Meltzer and call the match "four stars" or even higher? To be not only content, but amazed, with the outcome of matches which not only have every aspect of a perfect match archetype, but also have an awkward imbalance of some of those aspects.
For a recent example, take the triple threat match at this years Royal Rumble between Seth Rollins, John Cena and Brock Lesnar. It's a highly rated match not only by regular folk, but well known posters here, as well as THE wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, (who I believe gives it either a 4.5 or 4.75 out of 5 rating) yet it's exactly what I mentioned - lacking important things, as well as being imbalanced in things it has, too.
In what I'm considering objectivity, the match was lacking in an evolved story between all three competitors, as the story around it was Brock was among the most dominant champions ever, Seth can't prove his worth, and Cena's in the picture because he's Cena. That's a problem, and that alone, according to the archetype, would prevent it from a perfect mark. And of course, there were other issues, like formulaic and hindering triple threat booking, a reliance on big spots, etc.
So why is that match consistently rated on WWE MOTY contender lists?
What happened to ranking matches on everything other than big spots? Are they the most important parts of every match possible now? And when I say big spots, I don't mean the spot where X yells at Y, I mean those big spots which are woven in specifically for people to yell "Holy shit!", "this is wrestling!", etc.
Has psychology and character work within a match become something less important? Has wrestling speedily regressed from Shakespearean opera into a high budget, badly written action movie with huge explosions?
There are matches within WWE which are much closer to the archetype I mentioned at the beginning of the post that are often rated lower than big spot-heavy matches like the triple threat I mentioned, by a lot of posters as well as well-known journalists and important names in the business.
Is it bias?
Is it ignorance?
Maybe I'm overthinking it and things can be 'great' despite lacking a huge amount of things proven to be important in matches for years. Maybe those high budget, badly written action movies with huge explosions are just better in their own way, somehow, and rating a Smackdown cruiserweight match as significantly better than a world star match between two of the greatest wrestlers to ever live is valid, because they're... different?
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