Al

To me, Duane Gill and Barry Hardy were the quintessential jobber megapowers of my generation.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has clear lines of eligibility. Ten years in the majors, five full years after retirement. Without those parameters (especially the second part), I don't see how you can use the rest of the system as a guide. A.J. Styles is a good example of how it gets screwed up, where you have a candidate theoretically falling off the ballot before he's even finished filling out his resume. You can't put active wrestlers on the ballot and have a limited eligibility period. Ten vs. fifteen years is immaterial until that is sorted, IMO. Limiting the ballot to ten votes isn't helping the baseball Hall either, and it's only tolerated because it's seen as a way to push those evil steroid users off the ballot. Wrestling doesn't have that problem, as I don't think there is a single candidate whose case hinges on their usage/non-usage. A wrestling HOF would be better off presented in two stages. A nomination stage which would be relatively open with candidates and perhaps where each group, the historians, active wrestlers, retired wrestlers, journalists, etc., could advance their candidates. Then a second election where those nominations, numbering about 25 or so, appear on a single ballot. You could adapt the system to determine how often a wrestler could get nominated. But I think it could clear up the system, give it focus, and make things fresh. Instead of a ballot of 12 or so candidates where you've got another 60 from another group, lucha voters could focus on 2-3 nominees and make their case strongly.

Muhammad Hassan and the piano wire angle. It had nothing to do with it airing the day of the London bombings. It just felt so uncomfortably close to something horrific in real life that i couldn't stomach it any longer.

If I ran a terrible Indy I would have a Zeus-like character named "Seuss," and he would manage Things 1 and 2.

My working theory is that it was a way to take some steam out of the Black Scorpion, which WCW was promoting concurrently. Would anything else have worked? Probably not. Though the Black Scorpion might've worked had they revealed Hector Guerrero in a chicken suit instead.

I grew up in a town of 1,000 people. Finding certain commercial WWF tapes was a challenge!

If I were to propose a fix, I'd turn the categories into nominating devices. Take the top finisher(s) from each category and put them all on a simple 10-20 candidate ballot. Something much more focused.

I once compiled a list of MSG wrestlers by appearances and Baron was top 10, maybe even top 5. He wrestled a shitload of matches for Vince Sr.

That was fucking fantastic.

If the HOF used 20 years after debut or 45 years of age, the Rock wouldn't even be eligible yet. A big reason for a lack of slam dunk candidates is that they're voted in before they can even reach slam dunk status.

The key to the asking the crowd spot is that the heel gets pissed at the crowd for ratting him out. He gets distracted yelling at the crowd, face takes advantage. Along with the scythe and sword, the chainsaw fits the bill here as well.

i've thought about this before. someone on here used to say that sting was "the sabermetric candidate", but i think that statement miiiiiiight apply more to these types? it's tough though the problem is that pro wrestling has been at a low point in terms of cultural buzz here during this era, and there's also the perception that the brand is the draw. i will say that i probably fall more on that side of this argument. i just can't get past the fact that WWE didn't miss a beat when they lost guys like angle, hardy, and punk. sorta like terrell davis's pro football HOF case being hurt by the success of other random RBs in denver after he retired, ya dig? Currently there is somewhere around 30 inductees who were born in the 1960s, five from the 1970s, and none yet born in the 1980s. At some point you either have to induct some of this generation, or take the position that this generation is grossly inferior to previous generations. There might be truth to the latter position, but given that every generation thinks the next generation is shit, it's a dangerous position to take. If you accept the former position, then at this stage we probably have to re-assess what makes a Hall of Famer in this era.

Watching the Von Erich/Baba '75 match, you get the feeling that Fritz would be a kinder, gentler human being if he were actually a Nazi.

I'm not attacking their motives. I am questioning their ability to at least appear sincere about it. It's not a question of good or bad for me, and I don't even know that they shouldn't promote their charity work, given their image problems. But again: (1) Does it seem more or less sincere than when other companies do it? To me, it seems less so, but admittedly, that could be because I am too jaded and know too much about the people in power in WWE. (2) In the past, when other wrestling companies have attempted to use real-life events to get over a babyface, has it been so obviously phony, or did it seem more sincere? I think #1. WWE isn't much different from most publicly traded companies in many aspects, but one tends to get more upset when they're so knowledgeable about the inner workings of the company.

I've seen worse. MLB's "Stand Up 2 Cancer" promotion feels like an advertisement for Mastercard.

The formation of the NWA and Lou Thesz's reign. It became a vehicle to protect both the title and the challenger. See specifically Thesz vs Leo Nomellini.

Backlund is amazing. White meat babyface turns heel after a 20 year career, and essentially never again breaks away from the heel character. Atsushi Onita, emerging from retirement to revolutionize garbage wrestling.

Road Warrior Animal is still alive. He's an odd pick but they were a big deal in their prime.

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/bios/w/walter-palmer/

Partying, hard bumping as well. There's good reason to think/believe he didn't age well. His prime work is barely even documented by San Francisco title histories, let alone videotape. Generally I think there's just not enough evidence to discount the opinions of his peers. Though I'll note that a lot of praise isn't just Stevens. It's Patterson and Stevens. So it's possible that Stevens was this great spot man ala Antonino Rocca (granted a better version) while Pat Patterson played Miguel Perez and kept the match together.

There was some Tenta interview in the early 2000s, I'm not certain where. But it was one of those things where he came off as such a decent person that people wanted to like his matches and low and behold, it turns out they were really good after all.

To my knowledge, Bo Dallas is the only male wrestler on the roster younger than 25.

Kane is the Baron Mikel Scicluna of this generation. To make an argument for Kane, you would have to argue that this generation is woefully underrepresented in the Hall of Fame and a slew of candidates need to go in to even things out. About 20-30 wrestlers born in the 1960s are currently in the WON Hall. Compare that to five from the 1970s, none yet from the '80s. (Kane and Batista were born in the late '60s, but I'm making a larger point.) At some point you either have to conclude that this era is vastly inferior, or that we need to evaluate the current slate of candidates in a different lens than the past. And if it's the latter, then we need to seriously reevaluate the candidacies of Edge, Randy Orton, Batista, Brock Lesnar, the Big Show, etc. Then maybe you come to Kane. But it would require a vast rethinking in how we view the WON Hall.

I agree with this assessment. Moolah did women's wrestling no favors. But I don't think there was any women's wrestling to kill when she took over. There wasn't a singular women's promotion, male promoters weren't interested in women wrestlers beyond a special attraction and certain power brokers (thinking Lou Thesz) didn't want it. I think it's also worth remembering that Mildred Burke hit her prime during World War II. Opportunities came about for women that haven't been duplicated in such abundance before or since.

I can't imagine a better candidate for NWA champion than Stunning Steve Austin by 1995-96, honestly.