Your Chance To Tell Me What I Should Do
What changes should I make?
So the other night, someone left me a comment (politely) saying that my older reviews were better/more entertaining than the current ones. I tend to agree with this, but I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. I know I used to get more annoyed and angry at a lot of the stuff back in the day but that’s not something I can just turn back on. My life is a lot better than it used to be but more importantly, so much of wrestling today feels more bland than stupid and anger inducing.
On top of that, I now do live coverage for almost every show, which takes away the amount of time I have to really go into detail and such (notice that in the reviews of older shows, the details/annoyances are at a bit of a higher pace). At the end of the day, the live coverage style is what has me paying my bills and actually doing this for a living so I can’t change much of that.
Now all that being said, the last thing I want to be is boring/dull. Therefore, I thought I’d ask my loyal readers (who I certainly appreciate and whose opinions matter more than most anyone else as you’re the ones who stick with me) what they think I should change/what they want to see more/less of. I’m not saying I’ll make the changes (some stuff I have to do for the sake of finances) but I can always use input like this.
So what would make things more entertaining for you here? More of a certain kind of show? Less of something? More opinion stuff? More anger/annoyances? More analytical style? Anything really. I’m typically just going off what I’ve done in the past so I’d like to know what you would like to see. Like I said, I can’t guarantee that I’ll do/not do some of them but I can always go for some (hopefully constructive) criticism.
Go for it.
KB
Agree with doing some more ‘rivals’ or ‘top ten’ stuff. Honestly you could mirror the Network content but your thoughts would be much better and less ‘company line’ than what they give us. Love the site, love watching old PPVs and following along with your review. We have similar outlooks on the industry and shows
I’ve been reading your reviews since you started em on wrestlezone. I actually prefer your stuff now. You’ve went from super enthusiastic WWE megafan to a well rounded, thoughtful wrestling reviewer. You seem slightly more jaded when in comes to the main roster nowadays, but so is everyone. Your nxt reviews are always a delight though, because it seems like you’re still so excited to be watching great wrestling every week and it’s infectious.
I think the key to keeping this a fun place to visit is to make sure that you’re filling your days with wrestling that you’re excited about. Obviously you’re stuck reviewing raw and smackdown, because those are the reviews that keep your bread buttered. But maybe you don’t need to cover the weekly roh shows? There’s only so many times we can all be disappointed by their pointless programming and poor builds. That’s time that you could be spending on something that has a chance to surprise you. Maybe you catch up on classic roh shows instead, or start watching some pwg or progress? There’s been some amazing matches and moments from all three that I’d love to read your takes on.
But for me personally, the thing that kills me most about the site right now is the numerous gaps in your classic reviews sections. When I was doing my wwe rewatch last year I would take a look at your ratings before every ppv to determine what was skippable and what was must see, but there are a few shows without reviews. Im planning on doing a WCW rewatch soon, but those gaps are even worse. Maybe you’ve done them but they’re just not in the all reviews section? I dunno, but it kills me.
What gaps are you talking about? I’m sure they exist but I’m not sure what you mean.
And yeah, if I drop a weekly show, it would be ROH. It’s watchable but a lot of the time it feels like nothing I need to see.
Just missing shows here or there. Taking a quick look at the All Reviews page, it looks like you’re missing Armageddon 2004, IYH 3 & 4, Judgement Day 2005 & 2009, and No Way Out 2007 on the WWE side of things. And there’s a whole bunch of WCW shows that aren’t up.
I’m sure the average visitor who only visits for current reviews hasn’t really noticed, but since I use your archives as an important tool in my rewatches, it’s something I’ve been hoping you’d work toward.
I’ve reviewed every pay per view ever (with a WIDE range in quality) but they all exist. I just haven’t posted all of them.
Well first off I freaking love this site. I come here everyday and read every review.
Your current writing style is great. No problems with it.
Regardless to improve the site, maybe you could add more variety.
Such as more New Japan, Top 10 lists, fantasy booking, or even a short summary of news daily.
Just my 2 cents. The site is great, but as they say anyone and anything can get better.
Wait, wait hold up? You get paid for writing these? Hot damn that’s a good gig! How did you end up getting paid to review wrestling shows? I only know of a few people who have even made it to that level.
Anyway, I guess you could do more opinions and analytical insights but I mean, you already kind of do that. I feel like your writing style is you an you can’t really change it any less than you can change your thought process.
I mainly get paid for writing news articles at Wrestlingrumors.net. The rest of my income is a combination of ad revenue here and the book/e-book sales.
Hot damn son, you making 6 figures just reviewing wrestling?
I’ll klunder your bunker.
Whoa whoa whoa. Where in the world did you get six figures from? It’s barely even six if you count what comes after the decimal.
