Al

It would take a little research, but I would hazard a guess that the Bushwhackers are top five in the amount of matches worked together as a team in WWE history. How many teams worked exclusively as partners in the company for eight years?

Danny Hodge. He's talked up as much as any wrestler of his era, but we have absolutely no full matches available that I'm aware of.

Roku Stick attached to an HDMI port on my television. Incredibly convenient and works great.

Ray Stevens seems like a no brainer. Especially since his long time tag team partner was part of the WWE's braintrust for a long time and could easily deliver the induction speech.

A week plus of contemplation, for my money it has to be Kid/Razor. -Ramon was a pushed heel at the time. -The Kid had been introduced as jobber fodder two weeks prior, with absolutely no fanfare. -The WWF had never pushed a wrestler of Kid's stature. As much as they were starting to push smaller wrestlers like Bret Hart, wrestlers of that size never, ever beat bigger wrestlers.

Bret/Shawn wasn't even an IC title match. The magazine advertised Bulldog vs the Mountie.

Henry in the '80s could've ended up in the King Kong Bundy role at Wrestlemania 2.

This. Jack Claybourne, Luther Lindsay, Samara Seelie, Bearcat Wright, Bobo Brazil.

Mikey's win was built up for months. By the time he took the title, I honestly expected the win to happen.

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/60smsg.htm The Sheik wrestled Morales in Boston a few times in '72. But being barred from MSG must have crippled his value to the WWWF.

Usually not an MMA fan but this one deserves mention. Renzo Gracie vs. Eugenio Tadeu. Had to stop when the crowd virtually fell into the octagon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PaKER7VSh0

Speaking of video games, couldn't help but notice no WWE 2K15 sponsorship this week on the podcast.

There's some validity to that argument, at least in that there are no slam dunk candidates. But if the Hall of Fame doesn't induct anyone, it will whither and die.

Two names I haven't seen, Jay Youngblood and Don Kernodle. Youngblood was in the semi-main of the first Starrcade and was dead within two years. Kernodle actually landed in the WWF soon after the Final Conflict, but never seemed to even get a major program after that.

A note on modern performers. Here's how the HOF electorate breaks down by Year of Birth: 1920s: 28 1930s: 19 1940s: 23 1950s: 25 1960s: 28 1970s: 5 Modern candidates like Edge are getting rejected in the voting thus far. But it seems to me that either the way we evaluate new candidates need to be reviewed, or we're admitting that modern wrestling is virtually dead. There is validity to the latter argument. But there's also real danger of an era bias at work.

A few thoughts on the process. I might be wasting my time, but this is the knowledgeable forum I am most comfortable with. I've said several times that the criteria for eligibility really should be "X number of years after debut." It's the cleanest and most effective way to do it, and it's similar to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame which is really the closest equivalent to professional wrestling. Voting on wrestlers who are clearly mid-career is beyond silly. Brock Lesnar, C.M. Punk, Daniel Bryan, Hiroshi Tanahashi may be Hall of Famers. But we need more perspective on what they meant to wrestling before we decide. Especially when you're kicking guys off the ballot for ten years. Historical/modern performers. If you're going to make this kind of distinction for a ballot, just use year of birth. You'll end up with a few guys in less than ideal categories, but at least it's objective and not subjective. Ideally you want objectivity to decide who goes on the ballot, subjectivity to decide who goes in. The way the ballot is constructed right now is a mess. Multiple categories, all voted on every year with 10-15 candidates on each one. This year's ballot had a total of 90 candidates. To give each candidate their full consideration almost requires a full time job. Another problem with the process is when you crowd the ballot, you make it impossible to form a consensus. Let me link the 1945 MLB Hall of Fame vote to illustrate. http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_1945.shtml That was their Hall of Fame before they straightened out their voting. 95 players received votes. 56 of them would eventually get selected into the Hall. Many of them comparatively more qualified than the best WON HOF candidate. And not a single one got voted in by that group. Personally, I think Meltzer needs to scrub the current system and work out some sort of nomination system. It can look similar to the ballot we have now, honestly. But instead of being the end all, the top vote getters get placed on a single 20-30 candidate ballot. There are several ways to go about it, but the idea is to first identify the best candidates before we go about arguing who is Hall of Fame worthy. Otherwise it's hundreds of voters arguing for 50 different candidates, and it becomes a log jam.

I haven't seen Terry Taylor mentioned yet. He never even got established above lower midcard after he left the UWF.

I don't know much about Ed Gantner, but he's probably worth exploring. Barry Windham for certain. Muhammad Hassan not as much as a character as much as a wrestler entirely. He ended up leaving the business as I recall.

I've drifted in and out of the current product. This year thanks to the network I watched several PPVs back to back for the first time I can remember. They fell completely flat on me for the most part. I never did get around to watching the first half of Summerslam. My subscription expired and I'll eventually re-up, but I have no need to hurry. I wouldn't watch the last PPV at any price over the World Series. And if they're not putting out new content worth watching, it doesn't matter how cheap they make it.

The only reservation I have about Big Daddy as the worst ever is he had half a career as a younger, more muscular wrestler. It seems a little unfair to rate him solely on his career north of 50, even if that is when he was most popular.

I thought about Luger booking yesterday. Let's say Flair after the Steamboat match and Funk injury vacates the title. Luger picks it up and defends against Steamboat and Pillman on PPV while Flair's matches against Funk become non-title, which half of them are anyway. The Flair/Sting Horsemen angle becomes who should get a shot against Luger, and Luger defending against either becomes a more attractive main event for Starrcade than the Iron Man tournament. So let's say Sting gets the shot against Luger. If Sting wins, Flair turning on Sting for a title shot instantly makes a ton of sense.

Just watched Gagne/Bruiser, and it's an interesting match to check out. Russ Davis deliberately steps away from the second fall as an experiment to try announcer-free wrestling. To Matt D's point, it's great to see some of these guys actually work in their primes. Dick the Bruiser is a bit reminiscent of Brock Lesnar in his look.

Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride seems like the gold standard.

The big problems would be setting an entire roster in stone and dealing with injuries. A football player gets hurt and the team plugs in a replacement. But a single wrestler? An ill timed injury could destroy an entire year of planning. I think wrestling could use with more seasonal competitions though. King of the Ring, King of Trios, that sort of thing.

It's the only Hall of Fame with any transparency about the process. People love arguing about Hall of Fames in any sport. Meltzer's allows for it.