Al

You'd love Bill Veeck.

Bought this yesterday. I think it's really a terrific set.

For what it's worth, the Kiss My Foot match was two years after the original feud. The '93 run of Hart/Lawler was pretty great and pretty basic. Lawler beats down Bret to end King of the Ring, stooges until Bret kicks the shit out of him, and would've led to the Hart Family beating Lawler at Survivor Series '93 if legal issues hadn't intervened. The kiss my foot match was bad, but WWF as a whole in '95 was at its cartoonist worst.

This amazes me. You get Albano in a tag match with Don Muraco against Snuka and Skaaland, and its Muraco taking the fall to save Albano's heat. Though I love this MSG entry. I wonder if that was voluntary.

Age vs. Experience as a criteria. We're all shooting for the same goal, which is to avoid considering wrestlers who are firmly mid-career. You could probably make the experience requirement 20 years if you feel 25 is too long. By any standard you will have highly deserving candidates who would need to wait a couple years. But that is not uncommon, and in MLB some players end up waiting 20 years to get inducted by the writers. The issue that the Observer would face is that such a policy would lead to a dearth of candidates, a gap where the wrestlers eligible would have already been inducted while we wait longer for new candidates. You could solve that to some degree by placing increased emphasis on historical voting in the interim. You don't want to force inductees but at the same time you don't want a HOF to sit stagnant for five years.

100% agreed. I'd like to see a system similar to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. 25 years after debut.

I'd think anyone who opens a thread titled "WON 2010" has a reasonable expectation that they might see the inductees. They are listed on wikipedia anyway.

Or the MSG match against Dynamite Kid.

And yet Gorgeous George's valet is still alive.

Well even if you're of a sound mind, how many little details do you forget over the years? I have a hard time explaining to my girlfriend conversations I had yesterday.

I think more likely is that the current style emphasizes FAR more hard bumps.

Surely that match happened somewhere, even if it never made tape. It was a PWI Runner Up for Match of the Year in 1976.

With the WON HOF discussion ongoing I have to wonder. If Lennon made the Hall, why hasn't Finkel?

Explain. Funk has always been awesome. WWE jammed it down everyone's throats that Ric Flair was the greatest (even as he feuded with Kenny Dykstra), so I'm sure younger fans still probably think he was this all time great. Not saying he was terrible. But I started watching wrestling in '90, and the crazy Funk I watched was very different from the guy who won the NWA championship.

I'm curious to hear for/against Bill Apter. He's an unusual candidate because there's nothing remotely comparable to him in the WON Hall. But he absolutely had a positive impact on quite a few of our wrestling experiences.

Roughly equivalent to myself watching Terry Funk as a young fan I imagine.

Unfortunately, it's not altogether different from the way most big business is run anymore.

According to Jericho's book, he only actually wrestled about two dozen times in ECW.

The concept of Lesnar/Angle was fine but it got painful to watch for awhile. Steamboat/Rude never seemed to drag. I think the ironman match is probably much too difficult to really work over a full hour.

I was relieved that I could watch Austin/Steamboat sans the extra commentary. (Jesse is intact.) I assume that's the case on disc two as well but I have to go back to that one and check. This is really a fantastic set though. Everyone has a copy of WM III and the Clash match by now. But the Steamboat/Dustin tag match hasn't appeared in decades. Steamboat/Rude is a good match, and I dare say no match since has matched their use of the ironman gimmick.

Shame, cause a managerial version of Brian Epstein has potential.

I can go back and forth on Colon and he wouldn't be a bad entry. Maybe I was hasty on that one.

Quick thoughts on the candidates from a non-voter fan. I'm just hoping to start and stir discussion so please don't rip my head off. Gene & Ole Anderson - The only tag teams in the WON Hall right now are the Road Warriors, the Freebirds, the Midnight Express and the Kangaroos. I just don't see the Andersons on that level. There are better teams who could go in first. Carlos Colon - Gut reaction says no. Did he have a strong impact outside Puerto Rico? Edge - No. I wouldn't dismiss him, but it's really too early to say. Owen Hart - No. Despite the tragic death, really didn't have the body of work to merit induction. Curt Hennig - No. Perhaps a strong candidate in some areas but his peak was awfully short. Chris Jericho - Forced to say yes or no, I'd say yes. Jericho is a guy who ideally I'd wait a couple years on yet. You can always put him in later, but if you put him in prematurely you can't take him back. Ivan Koloff - Tough call. Koloff could be anywhere from a non-Hall of Famer to perhaps the best candidate on this list. I'm thinking no but could be convinced otherwise. Fabulous Moolah - I'd say yes on Moolah, which I know is controversial. My way of thinking is that she is a hugely influential trainer. A lot of people criticize her style of wrestling. It's not the most crowd pleasing. But with so many wrestlers who worked the Japanese style running into serious health problems, I can't fully criticize someone who trained a safer working style. Pedro Morales - No. Dick Murdoch - No. Not to dismiss Murdoch who was certainly a terrific wrestler. But he seems to me the kind of wrestler who defines the edge of the HOF line. Rey Mysterio - Definite yes. Rock & Roll Express - With the Midnight Express in, I wouldn't argue against the Rock 'n' Rolls. Sabu - No. Influential and a hot act for a while, but his matches in retrospect haven't aged well at all. Beyond that, he was too much of a promotion jumper and never seemed to gain any solid momentum. Sgt. Slaughter - I lean yes on Slaughter. Besides being a somewhat famous figure, he was a legitimately good worker in his prime and an underrated bump man even beyond his prime. Jimmy Snuka - No. Very big star in 1982-84, but his value plummeted FAST. Sting - Yes, and I'm biased. WCW in the mid to late 90s was a big deal. It seems to me that some of those guys from that promotion really should go in. Mr. Wrestling II (Johnny Walker) - No.

Interesting question. He was nearly a Hulk Hogan clone in AWA and when he popped up in WWF, he turned into a Jim Gaffigan clone.

I'll have more thoughts later, but it's frustrating to consider guys like Jericho and Edge who are very much yet mid-career.