Timbo Slice

And HBK as a referee. Not nearly as big a draw as Cena, obviously, but people feel by now that if he's involved with something, it's going to be a big deal and they want to see what it is. I'm still shocked at how Orton is coming away from this like the invisible man. Now you got Cena coming out and calling him an underachiever in the closing angle from RAW. They really don't know what they're doing at this point.

It's not bending over backwards. The idea is that Angle came in as a "legit" guy, "respected the business" and made it better because he decided to be a part of it. He didn't give shit to anybody during his time in WWE, he absorbed everything he could, that word got around to the boys, and lo and behold, there you have it. It's not that they genuinely think he's a historically great worker. It's that he's a historically great legit wrestler that did well in the business for himself.

When Angle was a guest on Steve Austin's podcast, Steve verbally fellated him in regards to his quick ability to pick up the business and how he "worked smarter" in later years. Angle popping the old timers and the boys in the back has always been one of the major reasons his induction was backed. Dylan's reasons are also correct, but it really can't be understated how much Angle's contemporaries and the old timers loved him.

The actual good booking would have had Bryan hold the belt at some point so that Cena could get his win back, but obviously he kills ratings and Orton is awesome or something. I doubt they would have had him actually be the guy to unify the belts, but it would have actually made sense. Orton did this himself by not really changing that much after The Legend Killer phase. And his Wellness suspensions.

Yeah, I found that poetic justice myself. I said from the start that not blaming Orton, yet blaming Bryan for the ratings not being what they wanted was always hilarious to me. It's not like Orton was a draw himself.

So you have put that Triple H vs Randy Orton main event out of your memory huh. As someone who saw it live, you are so lucky I had to look it up because I remembered they had a WM match but was hoping it wouldn't go on last. Boy, was I wrong.

I wanna hear more from the trolls about how Bryan's push was worse than this. Because for all the faults given about Bryan as a main eventer, we now get this string of main events instead?

So Orton finally gets to main event a WM. Great.

What's the point of harping in "Stuff" when Tanahashi's "structure" isn't all that good in the first place?

Yeah, I find it really funny that people are trying to purge the mid card based on work and work alone. Half the people that have been listed offer more to the company than work. WWE building a mid card based on the work biases of what people like us enjoy is pretty hilarious to me. A bunch of those guys are nigh untouchable because of the things they do outside the ring.

I like Taue as a work candidate, personally. Problem is the perception of what he was compared to his peers. Misawa was the Ace. Kawada was the Ace's biggest rival. Kobashi had a rabid following and was a unique draw. Taue was the fourth wheel that made sure the car didn't run lopsided. "Glue guys" don't really get Hall of Fame mentions. Hase getting in was always weird to me. He's as close to Taue as you'll get from a comparison standpoint in the case of draw and stature and Taue kills him in the ring. If Hase is in, Taue has a better case. I agree that this is kind of the chum of the Japanese candidates in many ways, but this is also that sliding scale I was talking about earlier. With Sasaki being in, Hase being in, guys like Akiyama and Taue will get a harder look and with more deep diving into their careers, there's a good chance both of them will get in simply due to Sasaki and Hase being in and being inferior candidates in many ways.

I still think there was a case for Akiyama to take the belt from Kobashi at the Dome in 04. After the initial run running out of steam, he picked things up by being the big draw of the G-1 and got some momentum going towards the big main event. Problem was they didn't have anyone to build off of after that to feed to him. They just let Kobashi run in place until they decided Rikio got a shot. Which was disastrous. Akiyama was a singular entity in AJPW. He was just behind the Four Corners in class and really had no peer, which made him stick out, but also made him that awesome "kid brother" type to the big guys, which made his entry into the main event scene in 1996 that much more fun. After that, AJPW started its fallout by going with Kobashi on top after Kawada had been basically sucked dry of any drawing power, and they waited too long to pull the trigger on an Akiyama push. He's a fantastic worker. One of the best in-ring guys ever. But because he didn't have the guys from his class to work with like the Four Corners or the Musketeers, he's seen as an outcast that won't get his fair shake in the annals of history. If AJPW produced anyone alongside him who could go out and work like he did with the Four Corners, his harshest critics would be singing a much different tune.

