Tommy Platinum

There was a thread in this section recently about the star rating system and its suitability for rating the quality of matches. Obviously some people didn't understand that the star rating system is a way of expressing your opinion of a match rather than there being a right and a wrong opinion of how good the match is. Anyway, this thread is about how a match will inevitably mean different things to different people and ultimately any match is going to be judged very differently based on a number of factors.

One obvious factor which gave me the idea for this thread in the first place is the time you actually see the match. For example, if you see a match live, you are probably going to enjoy it more, especially if you have been keeping up to date with the build before the match so you can see the feud develop. On the other hand, if you are going back watching matches from years ago that you have never seen before, do you think that would have a big effect on your rating of the match? Another aspect of this would be remembering matches as better than they really are simply because you enjoyed that period of wrestling so much and it brings back happy memories, perhaps because you were young and were a bigger fan.

There are of course many other factors. Your expectations going in to the match will always shape your final opinion of it. If you predict a match of the year candidate and the match doesn't quite live up to your expectations, you are probably going to think it is worse because of this disappoinment. Conversely, if you expect a match to be bad and you actually enjoy it, you may rate it higher due to being pleasantly surprised with the way the match turned out.

Then there are your personal biases regarding certain promotions of wrestlers. There is a good chance you may subconsciously enjoy a match less and therefore underrate it simply because for whatever reason, you dislike the wrestler involved. Or maybe it happens in a promotion you don't care about and you're not willing to say it was good because you hate the promotion. Alternately, you could overrate a match simply because you mark for the wrestlers involved.

Hopefully you understand what I am saying here. Is it possible to actually judge a match based on the match itself, or will other factors always cloud your judgment so you can never make an accurate decision as to how good the match really is?

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