Al

Morales/Koloff in 1971 had the double shoulder suplex finish, and I doubt South was there yet. Still, this is surprising considering South just popped up on Cabana's podcast recently.

Even if there's any substance behind Inoki hurting Ali, first that's not really basis for ill will in that environment. Second, Ali's doctor quit after 1977 because Ali refused to stop fighting. Inoki shouldn't get blamed because Ali refused to accept his condition.

Maybe we can sort bad matches into categories. Using the WON Worst Match winner awards as examples. 1. Bad Gimmick. Example: The Austin/Taylor vs Eaton/PN News scaffold match. Self explanatory category. You can put the best workers in the world in the match and it's not going to be any good. 2. Bad Booking. Example: The Doomsday Cage Match. The work itself was not actually that bad. But none of it made any sense. 3. Failed Comedy Match. Example: Four Doinks. Brisco vs Patterson. 4. Bad Execution. Example: Nowinsky/Gayda vs Stratus/Bradshaw. Matches that feature a ton of blown spots. Probably the first category I think of to answer this question. 5. Mind Numbingly Dull: Example: Triple H vs Scott Steiner. The crowd doesn't buy it, but it just keeps going. HHH/Michaels Hell in a Cell is in this category. 6. Celebrity/Non Worker Match. Example: Mr T vs Roddy Piper. 7. Ridiculous Psychology. Pick your Davey Richards match. 8. Bad Accident. The match where Sid breaks his leg. The Austin neck injury. A match that might have been good on it's face, but had something happen that makes it unwatchable/uncomfortable.

A month to month system is more ideal for WWE too. They'll set you up on automatic renewals until you cancel. So to a fair percentage of people, it won't even occur to them that they should consider whether or not to renew.

Sid Vicious vs Nightstalker is a great pick btw. I love the concept, that two wrestlers had no excuse to suck. No bullshit or gimmicks holding them back. They just sucked.

Iceman vs Kamikaze? Though I have to say, putting a card like that almost requires booking bad matches. You need something to contrast among the seven death matches, to quiet the crowd before building them up again.

Why? He only fought in New Orleans once. He also appeared for Bill Watts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMSBkwuMy1Y

If you're going to induct a celebrity at the Superdome, you have to try your damnedest to get Muhammad Ali. It may not be remotely even possible. But I can't imagine a better fit for wrestling and that venue.

With Savage deceased, I wouldn't rule him out. WWE probably wouldn't use a dead wrestler as a headliner on Hall of Fame night. Every ceremony they've closed with someone alive to accept the honor. I can't see them wanting to close out the ceremony with a speech by Lanny Poffo.

Given some of Dibiase's tweets, I'm shocked he and Warrior can't find common ground. Well in fairness, I'm not certain if Dibiase has been vociferously anti-gay. I'll be stunned if Jake Roberts isn't inducted this year. Maybe Magnum T.A. And sentimentally, I wouldn't mind seeing Kamala inducted either (since he hails from very close to the Mid-South wrestling footprint.)

The reports of her death are premature apparently, but imminent. I'm checking out Lipstick and Dynamite again. In the last 5-6 years we've lost practically everyone featured in that documentary. Moolah, Ella Waldek, Ida May Martinez, Penny Banner, Killem Gillem, and now Young. Pretty much the end of an era.

I read the question as how/why did outside interference in a cage match become routine.

There's one Dory Sr match, you can find it on Youtube. Stylistically, I think Dory Sr wrestled more like Terry than Junior, which I wasn't expecting. Since WWE has the Texas Wrestling footage from Ed McLemore, I wonder if they're sitting on more footage.

I really like this list. You're going to end up with a handful of screwy opinions, but that's the nature of the beast.

A lot of that is probably reverence to his dad.

Oliver and Johnson had their Hall of Fame: Tag Teams book out several years ago. When I look at their list I would take their top 14 without much reservation, minus the British Bulldogs. To wit: The Road Warriors The Fabulous Kangaroos (Costello/Heffernan) The Rock 'n' Roll Express The Midnight Express Patterson/Stevens The Freebirds (Hayes/Gordy) The Minnesota Wrecking Crew The Assassins Ernie & Emil Dusek The Crusher & Dick the Bruiser Black Gordman & Goliath Ben & Mike Sharpe Larry Hennig & Harley Race That's a healthy starting point. If you can establish that your team belongs among that group, they're in. That's 13 teams, I would add the Funks and the Briscos without much hesistation to make an even 15. Then you can start looking at teams on the bubble. Doc & Mike Gallagher- Apparently big stars of the golden age, but I don't know much. I was impressed watching them against Barend/Maurice, FWIW. The Kalmikoffs/Von Brauners- I know little, but when a team is popular enough to become a franchise with interchangeable members, they've accomplished something The Interns/Medics- I don't buy them as top 20, but apparently they were quite a team in the southeast The British Bulldogs- Your mileage may vary Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard- I'm wary for some reason. More length of teaming than anything, because their matches were certainly great. The Steiners- Not great matches generally, but good matches and pushed as a dominant team. The Rockers- Concur with above statements about card placement. Another few years as a team and I'd feel better about their position. The Dudleys- Overrated, but pushed in every promotion in both hemispheres. The Hardys Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson- Probably great, I just don't know enough about them to rubber stamp them. Generally when I look at a tag team I like to see two things. One, long term as a team. Guys who are known more for that team than their singles accomplishments. And second, success across multiple promotions. The Hart Foundation were always favorites of mine, but I can't place them among the pantheon of great teams when they never did it elsewhere.