I prefer the newer reviews. You linked me to some of your old RAW reviews last week and they seemed more ‘marky’ if that makes sense. The writing style seemed a lot more disjointed too.
Yeah the old ones are awful in that regard. I can’t stand them.
I think you do a good job with everything though I think you get a little too snarky at times but that’s my opinion. I can’t think of much you should change up really. Just keep reviewing everything and i’ll keep reading them.
I uses to read the reviews on Wrestlezone. Then found this site and was hooked for life.
The thing about your reviews is that they always seem as if some long time fan just like me is writing them, and enjoying doing that in the process. He’s writing it exactly how he feels it is.
For eg., I remember JR’s Wrestlemania reviews on Fox Sports before WM30. He literally praised ALL THE MANIAS. Every single one. But you praise only the ones which are genuinely good, and s**t on the bad stuff.
Now, I would love to see more “I want to talk about….” articles. They were awesome.
Also, the only thing that bothers me is the LONG DELAY to see your review after a Wrestlemania. Now nothing can be done about that so I’m ok with that. It’s good to sew that a fan is getting to visit a these WMs because of his hard work he puts in this website.
Thanks.
The I Want To Talk About series has pretty much been retired for the sake of the column.
The delay bothers me a bit too but, if things go according to plan, that might change a bit next year as we might be flying instead of driving. If the wi-fi is better in the hotel, I should be able to have it up in a day or two instead of the better part of a week.
STFU plz
Please*
I’ve read your reviews every day for the past seven years. Have always admired your work despite how stupid I have come off on the forums at times and how much grief I have caused.
I think one difference I’ve noticed throughout the years is that now that you get financed through writing live reports, they almos read more like they’re work, rather than something you genuinely enjoy. Back when I first started they were more nuanced. You had idiosyncratic details that felt like a fan was writing about something he loves.
I still think you love the product overall. Perhaps the storylines and time of the year aren’t amazing at the moment, but there seems to be less you. You seem a little more easily annoyed now and the reviews while still being what I consider the best on the internet are teetering closer to being more like other reviews than KB Reviews. Obviously you’re more time constraint, but you being you is always the best.
To be honest your review style is great I love it, the only thing I’d like to see is more variety. I know doing the reviews is time consuming and I appreciate the time and effort you put into them. But I actually look forward to hearing your opinion on stuff you don’t cover. For example NJPW just put on their show dominion and it got rave revIew’s. But the first thought I had was I wonder what KB would think of this show. I just like it when you do big shows outside of wwe even though I know that’s your bread and butter. But other than that I love reading the reviews. I’ve been a fan since 2011 so you must be doing something right lol but keep up the good work and every review you do is well appreciated.
It’s on my short list so I’ll try to move it up a bit. I could see doing some of the bigger (and ONLY some of the bigger) New Japan shows but it’s still only going to be a handful a year.
I would suggest that if your looking to dip your toes in the NJPW waters to try and go back just review Okada’s title defenses. It’s seriously a Ric Flair in 1989 style run of classics against the likes of Suzuki, Shibata, and Omega.
You also might want to review NJPW’s first ever live American TV/PPV event in Long Beach on July 1st and 2nd. The first night will air live on AXS tv and has 4 great IWGP US Title quarterfinals set up and Cody Rhodes challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight title. I imagine the average reader around here might actually be interested in it due to the Cody Rhodes angle.
If I can stand listening to Josh Barnett that long, I’ll consider it. They won’t be able to be live but I’ll try to squeeze them in.
*bows head in shame* yep it was me that left the comment.
Glad you didn’t take offense to it. Tried saying it as nice as I could. You just seemed to generally enjoy the shows more back then. A lot more mark out moments and capitalizing and going more into depth in a match about what’s going on or why what who did was stupid or even making fun of what the announcers were saying. I completely understand it would be hard to be like that watching live (hell I had a hard time writing a crappy Mitb review after it was over). I just want to see more of that energy from your old stuff. You like something let us know and vice versa. Hope that made sense.
I started reading your stuff…man before this site was even around probably when I was deployed back in 2010 when it was just on the forums. Couldn’t watch hardly any show ever obviously so it was great to see your review and check something out on YouTube if it was worth it or not. You do an outstanding job man and I visit this everyday.
I’m not going to get annoyed by someone who has been around for a long time saying they liked something I did. I can go with this kind of criticism as I need to be told this kind of stuff at times.
I’ve read your stuff for a long time. I started reading as a way to get a summary of a show I didn’t have time to watch. I kinda got hooked and found myself reading your reviews and determining from them whether I’d bother watching the show or not.
To be honest, and as respectful as possible, I’ve stopped reading because your reviews are all the same. It seems you’ve become jaded. Everything is either pointless or forgettable or unnecessary. Sometimes I feel like I know what you’re going to say about a match or show before I even read the review.
