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I heard Jim Cornette say that him and someone named Weasel Dooley came up with the star rating system. Is that true?
It’s true, Norm “Weasel” Dooley was a hardcore fan from decades ago and he was the one who came up with rating matches with stars, with five being the top of the scale.
He said that they did it as a joke and now people take it seriously?
I know that Cornette and Dooley were friends so if Cornette they said they did in fun fashion, not to be taken seriously, I don’t doubt him. All a star rating does is give someone’s opinion. For instance, I love NXT UK so if I give Kay Lee Ray and Meiko Satomura five stars, but you hate NXT UK and love slice and dice matches, what does it really mean to you? It’s just an opinion and to me only makes sense if the reader and reviewer share the same tastes in wrestling.
If five stars was the best a match could be, how are people giving matches more stars than that now?
That’s a good question. If there is a top point of a scale, it’s up to the reviewer to only give the 5 star rating on the rarest of occasions.
And does that mean they should go back to every match they gave five stars and reevaluate whether those matches are worth more stars now?
If they take their ratings seriously, as some people do? Absolutely. If they have a match five stars before their bastardized their rating system by adding numbers to it, they should go back and see if matches that they didn’t give that courtesy to meet the new criteria. Frankly, I don’t really care if they do it but anyone who takes star ratings seriously at all should spend every waking moment making sure their ratings are accurate and valid.
What is your take on the star rating system?
I am guessing you can figure out that I am not a fan of them. For one thing, I think they are cop out. I would rather use actual words to describe what I think of a match. For another, as I said above, they are just opinions and are totally objective. I have seen people rate matches in publications that just made me see the reviewer’s bias come shining through. For those that go back to my newsletter days, they know I have hated star ratings for decades and have refused to use them. If he said they were done in fun and not to be taken seriously, I am with Cornette on this one.
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