Panther, when did trios wrestling become popular in Mexico? I'm just curious about the prime years of those groups.

There are some Golden Era teams that are tough to gauge. The Kalmikoffs, the Von Brauners, the Gallaghers. Obviously noteworthy but there's little to no footage at all. Also some of the '60s/'70s era southern teams like the Interns.

Looking at Vachon's Olympic career. Mad Dog at the '48 games was 18 years old. Eighteen, competing against 20 and 30 year olds. http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/a...e-vachon-1.html

I just watched Starrcade 1983. It's not a bad place to pick up. While hyping the big matches they'll give you background to get into the swing of things. Ditto Starrcade '84, though technical difficulties abound on that show. Personally I'd be tempted to watch the big shows in full, and at the moment most of them are on Youtube fortunately. Ditto the thoughts above. The big downfall of WCW is that things aren't as well produced and you're going to see more errors, technical difficulties and missed shots. But there's absolutely more variety of workers.

FWIW, I think David by 1984 had he the opportunity and obviously not died prematurely would've been a fantastic champ. He had the ability to work heel, and with his size he would've been a tremendous figure once he filled out. A clone of Fritz, who was a fantastic heel.

Sure Ric's dead. Dead tired of dealing with his ex-wives!

http://www.profightdb.com/pwi-monthly/may-1981-243.html How PWI saw the NWA in May '81... 1. Harley Race (reigning champ) 2. Roddy Piper 3. Tony Atlas 4. Dusty Rhodes 5. Ricky Steamboat 6. Dick Slater 7. Ted Dibiase 8. Barry Windham 9. The Masked Grappler (Len Denton) 10. Ernie Ladd If Piper was truly seen at that level, then maybe. Rhodes, Steamboat, Dibiase have been well discussed. Dick Slater seems like an outlier but he had that kind of ability. He really struggled to get pushed sometimes though. Tony Atlas, that's a longshot. Ernie Ladd was on the verge of retirement. Barry Windham was just a rookie at this point. Len Denton to me is a name, I really don't know much about him. The July '81 rankings still have Race on top. Sweet Brown Sugar (Skip Young), Mr. Wrestling II and Les Thornton thrown into the mix. October '81 still with Race on top, they have Ivan Koloff, Sgt. Jacques Goulet (Rene) and Dory Funk thrown in. I'll confess, there's a part of me that would love to start trolling by suggesting it should've been Rene Goulet. By December they list Dusty on top with Flair finally in the top 10. Tommy Rich and Ken Patera in the mix. January '82 we've also got Charlie Cook, Wahoo McDaniel (dark horse), Big John Studd (hahaha) and Peter Maivia (odd as he would've been fighting cancer at that point). February '82 is the first ranking with Flair on top. 1. Flair 2. Sgt. Slaughter 3. Tommy Rich 4. Ivan Koloff 5. Harley Race 6. Charlie Cook 7. Dusty Rhodes 8. Blackjack Mulligan 9. Jack Brisco 10. Paul Orndorff Make of that what you will. I don't mean for this to be anything besides throwing out names that the common fan would've seen as NWA title contenders. One outside the box pick I see is Larry Zbyszko. Coming off the Bruno feud, his name value would never have been higher.

Apart from the Hall debate, I'd love to see someone do a historical Top 50 list for Mexican wrestlers. Or hell, a comprehensive book on Lucha for American audiences. There's footage from the last 25-30 years, but Lucha involves 80+ years of history, several weight classes and most of the information seems inaccessible.

1990s Japan is probably overrepresented. It feels less like "these are the best wrestlers of all time" and more like "this is the style of wrestling I personally enjoy." What's odd is that for all the Hall of Famers of that era, the only native Japanese from about pre-1975 are Inoki, Baba, Rikidozan and maybe Kintaro Ohki (counting the Koreans). We could stand to have more research on guys like Masahiko Kimura, Harold Sakata, Hiro Matsuda, Kinji Shibuya, etc.