TNA Wrestling’s Matt Hardy and longtime wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer got into a back-and-forth on social media over the criteria of a five-star wrestling match.
On X this week, Hardy and Meltzer got into a debate of sorts over the topic of the elusive five-star match. Things started with Hardy noting that he believes storytelling is more important than a “5-star match” on his podcast. Meltzer replied, noting that it isn’t an “either/or,” and that good storytelling is needed for a match to be rated so highly. “The key thing is engaging the audience,” said Meltzer.
Hardy replied, saying that how a match makes people feel is important. However, he noted that “a practically perfect match” are ones that “fill people with exhilarating emotion and indelible memories.” Meltzer replied that his idea of a “perfect performance” is taking a quiet crowd and making them excited. “Taking an already super hot crowd and keeping them hot is also good, but I’ve seen the best do it with a totally dead crowd,” Meltzer said.
Hardy acknowledged the two might not be “terribly far apart” on the issue, to which Meltzer agreed. Wrestling match rating systems were first invented by Jim Cornette and Norman Dooley in the 1970s. However, Meltzer popularized the five-star system through the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. To date, the system is how fans often judge matches.