I know it’s become your career so suggesting you scale back your workload is unreasonable. I think you could take more time to form your opinions of the shows you review live. They don’t have to be posted the second the show is over.
I also feel like you miss things when you’re doing live reviews.
I get it, the product you’re reviewing has been pretty bad of late (Raw, Smackdown and Impact mostly). But your reviews were still entertaining even though the product was bad in the past. I feel like you’ve lost a lot of that recently.
I’ve been reading your reviews for years now and I think they are some of the most top notch reviews on the internet in terms of pro wrestling. One thing I have really enjoyed from some of your past reviews is when you go in depth on what’s going and why you like or hate a match or segment. I think more analysis and opinion would be great for your reviews. But honestly just keep doing you, that is what has gotten you to where you are after all. Keep up the good work mate!
I don’t normally like to give out advice for free. People pay top dollar for my advice.
But one thing I think you should change is to stop watching WWE. I did and it was the best decision I ever made. I feel I am at peace now.
Me personally, I blame the quality of the current product than anything else. There’s only so much you can do when the product is this bland.
Just keep up the good work, whilst I dont always agree with your ratings/reviews on older matches (Im an Attitude Era fanboy), I still value your opinion on the current product enough to seek out a match you rate highly as I cant be bothered watching every tv/ppv these days!
I actually think your reviews are much better now than when I go back and read a random show you reviewed 5 years ago or so.
If you’re looking to switch things up I’d say more opinions would be nice, but I wouldn’t change things up beyond that.
I agree with the guy who requested feud reviews. I think you’re doing fine, and the only recommendations I can think of, would be to either get into podcasting, or start to knock down some of the requests you have. I know that list has to be long.
Here’s an idea that just came to me: Maybe do a few “Top Tens”, and list things like Greatest Tag Teams, with the reviews of some of your favorite matches/moments involving them.
How difficult is it, to find the old AWA and Smoky Mountain Wrestling libraries? It’d be interesting, and entertaining, to see your perspective on some of the booking there.
AWA….all over the place. SMW is on the Network. I keep meaning to get to that but actually doing these things has never been my strong suit.
Have you ever thought of having a section for fantasy rebookings?
I know you’ve stated before you aren’t big on fantasy booking, but I think it would be really interesting to see how you’d book things/people that were considered flops/misbooked (Bayley on Raw, Invasion angle, Zack Ryder).
Forgot to mention how much I love the site though and wouldn’t mind one bit if didn’t change a single thing.
I have following along with your reviews since Wrestlezone in 2011. TBH between Punk and finding some thoughtful analysis on wrestling are the only two reasons I came back to wrestling after giving it up in middle school.
I think your reviewing style is fine but you can only work with what you review and WWE is putting out repetitive tv and makes the same mistakes so you pointing them is repetitve to readers. WWE’s failings have lead me to drop the network and get NJPW World and I find it to be a much less time consuming and overall more rewarding decision for the time being. I would selfishly branching out and reviewing more different types of wrestling but I don’t think that solves the problem you are having here
I’ve been reading you for lord knows how long, probably since the start of the site. I think one thing that I’ve noticed is a bit more apathy towards WWE in general, which I certainly can understand, especially with how the last couple of years have gone. Don’t get me wrong, the snarky “oh god this shit again” stuff is some of my favorite content of yours, but I feel like it creeps in sometimes in spots where genuinely good stuff happens, and then you make a comment about it not mattering in four weeks at the next PPV. That’s really the only bad thing I’ve noticed lately, other than that, great shit as usual dude.
Just keep up the good work. I stop by nearly every day for a few years now and am really enjoying your stuff from top to bottom. Also big respect for the effort you but in, especially in a time where WWE “terrorizes” their viewers with more and more content. I was running a music blog for 9 long years where i tried to be als productive as you and also got satisfying feedback from readers, bands and the whole scene but over time it just ate up too much of my every day life that’s why i decided to close for good.
I don’t feel much of any over saturation on KB and that’s really impressive for a one-man-Project. Eventually you could review some PWG shows cause they are some of the best the American Wrestling Industry has to offer, but yeah, i know, that means even more work,haha.
Thanks for your effort, man and greetings from Austria!
Just chiming in to say I enjoy what you do. Some folks have different tastes, but for me, when I visit the site, I normally do so when I didn’t watch a Raw or Smackdown and just want to get a brief rundown of the matches. Usually, if you rate a match B or higher, I’ll find some time to watch it. Your writing style doesn’t really bother me; I’d visit the site regardless just for the ratings. Keep up the good work.
Personally I think u r doing just fine. What I’d like 2 c u do tho is maybe analyzing different feuds of da past. Maybe do a few matches of a feud and your take on what made it a success or failure and how did it elevate said wrestler career.
I think this would be great.
English please.