Al

Baseball's model works because they've operated more or less off the same model (excepting the Veterans Committee) for 75 years. There's some older players who are always going to be up for debate, but largely anyone who played before 1980 has been definitively judged. Wrestling, due to the young age of this Hall of Fame, lack of footage from the pre-1980s era, etc., has the opposite problem. The early eligibility rules make the problem worse. If you impose a limit for years on the ballot, you'll quickly have a dearth of candidates available. For any relevant Hall of Fame, you want inductees. You don't want a huge glut of inductees every year (the WWE Hall is quickly growing too big, too fast). But no inductees for say, two consecutive years will absolutely kill interest in the process. And Dave's Hall of Fame is probably his best marketing tool. People who don't usually read the Observer care about who gets in. So ideally, any workable Hall of Fame process is going to allow a small stream of inductees. KrisZ's observation of the Football Hall of Fame is a good one. An open nomination process can allow even the rank and file Observer readership to have their share of the process. They can't elect someone, just nominate someone. Create a smaller election committee, say 24 or so well educated voters. Not only would you have a better final voting pool, but it's easier for that pool to select quality candidates when they can get together (assuming online) and hash out credentials. Lowering the standard to 50% is a bad idea. You can maybe consider a system where you select one old-timer, one foreigner each year (the top candidates), but simply lowering the bar will get the one borderline guy you want in, and several other borderline guys you don't want.

Brock Lesnar at 47% of the vote while still active interests me. He's as good an argument as any as to why the age/experience criteria is way too low. It really feels like we need more perspective on his career before we can fully judge it. But if he's polling this high now, it's probably inevitable he gets in. Different track, but I've read a bit thanks to Hornbaker's book on the Great Gama. He's more myth than someone who is well known, but he's never thrown about as a serious candidate. What's the consensus on him?

Triple H all day. Say what you will about others, but none of them regularly got 30 minutes to burn on the biggest shows of the year.

Wasn't the Honky Tonk Man actually developed by Ferris before he brought the gimmick to the WWF? Hercules was using the name as early as '82. I kind of feel like the Hillbillies were the first obvious "characters" Vince created.

I don't understand Dave's argument. That a large number of wrestlers wouldn't get inducted if you had to wait until they turned 45? That really sounds ridiculous on its face.

Jim Cornette: You couldn't manage a Wendy's! Jim Ross: I could if you lived in the town.

The Miz/Morrison match took place the week after. According to Cawthon, the NYD ECW show had that match as a six-man including Kelly and Layla, and was taped two days prior.

Which Hebner did Hogan toss over Dibiase/Virgil after the match? IIRC, that Hebner was injured in the fall and that may have ended his in-ring reffing career.

If you've got such a huge elephant in the room, why even run a video package?

Savage's PPV record for the year preceeding Mania VII is quite curious. -Summerslam: Two minute match against Dusty Rhodes -Survivor Series: Does not wrestle -Royal Rumble: Schedule to wrestle, doesn't appear in the Rumble. Three consecutive PPVs where Savage wrestles less than three minutes total. There's actually a CV match featuring Warrior defending against Savage. Warrior scores a pin in four minutes. He clearly is winding down for whatever reason. As far as the return, WWF was planning on a Warrior/Jake feud as seen by the vignettes before Summerslam '91. Warrior leaves, Savage is plugged into that spot.

I imagine that Nightstalker/Sid playing on a live television special played a role. How many voters legitimately saw the Zeus/Abdullah match when it aired? You would've had to live in the Puerto Rico market or get a tape. I think back in that era so much could've simply flew under the radar unless someone spotted it and pimped it.

Oh yeah. Even parts of the crowd were screaming, "can't you see how this is going to end?!"

I picked up the blu ray at Best Buy.

Random comments on some candidates BROCK LESNAR Lesnar to me feels like a guy who could be a peak Hall of Famer. Certainly a draw, as a worker he's good enough. But he hasn't done it for very long, even by the standards of short peak Hall of Famers. I almost want to say Lesnar is the American equivalent of Tiger Mask. I think the problem with Lesnar is the same problem we had with Kurt Angle. Controversial candidate, but the real problem is that it's just way too early to assess his career. We need perspective. HOWARD FINKEL I'm deeply biased on this. My feeling is that Jimmy Lennon is in the WON Hall. Once you've established that ring announcers are eligible, then there's no announcer in history more well known and influential than Finkel. STANLEY WESTON/BILL APTER I went back and forth on Apter. I noted that there was a precedent for ring announcers. There's no precedent for writers. Any election becomes a standard for future writers. JESSE VENTURA Where do you draw the line as far as popularity outside wrestling? Posters here are skeptical of NCAA and MMA credentials. They will likely argue against Ventura's political career being a factor. Let's take El Santo as a comparison. Is his movie career off limits as well? Or even someone such as the Destroyer. I don't really have a firm position, just something I can't quite reconcile in my head.

Taylor/Flair has Ross commentary. Almost finished with the first disc of the blu ray set. I did not see the '80s Mid South set. This really seems like a good introduction though to the promotion. Of course you're not going to see everything, but they have good highlights selected. There's three Midnight Express matches on the first disc. This is the first I've really seen of Mr. Wrestling II, and it's good to see more of Matt Borne.

Also interesting is that quite a few matches have added commentary from Jim Ross.

Maybe an hour into the doc. There's actually a Steve Williams interview clip. Also seen Flair, Terry Taylor, Bill Watts, Dusty Rhodes, Ted Dibiase, Jake Roberts, Jim Cornette, Jim Duggan. Jake looks as good as he's been in years.

Eaton was clearly a top wrestler in Continental as well.

I've looked at this previously comparing it to Baseball's Hall. About 98% of guys who reach the 60% threshold eventually make it to the required 75%. The only exceptions I know of are Gil Hodges and Jack Morris, if he misses this winter.

Gorilla Monsoon was an amateur wrestling star who could come in and be a monster superheavyweight. Of course, the catch is that since Chris Taylor, you can't be that size and be an amateur wrestler anymore. Gorilla didn't age well, but by the '70s he was a guy who was essentially working the office and wrestling on the side.

Tell me this guy wouldn't get over today!

Moolah is probably underrated, since 99% of the footage of her has her beyond the age of 50, and maybe 90% of it is after the age of 60. North America seems impossible to answer since a great many of the prime candidates, Mae Young and Penny Banner among others, had virtually none of their prime preserved on film. Of the modern women wrestlers, Trish Stratus was very good but she wasn't as good as Velvet McIntyre for example.

I recall the CM Punk/John Morrison match in Benoit's absense being pretty good.

Top, top match. Fuck what that miserable, ungrateful and cheap twat Foley says. Mero was a decent worker. As regards the OP though, I imagine they had a fair few hours to plan that match out. Arn Anderson was a fucking superstar in it though. Top stuff. I always wondered if when Foley said Marc, he really meant Sable.

I like the late 80s Survivor Series events as WWE's version of the All Star game. Basically taking all the stars of the territories they could get their grubby hands on and putting on one huge exhibition card.