Manami Toyota's only ever Victory Star Drop. Have no idea what the hell Aja is thinking agreeing to take that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoxGfLRL6Y0

Which is no different from any other HOF. None of them are perfect beasts. Every year the International Rugby Board hands out international rugby awards chosen by a select group of ex-players. Every year there is controversy. This year the International Rugby Players Association have decided to run their own awards also chosen by ex-players. They're just as head scratching. It doesn't matter whether it's the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame or NBA All-Star voting, it's never perfect and people will always disagree. To argue that the WON HOF is a clusterfuck because people don't like certain people who got voted in is a pretty flippant remark. Good things happen in regard to the Hall and not so good things, but the Hall itself has merit otherwise this thread is a colossal waste of time. You have ballots that are being handed out like hotcakes regardless of knowledge on the candidates, where many voters are simply taking guys words without doing any type of research themselves or collaborating on efforts with those who are. It's akin to giving a Hall of Fame ballot to a guy with season tickets for a baseball team and them showing up to two or three games a year instead of the 81. "Yeah, I got season tickets to the Red Sox. Did they make it to the World Series this year?" There is a weird age requirement rule that's antiquated to say the very least. I have a lot of people in a lot of Hall of Fames who I don't believe should be in and many who aren't that should be in. That's because people went out of their way to do research to the point where the cases are a lot stronger because of it. That research led to people seeking out the answers themselves and a better sense of what it means to be someone who is Hall of Fame caliber. I feel like a lot of that is getting lost in the WON HOF due to apathy, lack of interest in looking at wrestlers who aren't current, and/or refusal to accept some of the facts that are being presented in those arguments. That's a problem for any HOF, let alone one that many historians of its ilk think is getting flimsier by the year.

Eh, that's a weak argument. Debate doesn't happen because a HOF has flimsy standards. Debate happens because the standards are so high that you're raising the bar for present and future candidates. If that bar keeps getting lower, all you're going to do is flood it with substandard candidates.

The G1 stuff is huge. The argument can be made that his success at getting Tenzan over and making the tournament successful led directly to him being Kobashi's opponent at the Dome show the following July. That being said, they didn't have enough faith to put him over, which would have been an interesting direction to take the company. In fact, that's a good question now that I think about it. Why the hell DIDN'T Akiyama go over in 04?

Just started going through the back episodes and finished up the one with Chael Sonnen talking about his love for pro wrestling growing up. And then he blew my mind by reminding Austin about Don Owen's success in Portland, since Chael is an Oregon native. Fucking ay, this is awesome. Can't wait to get to the fly.

Harper's great. I really like Harper. But I just like the fact that even after all this time, they put the majority of the blame on Bryan and use the ol' "Larger than life" excuse they roll out. Maybe WWE is best viewed in a vacuum.

Well, there's your answer.

EDIT: Wrong Thread. That being said, the scores are interesting. Not surprised that Tanahashi and Sasaki had low scores.

That's interesting considering Rollins is the guy best suited to be a face with his offense. Plus, as far as young golden boys go, Big E is right there.

Hogan was a top draw without PPV. Tanahashi was the top draw in NJPW without iPPV. Hogan was a draw regardless of PPV numbers. Tanahashi is a draw regardless of iPPV numbers. The two aren't mutually exclusive. You're saying that Tanahashi's iPPV numbers are a main contributor to him as a draw. It was used while he was on top. There's a big difference between someone being the cause for using a technology and a technology being used because it's beneficial to the company while the draws are at the top of the card.

NJPW didn't just happen upon the technology. As I said before, the big feds would go through their TV deals to run their biggest shows. The PPV market was not untapped because they didn't want to use it. It was because they had been doing things the way they had for 20 years. NOAH had G+. AJPW and NJPW had Samurai and wXw. You are mistaking the iPPV numbers that are being claimed BECAUSE Tanahashi is on top, when in reality, it's a shift in how the big shows are being presented to the viewers from TV to PPV format. That's not due to Tanahashi. That's due to NJPW shifting how they present their product.

It doesn't matter that there is a ton of iPPV success. PPVs are PPVs. It's the medium that's different. NJPW is just taking advantage of a medium they didn't have before. That's not necessarily because of Tanahashi, especially considering that there have been plenty of iPPVs without him on top.

Just as a heads up: Hiroshi Tanahashi Microscope Thread This thread is already off the rails a bit. Might as well move the discussion that way.